Page 44 of Giovanni the Savage

I repeat this mantra in my head and take deep breaths until I feel like myself again. The door swings open as I exhale.

"Luna."

His voice floods my heart with relief, and I hold back the tears of relief from slipping out. It feels like he came at the right time; right when I was slipping into a pit, he came in.

Guilt rears its ugly head, but I remind myself I don't have a right to feel like this.

"Hey," I acknowledge and meet him at the door.

He looks at me, and his eyes darken with desire. It almost makes me forget my plight. Almost.

"I was looking all over for you."

"I'm sorry," I apologize quickly. "Came to clean myself up."

"You okay?" He squints to look at me better.

My heart almost breaks at his niceness, but I steel myself.

"Not really, but I'm good."

"For what it's worth, you look stunning," he compliments me and holds the door open for me.

"Thank you," I answer and walk out, leaving him behind.

If I'm acting weird, he doesn't show any signs.

I won't give any signs again, because tonight is a reminder of why I'm here. This isn't my life. The paparazzi, fancy cars, luxurious events, and the designer outfit he had sent me. I barely have a life, and getting the little I have depends on my ability to get information from him.

So, I must put my life first.

CHAPTER TWELVE – Luna

A breath of relief escapes me as I step inside Giovanni's office. This isn't the first time I'm here, obviously. However, it's the first time I'm here with these motives. It feels like even the air knows I'm about to do something wrong because it's still and stifling at the same time.

I look around the office mentally, noting everything to remind myself to leave it exactly that way when heading out. One of the downsides of working with a perfectionist.

Or sneaking around a perfectionist.

His chair is askew, meaning he left in a hurry for his conference; the meeting is just a wall away, and it also tells me I’ve got an hour to finish this. I double-check the security cameras to see that I've disabled them, but the server will be enabled in exactly one hour, which makes this more urgent.

I walk stealthily to his desk and stand before it, looking at his large computer screen. Again, in his hurry, he left his computer unlocked, which is my luck.

A stroke of guilt strikes me when I open his folders. Still, I banish it with the image of my brother, oblivious to being watched like a hawk by terrible men.

His wallpaper is a picture of him smiling at the camera widely. For some reason, I didn't expect to see such a picture. I expected something wilder as his wallpaper, but Giovanni is unpredictable.

The smile mirrors the same one he gave me on the night of the gala, and I feel a sense of pride that I could make him smile like that.

I click on the folder and scroll down to see that everything has been saved in numbers. I can't tell which is which.

A glance at my stopwatch tells me I've already spent twenty minutes here, I want to kick myself to regain those minutes.

"Shit," I mutter and keep scrolling until I see a folder labeled Boundary Territories.

I click it open and see it contains information on all the Italian Mafia occupying territories in America. The documents also include the lands. I'm sure of it because among those is the land document of his current company. The location and the shallow status of the territories are included.

"Wow." I scroll down, and my eyes light up to see over fifty parts of that folder.

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