Page 7 of Mafia Men Need Love Too
He couldn’t hold back an offended snort. “You thought I was Ricky ‘the schnoz’ LaRusso?”
She threw her hands up in frustration. “They told me he was a tall Italian guy with a good haircut and suit who’d be surrounded by threatening-looking men, OK? You fit the description.”
Nico knew she wasn’t wrong. It was an honest mistake. But it was still insulting. And what if she had grabbed Ricky? He was a stupid little jerkoff, but he wasn’t weak. He could’ve really hurt her! He pointed a stern finger at her. “You stay away from Ricky LaRusso.”
River blinked at him a few times, looking baffled. “You mean if I survive this whole nightmare? OK, Nico, if I survive this night, I will most definitely stay away from Ricky LaRusso.”
She was sexy when she was being sassy. But that probably wasn’t saying much since he also thought she was sexy when she was tasing him and stuffing him into her car.
Then she dropped her face into her hands and let out a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to be snarky. I just can’t believe I did this. What a colossal screw up.”
He would’ve chuckled because, yes, this was a colossal screw up. But he didn’t want to make her feel worse when she was already so obviously dejected. “We’ll get to the bottom of this. Don’t worry, fiorellino.”
She peeked through her fingers at him. “Why are you being nice to me?”
“Would you prefer I yell? Maybe smack you around a little?”
He was kidding, of course. He’d never hit a woman. And he’d been grinning when he made the joke. It didn’t make her smile as he’d intended, though. She just pulled her hands away from her face and frowned at him. “Well, that’s probably what I’d do if the roles were reversed.”
The thought of their roles being reversed, of anyone tasing her and stuffing her into the back seat of a car, spiked his blood pressure.
She let out a startled half-shriek when Van knocked on the driver’s side window. “Roll it down,” Nico instructed. “He’s with me.”
Her wide eyes flew to his. “Is he going to kill me?”
He couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “If I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. No one is going to kill you, River. You can relax.”
“Says the guy who didn’t just kidnap the head of the Italian mafia,” she grumbled as she rolled the window down.
“You good, boss?” Van asked, not even bothering to glance at River. Why should he? She was no threat to either of them. And Nico had told him at the bar that he could handle her.
He repressed a sigh. If only he’d had the opportunity to handle her the way he’d wanted.
But there was no point in thinking about that now. Not when he had a rat to exterminate.
“I suspect Ricky has something going with the Russians,” he told Van. “Might’ve even screwed them over somehow. Where is he?”
Van’s brows lowered. “He left the club right after you. Got a call and headed out.”
He glanced at River, who was still muttering under her breath, head in hands. “Where were you supposed to take Ricky?”
She laid her forehead on the steering wheel, but handed over her phone. He checked the address. Yep, that was definitely in Russian territory. What the hell did they want with Ricky?
He gave Van the address. “Go. Check it out, but don’t approach. I don’t want to force a confrontation on their turf. Report back to me as soon as you can.”
Van gave him a two-finger salute and took off.
River lifted her head and frowned at him. “Didn’t they already do that by forcing me to kidnap someone on your turf?”
He shook his head. “They could’ve grabbed Ricky themselves easily. But the odds of them doing so unnoticed were slim. Grabbing someone from my territory would be an open act of war. Having you grab someone…well, that would’ve just been Ricky following his dick into trouble. They could’ve gotten away with it. If you hadn’t grabbed me, of course.”
Her eyes were troubled when she raised them to meet his. “If I ask you a question, will you answer me honestly? Even if it’s not something I want to hear?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you. Ever. You can count on me for the truth.”
“If I had managed to deliver Ricky, do you think they would’ve let me go?”
The hopeful look in her eyes made him wish he was a liar. “No,” he admitted quietly. “I wouldn’t have either.”
