Page 10 of The Cost of Corruption
A hint of pink rose up in her cheeks. A flush of anger or demure blush? It was hard to tell…until she spoke.
“Please don’t call me that.”
My brows pulled together. “Chastity? But it’s your name.”
“Not anymore.” She shook her head. “I’m Sister Teresa now…Or I will be in two weeks when I take my final vows.”
“Ah.” I leaned back into the comfort of the cushion behind me, stretching my arm out along the leather-lined back. The nuns back at school had done the same thing—adopted a holy name as they gave their lives over to the church. “Do your cousins know about this name change? They were still calling you Chastity.”
She glared down at me, her eyes narrowed in a show of contempt. The only trouble was that same scornful emotion didn’t quite make it to her gaze.
No, if I wasn’t wrong, her golden eyes shimmered with an entirely different emotion.
And I was never wrong.
Not about reading people.
The moment I’d shown a flicker of a talent for it as a child, my father had taken me under his wing. It was a gift, he’d said. One that would prove invaluable to thefamily business.
So, just as my twin brother, Gabriel, was raised to one day become the boss of the D’Angelo empire, and my adopted brother, Dorian, was trained to protect it—I was brought up to be the steady hand that guided us through the treacherous waters of the New York underworld.
I had stared down cops and killers, street thugs and federal judges—and I’d read them all with a single glance. I could tell from a twitch of a lip or a flash of an eye if they could be swayedby a bribe or strong-armed by threats of violence or if more…extrememethodsneeded to be used to take care of a problem.
I could read minute expressions and tiny fluctuations in tone to know what drove and motivated people. What they felt and what they wanted. What theyreallywanted.
And right now, it was glaringly obvious that the disgusted scowls Chastity Costa was shooting my way were nothing more than an act. One meant to disguise another—far more scandalous—emotion underneath.
Interesting…
“So the pious Chastity Costa is choosing to rename herself after the hot-blooded Saint Theresa. I’m surprised.”
Chastity’s eyes narrowed even further. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Santa Teresa,” I said, thickening my New York Italian accent. “The passionate one. The polar opposite of the kind of woman your father wanted you to be.”
“Don’t talk about my father. He’d kill you if he heard you talking like that,” she sniped before rolling her eyes up toward heaven. “Lord knows, he’d kill you if he knew I was locked up in here with you.”
Well, he’dwantto, at any rate. But there was a big difference between wanting to kill a D’Angelo and actually being able to do it.
And that was something even someone as pig-headed as Michael Costa understood.
That’s why, without even a tingle of fear, I stretched my arm invitingly across the back of the leather sofa. “I’m not interested in your father. Right now, you’re the only one that interests me.”
Her face flushed at that, her cheeks filling with a charming blush of innocent pink. Something deep and primal in my core tightened at the sight.
Damn, I guess I really was interested.
Strange. Untouched virgins weren’t usually my type. Sure, I understood the fantasy on a purely intellectual level—the thrill of a sexual challenge, the untouched spoils of conquest, the ecstasy of complete and total possession. But it wasn’t for me.
As someone who spent his days teasing out the hidden motives and desires of felons and feds, the last thing I wanted was to play the same games with a woman. That was one relationship I was happy to keep plain and simple.
Professional even.
Money paid for services rendered—it didn’t get much more straightforward than that.
Which was one of the reasons buying this club when it had come up for sale had appealed to me. I knew the business as well as anyone. Hell, I had intimate knowledge of most of the employees.
And, so far, it was a business arrangement that worked out well. I helped run thefamily businessduring daylight hours and the club at night. My brother Gabriel’s new wife had started helping me manage the books, and, along with her own liquor distribution company, the twolegitimatebusinesses helped keep the feds and task forces chasing their tails.
