Page 22 of Savage Ambition

“I doubt you’d like the way I would ‘deal with it,’” Dante warned.

“Is that a threat?” Jace’s voice dropped, his stance widening.

“No, it’s a promise if you keep trying to interfere.” Dante’s fingers grazed my lower back, hidden from Jace’s view.

“Interfere with what?” Jace’s confusion was tinged with suspicion.

I needed to end things before he connected the dots. “This is accomplishing nothing. Jace, aren’t we supposed to be meeting Trent?”

“He can wait. I’m not leaving you alone with this prick.”

Dante’s lip curled. “Do whatever you want. I have better things to do than waste my time on you.”

“Running away?” Jace taunted.

“No, I simply see no reason to continue wasting my time with you.” He dismissed Jace with a contemptuous glance before turning his full attention to me. “As for you, I’ll see you later.”

I shivered. “Yeah.”

“This isn’t over, asshole!” Jace shouted as Dante walked away.

Once Dante disappeared around the corner, my friend rounded on me, his face twisted with fury and betrayal. “What the fuck was that?”

“Nothing. I’m so sick of you two always blowing things out of proportion,” I complained, hoping my voice didn’t betray how affected I still was.

Jace grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging in painfully. “Why did he say he would see you later?”

“We have a few classes together.” The lie came a little too easily when I knew Dante meant meeting him at Gennaro Corporation. “Of course he’ll see me later.”

Jace’s tone had a dangerous edge I rarely heard directed at me. “It felt like he was talking about fucking you.”

“You’re reading too much into it.” I tried to pull away, but Jace held fast.

“You remember what Dante did to Melissa, right?” Jace’s voice dropped lower. “He stole my younger sister’s virginity, then dumped her the next day like she was trash. No calls, no texts, wouldn’t even look at her in the hallway. She cried for weeks.”

In his protective fury, Jace also overlooked the fact that Melissa had been into Dante from the start, so he hadn’t stolen anything that wasn’t already offered.

“I’m not letting him do that to you, too,” he continued, his grip tightening. “Dante doesn’t get to hurt anyone else I care about. You’ve been through enough hell. The last thing you need is him adding to your misery.”

When I tried to protest, he interrupted. “He’s using you to get at me. That’s what he does. He finds the people I care about and destroys them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, finally wrenching free of his grip. “Not everything is about you, Jace. Dante and I have some classes together. That’s it.”

“Just watch yourself around him,” Jace warned, his anger subsiding into something more like concern. “He’s not who you think he is.”

I sighed. “Look, he shouldn’t have antagonized you, but you didn’t have to take the bait.”

“What else was I supposed to do? Let him keep doing whatever the hell he was doing to you?”

“He wasn’t doing anything to me, Jace.” Not yet, a treacherous part of me added silently.

Jace’s jaw remained tight with suspicion. “It sure as hell didn’t look that way.”

“Stop being so paranoid,” I said. “Why are you making this into something it’s not?”

Before Jace could answer, we spotted my cousin waiting ahead. He gave us a friendly wave.

Jace dropped the subject as we approached. “Hey, Trent! You ready?”