Page 39 of Sin City Obsession

She crinkled her nose.Gross.

But they were past the point of no return on this. In probably an hour or less, both these men would be dead. She didn’t have to stick around for whatever was done to disappear their bodies. That was the Cavallos’ job. She would call the finalreport in, and unless for some reason she was instructed otherwise, she would catch the next flight back to Jersey.

Something slid down her cheek, and for a frightening moment, she thought it might be a tear. Until it pooled over her jaw before beginning to dangle and she realized with a roll of her stomach that it was far too slimy to be a tear. It was the spit.

Frustrated and emotionally conflicted, Alessa shoved to her feet and turned from all three of them. She marched up to the offerings, and Emanuele, and set the used steak knife aside. “I need a napkin, or a rag, or—”

Emanuele held out an almost full pack of pocket tissues.

Alessa blinked at it for a half-second, then took them and tugged two free. “I don’t even want to know.”

He grinned. “What? I have emotions.”

She wiped at her face, lifted it to him for inspection, then wiped one more time with another tissue just for peace of mind. The used tissues were added to the pile of garbage and she returned the pack to its owner. “For your emotional moments, then.”

He inclined his head. “Pretty sure your man’s having one.”

“My what?” But she knew what he meant, so she lingered only long enough to snatch another knife from the block—paring this time—before moving back toward the group. “Rocco, sweetheart, you promised.”

Rocco released Lou, who fell to the floor with a gurgled grunt, immediately followed by a choked outcry when his ankle bent almost completely the wrong way. Rocco turned, putting the scene behind him, and ducked his head. “Sorry,” he said. “I lost my temper.”

She raked her eyes over him. He was splattered in red and his throat was doing that flexing thing she’d seen many an angry alpha male do. Yet he’d stopped. She carefully tucked the paring knife into her waistband and moved up to him, cupping his jaw in her hands and drawing his gaze. “Probably I should have anticipated that and not cut his tape open. I’m used to doing all this solo, not thinking about how anyone else might react to the scene. So, I’m sorry, too.”

His brow furrowed. “You shouldn’t—” He cut himself off and locked his jaw. Instead of finishing the thought, he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

Shouldn’t what?What had he been going to say?

Did he not want her doing this type of work?

Did he not want her doing it on her own?

Or did he just not want her doing it where he had to see?

Chapter twelve

Hard to Breathe

Numbness washed over Alessaas Rocco stepped away. He didn’t finish whatever his thought had been, and she didn’t push.

She had hoped Rocco was different. She had thought Rocco was different. Since she had come to understand what it meant—what ittook—to be the top dog in a mafia circle, Alessa had shied away from that type. Feared many of them. Even the ones who thought higher of themselves than they would ever achieve, she avoided. Whetherthey feared her, repulsed her, enraged her, or simply didn’t appeal to her, the ultimate thing they all had in common was their own lack of interest in a woman who didn’t need their strength or brutality to survive. But she had thought Rocco was different.

He’d known from the moment they’d met why she was there. Whatever he had believed about her, he had to have at least suspected she wasn’t weak. Maybe he’d thought he had cracked her, maybe he thought he’d seen behind her mask and she couldn’t fool him.

Alessa dragged in a deep breath, letting the increasingly foul odor in the air ground her.

She couldn’t explain why that moment felt more like a breakup, more like a goodbye, than anything she had actually experienced. He’d stopped when she called to him. He’d apologized for whaling on her captive. He’d even kissed her forehead tenderly. But he hadn’t been able to hold her gaze, or finish the thought in his head.

She could guess why. He’d seen her in action now. He knew she was too much like all the men he employed, similar even to the side of himself he often held in check. Except seeing that in a potential partner would be the opposite of attractive.

She appalled him now.

Alessa pulled the wire strippers from her back pocket and stepped wide around the damp spot seeping into the carpet squares around Gwathney. She told herself not to think about how much she would be disgusting Rocco in the next few minutes. Because no matter how much she might have wanted him to care about her, or how much she might have started tocare for him, this was what she’d been sent to do. She could not leave the job unfinished.

Any pain she felt when it was done, she could also reflect on once it was done.

“N-no, wait, I-I’ll call him off!” Gwathney begged, trying to lean away from her as she crouched beside him. “I’ll call him off! Just give me a phone!”

Alessa forced a smile to stretch her lips. “You think I’m dumb enough to give you a phone?” She pointed the wire strippers at him. “No, Mr. Gwathney. It’s much too late to call off your hound. He’s a dead man now.”

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