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"No."

"It might be important."

"It can wait."

I want to spend the night taking every indecent thought I’ve had about her and making them come true.

The phone rings again.

Damnit.

Very reluctantly, I pull back from her mouth, pick my crumpled pants off the floor, and fish the phone out of the pocket.

John Marco.

"Brother," I say with a low rasp.

"The Grazalov Bratva hit the waterfront warehouse twenty minutes ago."

I’ve been waiting for this call. But now that it’s here, I feel a fresh wave of fury.

The waterfront warehouse. Forty million in product.

Forty million in product that Anton Grazalov thinks he can take from me because I’ve roadblocked every permit, every inspection, and every palm he's tried to grease since the day he decided he wanted to build a casino in my city.

"They torched it," he adds.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

I hang up, and when I turn around, Sunny is holding her T-shirt against her chest, watching me with wide eyes.

"You have to go," she says.

"Yes."

"Is someone hurt?"

“I don’t know yet.”

For a moment I don't move because standing there, I feel the two halves of my life grind against each other like complete opposites.

The man and the don.

One of them just made love to his wife.

The other one is about to go to war.

“Will you get hurt?” she asks.

I cup her face in both hands. Her skin is still warm and flushed, and there’s a mark on her throat I put there when I was claiming her against the wall.

"I'll be back," I say.

"That doesn’t answer my question."

No. It doesn’t.

I kiss her hard. It’s a promise that this isn't over. Nothing will stop me from coming back here to claim what’s mine, again, and again, and again.