Page 54 of Accidental Alliance

I need privacy when I talk to her. I need her to speak without feeling the weight of a room full of eyes on me, especially my brother’s.

I exhale slowly and glance over around the wall and into the back room.

Through the doorway I can see Alessio half-turned away from me, one hand braced on the table while he listens to one of our men reading off the latest route reconstruction from Davide’s movements.

Bianchi currently has his full attention right now. That, at least, is the only silver lining I have at the moment.

That leaves me to take care of wringing as much information as I can from her before the room full of wolves decides their patience has expired.

I should be grateful for the opening but instead I feel something closer to dread. Now it will just be me walking into that room without witnesses, facing off against the woman who once could undo me with nothing more than the curve of her smile.

I flex my hands once over the keyboard before forcing myself to step back. The hall feels quieter on the way back.

Men still murmur in the other room, but all of it recedes as I approach her door.

My senses narrow until there are only the reinforced steel and a lock separating us both.

Whatever happens next will belong only to us.

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

I let out one slow breath through my nose and straighten my shoulders, forcing everything in me back into alignment.

Underboss.

A Conti.

Blade.

I pull those titles back over me the way one puts on a jacket, wrapping myself up until no one can see the storm brewing underneath.

The keys jingle inside my pocket when I fish them out. The noise is small, almost ridiculous in how domestic it sounds, like I’m unlocking a home office instead of a secured room holding a hostage. The key slides easily into the lock and the mechanism turns with a soft click on the other side, quiet enough that most people would miss it.

I don’t bother looking through the window to see her. I already know the sound of the door unlocking will be enough to rouse her from whatever it is she’s been doing. I swing it open and step inside, shoving the keys back into my pocket.

The air shifts the moment I cross the threshold.

Isabella is on her feet instantly. One second she is near the bed, the next she has moved, putting distance between herself and the door with the instinct of someone who has never once forgotten how quickly a room can turn deadly. Her gaze cuts to me in one sharp sweep.

There is no shock in them.

Only fury.

“Get out,” she snaps.

I close the door behind me and stay by it. My body leans back against the metal surface, and I roll my shoulders once, then again, trying to ease some of the tension locked through them before it turns visible in ways I cannot hide from her.

The movement is mostly useless because the tension stays right where it has been since I stepped foot inside her little blue house, coiled under my skin and too deep in my bones to shake loose with anything that simple.

There is no possible way she will get through me to escape, even with the door unlocked. Not physically, but she could try.

Hell, part of me expects her to.

But she knows it too. I can see the quick calculation in her face when she stares at me, the instant assessment of how much force it will take to remove the obstacle in her way.

She measures me the same way she had the rest of the room when she first arrived. When it’s obvious she’s decided the path in front of her is closed, the fury in her expression deepens further.

Good.