His laugh was dark.

He didn’t like me taking sides. Did he think I’d pick his?

A sudden thought, a need to know, came to me, and it escaped my lips before I could stop it. “Are you going to be faithful to Adriana?” My heart thumped to an awkward beat. That was the most invasive thing I’d ever asked anyone, and it left a foreign and regretful aftertaste on my tongue.

His gaze leveled on mine, not liking my question either, but he kept his words deep and smooth. “Does she expect me to be?”

Of course she didn’t.

Not one woman expected that in this world—not when work for a man was considered going to a strip club. Not when money and power corrupted. And not when women like Jenny threw themselves at rich and attractive men. It was why I didn’t want a husband as handsome as him. He didn’t even have to work to be unfaithful—it would sit right in his lap.

I shook my head, this conversation chafing me with frustration. “You’re evading. Answer the question.” Maybe if he said the words, showed me how disloyal, dishonest, he was, then I could put this fascination for him aside. I was more interested in his reply than even my sister would be.

He pushed off the door. “You answer mine.”

My response was calm and suicidal. “You can have your phone back after you answer my question.”

His condescending stare burned me, and then, with the tiniest shake of his head, he came in my direction.

My heart leapt and I backed up, but then my bare back hit the alley wall and the cool concrete sent a shiver down my spine. I was trapped, cornered, and frazzled enough I couldn’t think clearly. Didn’t think at all.

I dropped his phone down the front of my dress.

He froze two paces away. Stared at where his phone had gone. And then ran his tongue across his teeth in a type of roguish disbelief.

“You honestly think that’s going to stop me from taking it back?”

I had no idea why I’d done it. For once in my life, I wished for the Sweet Abelli to save me. Her calm, collected ways wouldn’t have gotten her into this mess in the first place. I swallowed down my breathlessness.

“That would be inappropriate.”

Both of our gazes dropped when the phone fell from my breasts to my stomach, before catching on the tight fabric near my hips. His phone was stuck below my navel.

His eyes came back to mine. “From what I’ve learned, kissing is platonic these days. Reaching up your dress can’t be much worse.”

My stomach fluttered. “You’re not reaching up my dress.”

“Three seconds, Elena.” His words were short, pissed. I knew he meant I had that long to give it back to him.

I didn’t know what I was doing or when I’d suddenly acquired a death wish, but my gaze met his for a consecutive three seconds. Quietly and maturely, I said, “You haven’t answered my question.”

His stare flicked to the concrete, and when it came back to me burning hot, I knew I was in trouble. A surge of expectation leaked into my bloodstream but was doused with unease when he took the remaining steps toward me.

His shoulders blocked the alleyway, his heavy presence slowing my breaths. He wasn’t gentle. With his amber gaze on mine, he gripped a fistful of my dress near my thigh and tugged it up, jerking me in the process.

He fisted the fabric, skimming it up my legs. Every inch of my skin sizzled, and an empty ache formed low in my stomach. When he made contact with my bare thigh, I had to bite my lip to hold in a whimper. His palm was rough and hot enough to burn. And God, a man had never smelled so good. I wanted to nuzzle my face in his neck so I could get more of it, all of it.

It wasn’t lost on me that I was criticizing him for being unfaithful to Adriana while fantasizing about him doing the same thing with me. The thought was only fleeting because his presence, his warmth, brushed it aside.

I didn’t know if he had slowed, or if this moment was so significant I was experiencing it in slow motion, but it quieted, the sound of my ragged breaths filling the alley. A slight breeze made its way through the sliver of space between us, making me aware of how hot I was. I’d never felt warmer in my life.

He pressed closer against me, his jacket brushing my arms, his watch cold on the smooth skin of my inner thigh. One hand was braced on the wall beside my head, trapping me, but what he didn’t know was that I didn’t want out.

Once he’d touched bare skin, his gaze hardened, before flicking down as if in reluctance. The empty ache between my legs pulsed. I couldn’t help but to part my thighs, to imagine him slipping a hand between them. Cupping me over my thong. Pulling it to the side and pushing a finger inside of me. My palms lay flat on the cold, concrete wall on each side of me, and a buzz sounded in my ears.

His jaw tightened, and his fingers gripped the inside of my thigh. Sparks ran from the heat of his hand straight to my clit, all my blood drumming in that area. He’d only have to run a palm across the fabric to realize how disturbed I was, how wet this was making me. How much I wanted him.

But he didn’t do any of that.

He only grabbed his phone.

His thumb brushed over the thin string of my thong on my hip, pulling it down a bit before his hands left me. As my dress fell to brush the asphalt, his voice was rough against my ear.

“You already know the answer.”

He stepped back and tilted his head toward the door, in a way of telling me to get there, now.

Too breathless to do anything else, I headed in its direction, a whisper of an ache trailing behind.

“No one will ever kill me, they wouldn’t dare.”

—Carmine Galante

THERE WAS NO BETTER PLACE for me than at the heart of the Cosa Nostra. Like the last piece of a puzzle, my existence was a perfect fit.

No matter if I were a lawyer’s son, a doctor’s, or a janitor’s, I would have found my way on the wrong side of the law doing the one thing I loved to do: hustling.

I was Antonio Russo’s son, no one else’s, and for that reason I was damn good at what I did. My papà used to have a saying: Non ha il dolce a caro, chi provato non ha l’amaro. It was a way of telling me there was no room for regrets in this world, that a man had to taste the bitter before he could taste the sweet.

I’d heard it when I was seven, as I looked at the first dead man I’d ever seen: eyes open, blood pooling on the warehouse floor.

In my profession, regrets were easy to come by. They piled up, each one weakening a man’s resolve. I didn’t regret much, and up until recently I had only one that followed me around. I regretted fucking Gianna while she was still married to my father. Most recently, and more so than even that, I regretted signing the contract for Adriana.

I wanted her sister.

In my bed.

Against the wall.

On her knees.

I’d involuntarily gone over what it would take to get out of the contract, knew exactly what I would do. My family was known for breaking agreements—it was what got my papà killed, in fact. Not the best incentive, but I didn’t fear the Abellis. Didn’t fear anything at all, honestly, which would probably be the cause of my eventual demise.

I wanted Elena Abelli, and starting a feud just so I could have her was beginning to sound less and less like a bad idea every time she was near. But I wasn’t going to go through with the twisted plan my mind had created.