Page 57 of Broken Mafia Prince
Instead of replying, he drags his piercing blue eyes down my body in a slow perusal that makes goosebumps rise on my arms. He’s not even touching me, and yet everywhere his gaze lands feels like he’s imprinted his hands into that bit of flesh.
Raffaele’s eyes finally meet mine again. “I’m in the market for something very different.”
I swallow, my pulse fluttering at the base of my neck. “Good luck finding whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Desperation makes me raise my hands, flagging down an incoming cab. I need to get away from this man urgently. How can he affect me so much? I should be thinking of the shit I’m currently in with both Luca and my father instead of how it’d feel if the enemy’s son put his mouth on all those places his eyes had lingered.
“He was wrong.” The words catch me by surprise, but I refuse to turn and look at him.
“Who was?”
“Your asshole date,” he replies. “Your father doesn’t wish it had been you instead. And if he does, then he’s as big of a moron as my father says he is.”
Something inside me cracks open at those words, the poison Luca had put in my heart seeping out slowly but steadily. I whirl around to face him just as the cab pulls over, and meet only air. I turn my head either way, searching for a glimpse of him, some evidence that he had truly been there, but there’s nothing.
Raffaele’s gone.
This time around, though, I know I’m going to see him again.
18
RAFFAELE
“Hello, I’m on my way to the club with Marty,” Alessia announces cheerfully when I pick up the phone.
“Hmm.” I hum distractedly while I watch Giulia get into the back of the cab.
“Oh, and I got him a new collar, the old one is frayed and worn out.” It almost sounds like she’s chastising me about maltreating the dog, which is hilarious coming from a woman for whom I’ve written thousands of dollars’ worth of checks.
“You shouldn’t have wasted your time,” I tell her before hanging up the call. Marty never took to any collar I put on him, whining in distress and being generally miserable. One day, I dug out Laika’s old collar from a box of keepsakes, and Marty had come running for it. Since then, he’s refused to let anybody upgrade him to something better.
I wait until Giulia’s cab has disappeared down the street before slipping out of my hiding place and making my way to where my car’s parked. I consider trailing after her to make sure she gets home in one piece, then decide against being that much of a creep.
I gun it back to the club, annoyed that I didn’t end up getting something to eat after all.
As soon as I see Tommaso waiting for me at the foot of the stairs, I know it’s trouble. My brain shifts from the Montanari girl to business mode.
“What’s going on?”
My right-hand man falls into step with me as I cross to my office and settle into the large leather chair. Unlike my father’s study, my office is well lit, with a row of windows just behind me from where I can look down into the main club floor.
“One of our warehouses was hit an hour ago, and most of the shipment was taken,” Tommaso informs me.
I narrow my eyes. “Which one?”
“The one at the docks.”
“Any lives lost?” I ask him.
His jaw clenches. “We have two dead men and a few injured, but the loss of our products is also a big hit here. The docks had some of our biggest products, and losing all that worth of product will hurt us drastically, because we’re supposed to deliver to the Russians soon, and we won’t be able to recover that much before then.”
I stand up, too agitated to stay seated. My blood thrums with burning fury, more at the loss of my men than at the stolen products. Drugs can be gotten back, but nothing’s going to bring back the men I’ve lost. I clasp my hands behind my back and step up to the floor-to-ceiling windows, glancing over the club, but seeing nothing.
“Do we have any leads on who’s behind this?” From the reflection on the window, I see Tommaso’s face harden into granite.
“It’s those fucking Montanaris. Their signature is all over the attack,” he spits. “We should strike back now when they leastexpect it. They’ll probably be waiting for us to regroup after this hit, while they aren’t on their guard.”
“How do we know it’s them?” I ask slowly, instead of allowing him to fan the flames of my fury.
