Page 443 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

“Hey,” I say, dragging my fingers down the side of his arm. “So I was wondering…how do you think this is going to go over with Heaven and Matteo?”

“This thing?” He furrows his brow.

I roll my eyes. “Yes, with us!”

He snickers. “I think Heaven will be just fine with it.”

“And your brother?” I bite my lower lip. “I don’t think he’s a big fan of mine, to be honest. Just a feeling I get.”

“You have to know Matteo,” he says. “He’s a pretty overprotective guy. And now with the baby, he’s even worse.”

I nod. “I get that he doesn’t want anything to hurt them. Or anyone.”

“There’s always gonna be someone lurking,” he mumbles, flinging an arm over his eye.

I take a deep breath. “Who are you protecting them from, Dante?” I ask in a soft voice, pulling at a thread from the comforter.

He moves the arm so that it’s no longer shielding his eyes. “Too many people to count, Anya. But that’s how things work when you’re the king. There are always people waiting to knock you off your throne.”

“King of what, exactly?”

He levels me with a stare. “He’s a very powerful guy with a lot of cash-soaked businesses under his control. And there are a lot of people who want a piece. Hell, they want it all.” He shrugs. “I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“But you don’t want to be here. At least, before me, you didn’t. Why?”

He sits up and runs a hand through his tousled hair. “You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”

“If this thing between us is going to work, we have to be straight with each other, right?” I shrug. “And I’m just curious because, you know, you’re a real estate investor, not a bodyguard. I’m trying to connect the dots, to understand you better.”

He lets out a sigh and falls back onto the pillow. “Anya, I think we both know I’m not a real estate investor.”

I lie on the mattress next to him. “So who are you then?”

“I’m the guy who always makes sure the people I care about are safe,” he says. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done.”

“Good work ethic,” I murmur with a smile.

“It’s complicated.”

“Isn’t it always?” I muse.

“More complicated than you think.” He averts his now-troubled gaze and scrubs a hand down the front of his face. “Family means everything to me. And I let down a family member once. I can’t do it again. I won’t.” He looks back at me. “I guess I’ve been trying to prove that to myself and everyone else ever since.”

“What happened?”

“I was watching over my younger cousin, Emilia, while her brother was out getting caught up with the wrong fucking crowd. He was a troublemaker and he managed to get on the radar of some really bad guys. So after I’d fallen asleep, she sneaked out and went after him because she was worried. They were both killed. But what they did to her before that…” His voice trails off and he shakes his head. “Brutal. Fucking animalistic.”

“That’s terrible,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s why I take my responsibilities to my family so seriously. I feel like I owe them…all of them. So whenever someone who can hurt any of them crosses my path, I handle it.”

Shit, we reallyarethe same.

“My brother is dead,” I blurt out.

Dante’s eyebrows furrow. “I thought you said?—”

I shake my head, tears springing to my eyes. “He was killed. Shot to death. I was with him but out of sight. He was my best friend,” I swipe at my eyes.

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