Page 145 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

The car went very quiet. Alessio’s blue eyes flicked to me in the windscreen mirror, giving me a what-the-fuck-is-he-talking-about look. I turned to Maddox, finding him staring out of the window and rubbing his chin.

“The only thing Sean wants is Arianna, and he already knows that ship has sailed. What will he want to negotiate for?”

“Me,” Maddox said calmly. “When he sees me alive, he will want me.”

“There’s nothing he can offer us in return, Moriarty. Whether he wants you or not, it’s pointless,” Alessio tried to reassure a man who didn’t seem bothered either way.

“Whatever he offers, take it. Hand me over to him,” Maddox said. “That’s our way in.”

Alessio huffed in the front, clearly unhappy with the change of plans. I could see his reasons. This felt unpredictable and risky. And if Maddox was right and Sean had something up his sleeve, I’d be breaking my promise to Raya by letting him walk in there alone.

“All the more reason to give this werewolf a gun,” I said.

The corner of Maddox’s mouth, the one that had a subtle split courtesy of my fist, twitched. Alessio chuckled, confusion in his eyes at my dig, but he didn’t bother questioning it. Instead, he passed a handgun over the seat. Maddox took it, checked the magazine with confident hands that showed he knew exactly what to do with it, then settled back into his seat.

So much for better with my fists, the lying bastard.

“We should bring Sean back to Italy alive,” I said, which made them both look at me in surprise. I focused on Maddox, smiling as I explained, “Raya will want to watch you kill him herself.”

For the first time since I met the man, a genuine smile crept onto his face and he nodded. It wasn’t a pleasant smile, but one that said he knew exactly what I meant. He already knew her dark side.

“And Moriarty,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road ahead.

“What?”

“When this is done, when Sean’s in the hell he belongs in, we’re going to have a conversation. You and I.”

I felt the shift in the atmosphere weighing on my shoulders as the silence grew.

“Yeah,” he finally replied. “We are.”

And that was it. A temporary truce. Two men who should have been killing each other were becoming teammates, all because one woman, who we’d both burn the world down for, asked us both to come back alive.

Make Me, Break Me

My instincts were never wrong.

The moment we approached the warehouse, I knew something was off. No sign of the Russians. The Irish soldier guarding the door was slouched in a chair in the sunshine, feet up and smoking. Men who weren’t expecting a fight. That should have been a good sign, but I didn’t trust it.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Santino mumbled as we crouched behind an overgrown bush, guns at the ready, eyes darting across the landscape.

“This is the location Aleksandr sent me,” Alessio hissed through clenched teeth. He knew it too. Something wasn’t right.

“Then where the fuck are they?” Santino growled. “Do we wait? Or do we attack?”

Alessio pulled out his phone and made a call. When it went to voicemail, he swore under his breath and rubbed his jaw. “Aleksandr isn’t answering.”

“Course not,” I muttered, rage festering beneath my skin. “He isn’t comin’.”

Alessio exhaled, rolling his tongue over his teeth. “That doesn’t make sense. He said he’d be here. He has no reason to fuck us over.”

“Nothing the Russians do makes sense,” Santino growled. “I said we couldn’t trust them. They do whatever they want, whenever they want. If Aleksandr woke up today and decided he didn’t want to get his hands bloody, he didn’t. He gave us the location. In his mind, that was enough.”

Annoyingly, I agreed with him.

A car pulled up outside the warehouse, and three men climbed out. My heart hammered as one of them stepped around the bonnet and entered the building, wearing a tailored suit. His back was to us, his brown hair lowered, but I spotted the silk handkerchief sticking out of his pocket, like a sick souvenir.

Mam’s handkerchief.