Page 13 of Dagger in the Sea

He sucked in a breath. “Who knows, they probably saw you take him out. Maybe they have you on video, and now they’re gonna turn this into some kind of all out war. They’re gonna sniff out every connection to these freaks. I do not need this shit right now!”

My insides twined like a tight rubber ball. The blood rushed to my head.

The Boss’s hand slammed on his desk. “Judge Connelly won’t be able to do a damn thing for me if they got one of my men on fucking video.”

“I—”

“Shut up!” The veins in Mauro’s thick neck bulged.

My feet cemented to the floor, but I didn’t avert my gaze. His fierce glare held mine.

“Jesus, dad, why don’t you just cut him off already?” Val’s voice seethed from behind his father. “Because I swear I will!”

“No, you won’t!” Mauro snapped.

Val stiffened, saying nothing, his eyes bursting from their sockets.

“Arturo.”

An icy jag razored through me at the hiss in his voice.

“Get out.”

4

Turo

“Turo, are you okay?”

I blinked. Francesca, Val’s sister, stood in the foyer of the house. Val’s luscious little sister who had a crush on me. The boss’s daughter.

My half sister.

“Hey,” I said.

Her lips parted and she blushed. A blush that extended from her cheeks over her chest and down beneath her bikini top. A pair of small, too small, triangles of a fine burgundy colored crochet material.

Francesca’s crush on me had been cute once upon a time. Now it was a burden. A grave burden. We’d seen each other at a dinner party at a supper club a few weeks ago. She was with a cousin, looking bored two tables over. I was with my girlfriend, Ciara, fingering her under our table as Francesca stared at me thinking the look on my face was about her. Then she blushed violently and looked away when she realized the truth.

“I’m just heading off to the pool,” she said, voice breathy.

“Enjoy. It’s unusually hot for May.”

“Very hot.” Her glance shifted to my mouth.

Voices rose from down the hall, behind the closed door of Mauro’s office. “Daddy not happy with Val again?” she asked.

“You could say that.”

She rolled her eyes. “I wish he and Stella would move into their new house already. It was supposed to be finished last month, but Stella keeps changing her mind about the countertops and the bathroom tile and the carpeting.” A soft giggle escaped her lips. “God help us all when she gears up to do the baby’s room.”

“She’s pregnant?”

“Hmm.”

“That’s nice. I didn’t know.”

Stella.That bitch. I’d thought she was so into me, into us, but it had all been a sham.

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