Page 5 of Captivated

Damian cocked a brow.

Joe cleared his throat.

Jesus.

Maybe he should have acted like he hadn’t been staring.

“The last one—you were watching her,” Damian said.

Joe spun around to face his father completely, and tried to laugh it off. “So, what if I was?”

“Since when do you stare like that?”

“I don’t.”

His father nodded like he knew exactly what was running through Joe’s mind.

He wanted to know the woman. Who she was, and what made her so bold as to stare at a man she didn’t know from Adam like she liked what she was seeing.

“Leave it alone, Dad,” Joe said.

“I didn’t say a thing.”

“You’re thinking it.”

Joe didn’t need to be told.

He knew.

“No, I’m thinking that I should give you a heads up,” Damian said.

“What’s that?”

Damian grabbed Joe by his shoulder, and turned them both to face the entrance of the Marcello mansion. During Joe’s little daze, it seemed someone else—or several people, actually—had come to stand out on the marble steps.

Three men.

Dressed in black three-piece suits.

Side by side.

Even from this distance, Joe could see the resemblance between two of the men, and easily guessed this was the infamous Marcello brothers. One of the three were adopted—or so the stories went. The men waited for Joe and Damian to come to them, and not the other way around.

“That girl, Joe,” his father said slowly as though he wanted to make sure his son heard every single last word, “is Liliana Marcello.”

Joe grimaced.

A visceral reaction he couldn’t even try to hide. Not because that deterred his interest in her, but rather, because he knew it was going to make it that much harder on him.

Liliana Marcello.

Daughter of Lucian Marcello.

Principessa of the family underboss.

Shit.

Nothing good ever came easy.