Echo, p.3
Echo, page 3
Sarcasm and bad fucking manners my norm, I didn’t catch myself. “That’s the general idea when I ask how old you are.”
She flinched.
The irony wasn’t lost on me that I was the last person to give a damn about anyone or anything, let alone play guardian angel, especially if it meant going up against the famiglia. Unfortunately for her, her response to my sarcasm only sealed her fate. Outside whatever small reality this girl had grown up in, she wouldn’t last a day in the real world.
Perversely, I didn’t want her to.
I’d never met a woman so innocent, and I sure as hell had never laid eyes on one so beautiful. The thought of another man even looking at her, especially my brother, was already pissing me off, which was a bad fucking sign.
I didn’t get pissed.
I pulled the trigger.
It was a hell of a lot more uncomplicated than emotions, which was how I lived my life. No complications.
Or I had, until two fucking minutes ago. Now a brunette with doe eyes was doing my head in, and I was checking my shit attitude, bringing it down a notch so I didn’t scare her.
“Age?” I needed to know exactly how old she was.
She glanced around the entry and down the hall like she was looking for someone. “Why do you want to know?”
Holding a book to her chest like a schoolgirl, throwing off so damn much purity and virtue it was making my dick hard, avoiding my question like she was begging for a lesson in submission—this was not good. “Who are you looking for?” I demanded.
“Papà.”
The bad fucking feeling in my gut grew. “Who’s your father?”
A frown spread across her pretty face as she answered me with the intonation of a question. “Gallo Santoro?”
I fucking froze.
She didn’t notice. “You are here, but you do not know my father?”
Barely hiding my shock, the pieces falling together, I scanned the damn hallway and the courtyard. “Haven’t seen Santoro in a while.” Not since I was a kid and he’d gone into hiding after the murder of his wife and son. The unsanctioned hit that had been disguised as a car accident to throw off the authorities had caused a fucking war. Not to mention, I never knew Santoro had a daughter, and I knew all the players in this world. I had to.
Which meant Santoro had been purposely hiding her, and that could only mean one thing.
I asked the damn question. “Was your mother Sofia Santoro?”
Color drained from her face, and she dipped her head. “Yes. She was my mamma.”
Figlio di puttana.
Sofia Vincenzo Santoro.
Married off to old man Santoro, the Vincenzos’ banker and money launderer, to both keep him in check and tie him irrevocably to the Vincenzo famiglia, Sofia Vincenzo had been the daughter of the Vincenzos’ Don. Then someone had killed her and her son, arguably to get at the Vincenzo fortune, and all hell had broken loose.
The Vincenzos accused both the Arcuris and my famiglia. We all denied it. Santoro went into hiding. The Vincenzos went on a killing spree, and retaliation ensued. It was a fucking bloodbath and the last war between the three Cosa Nostra famiglias before a volatile truce had been called. One that wasn’t any more stable today.
And here I was, standing in front of Don Vincenzo’s blood as my fucking brother took a meeting with her father.
Giancarlo was out of his goddamn mind.
Even stepping foot in this house was an act of war.
“Sorry for your loss,” I clipped, sounding no fucking better than my asshole brother as I holstered my Glock and pulled out my cell.
“I was a child.” Her voice went quiet as her gaze dropped to my hands. “I do not remember her.”
She was lucky. I remembered my mother. “You’re better off.” I fired off a text to Giancarlo.
Me: We need to leave. NOW.
Her head whipped up, and she looked at me with those big, dark, innocent eyes. “You are the very first man to say that to me.”
That got my fucking attention. “You talk to a lot of men, Principessa?”
She sucked in a sharp breath, then went stock-still. “Wh-what did you call me?”
Exactly what she was. “Principessa.” Cosa Nostra royalty with Vincenzo blood. Probably about to turn legal marrying age.
“That is what my papà calls me.”
“Because that’s what you are.” I glanced down at my cell. No reply text. I focused back on her. “Do you know who I am?” Cristo, the confusion on her face made me question if she knew who the hell she was.
She hesitated. “I am sorry. Should I know you?”
I tried a different question, but I already saw the picture this entire conversation was painting. “Do you know who’s meeting with your father?” If Giancarlo was up to what I thought he was, I was going to fucking kill him.
Her slender shoulder lifted once. “Colleagues?”
Colleagues. My rage grew. “Do you meet many colleagues of your father’s?”
Her face flushed bright red. Then her voice came out in the form of an embarrassed whisper. “No.”
“Good. Keep it that way.”
“Are you not a colleague of my father’s?”
I looked her right in the eye. “No.”
“A bodyguard?”
The irony growing right along with a possessive rage I needed to fucking check, I snorted. “No.”
“But you carry a gun.”
“And you knowingly approached me anyway.” Did she have any idea how dangerous that was? “You do that often?”
“I am not afraid.”
“You should be.”
“My father has guns. He says they are for protection.”
“Right.” Fucking protection.
She stared at me.
I stared back.
Heat flushed across her cheeks. “So, you are a driver?”
“Do I look like a driver, Principessa?” Part of me no fucking better than Giancarlo, I wanted to consume every sheltered inch of her.
“You look like a very tall, very strong man who carries a gun and drove two other men here.”
Not an ounce of attitude or sarcasm in her tone, her statement and what it implied still pissed me off. “If driving my own vehicle makes me a driver, then sure, go with that, Principessa.”
Her frown came back, making her look even younger. But then the shit that came out of her mouth next proved she saw right through my sarcasm. “I have angered you.”
“I don’t get mad.” At least I hadn’t until a barefoot Principessa snuck up on me.
“I think I disagree, but I apologize, nonetheless. I did not mean to insult you.”
“Do I look insulted?”
Her eyes searching my face, she studied me a moment as if she were cataloging details. Then she wisely ignored my question. “You are neither a colleague, driver, nor bodyguard for the men you came with, but you are here?”
“So are you.”
“I live here.” She glanced toward the room with all the books. “Well, some of the time.”
I tested her. “And the other times?”
“In the….” Looking back at me, she caught herself. “Closer to a city.”
“Brava.” Good girl. “Don’t tell me.” I was glad her father had taught her at least that. “Don’t tell any man where you live.”
She dropped her gaze, but she nodded. Then she gave me her sweet, innocent voice again. “I know.” She glanced toward the closed door of the dining room. “Do you know how long Papà will be?”
“Why?” Before I could think about what the fuck I was doing, I asked the last thing I should have. “What do you need?” There wasn’t a damn thing I could do for this girl that’d be good for her, including having a conversation with Giancarlo the second we were back in the G-Wagon, but I was going to do it anyway. The only question was what action I’d take if he’d already struck a deal with Santoro.
Heat hit her face again. “I… I do not need anything, thank you.” She fidgeted with the book as she traced an invisible circle on the tiled floor with her painted toe before inhaling and looking back up at me. “But I have something for you.”
My gaze narrowed.
Silent, ethereal, she came toward me as she pulled a folded piece of paper from the book. Stopping a foot away, so damn small she barely came up to my chest, she held the paper out. “Here.”
I didn’t move.
I fucking couldn’t.
Her scent hit me faster than a bullet, and I was suddenly seeing a woman instead of an innocent Principessa. Full breasts, small waist, and those fucking eyes that were sinking me further every damn time she looked at me. Fresh, floral, citrus, she didn’t smell like any of the overly perfumed women I fucked. She smelled like a life I’d never had.
Untainted, uncorrupted, and pure.
“What is this?” It wasn’t a question. It was an accusation. This angel had gotten under my skin, and I should’ve been walking the hell away, but I wasn’t.
She tucked her book under her arm. Then, slow and cautious, like she was reaching for a wild fucking dog, she grasped my wrist with her small fingers and turned my palm up.
Her eyes on mine, she set the paper on my hand. “A gift. For you.”
My gaze locked on hers. Forgetting who the hell I was, the thought hit my sick, twisted mind.
I wanted to fuck her.
I wanted to sink inside an innocent Principessa with Vincenzo blood more than I wanted my next breath. The only thing that made it worse was the fact that I didn’t want to just fuck her.
I wanted to save her.
I’d never saved a damn thing in my life.
I destroyed.
With my hands, my aim, I killed. I’d taken so many lives, I’d lost count. There wasn’t an ounce of humanity left in me, but I wanted this girl. Cristo, I wanted her.
“Take it back,” I ordered.
With her big eyes and waves of thick, shiny hair, she shook her head.
“No one gives me gifts,” I warned.
“Now they have.” With the same whisper of a step, like she was fucking floating, she moved back. Then she turned and headed toward the stairs.
I opened the paper.
Fuck.
Me.
“Stop,” I ordered before I could drag my eyes off the page and look up.
My ghost, my angel, she was already halfway up the stairs. Holding the railing, she looked over her shoulder at me.
“Did you draw this?” Dark, menacing, it was my image. Perfectly captured on paper with pencil and some other medium.
She nodded.
“You’re an artist.” An angel, an artist, and a fucking thief of sanity. I wondered what the hell else she was capable of.
She blushed, but she didn’t smile. “I like to draw.”
That’s when it hit me. That’s what was different about her.
She didn’t smile.
Not once in our conversation, not even a hint. She didn’t flirt. She didn’t bait. She didn’t have an agenda. She hadn’t even tried to get my attention, but goddamn, she had it.
Making the worst decision of my life, one that could get me killed, I bit out an order. “Get your cell phone.”
“I do not have one.”
Gesù Cristo.
I sank myself further. “Come here.”
My barefoot angel floated back toward me.
I pulled the spare burner I always carried out of my back pocket. “You know how to use one?”
“I….” Her full lips closed before her tongue darted out and she pulled the bottom one in, biting it, then releasing it. Wet lips, espresso eyes, she tentatively nodded. “I used Papà’s once.”
Already going to hell, I programmed my number into the burner and held it out for her. “You’re going to do two things for me.”
She was shaking her head before I finished my sentence. “I cannot take that.”
“Why?”
“I am not… allowed.”
Of course she fucking wasn’t.
I held the drawing up. “Did you give me a gift?” I didn’t wait for an answer. “Now I’m giving you one.” Grabbing her wrist, I put the damn thing in her hand, same as she’d done to me, but I didn’t let go of her. Not yet. “This comes with two rules. First, you tell no one about the phone. Second, you use this to contact only me. No one else. Understand?”
Staring up at me, a slight tremor shaking her small-as-hell body, she nodded.
“You know how to text when you can’t risk a call?”
She glanced down at the phone. Looking back up at me, she shook her head.
“I’ll show you.” Reluctantly letting go of her and grabbing my cell, I shot off a quick text to the number. One word. Test.
The burner lit up with a notification, and she dropped her head.
Leaning over her, the scent of her hair as intoxicating as she was innocent, I showed her. “Hit the notification, swipe with your finger and bring up the text. Then type your reply and hit the arrow to send. Practice one now so I know you know how to use it.”
Slow and careful, she typed a reply and hit Send.
I glanced at my cell.
Unknown: Thank you.
“You’re welcome.” My voice thick, I slid the drawing into my pocket.
Her head dropped toward the screen, and she typed again.
Another text came through on my end.
Unknown: Why are you doing this? Why are you giving me a phone?
Fuck this. Grasping her chin, I tipped her head up. “In case you need protection.”
“From what?”
Practically tasting her innocence, I should’ve said me. But I didn’t. I also didn’t tell her my brother was most likely in her father’s dining room, negotiating a fucked-up merger, Cosa Nostra style. If Giancarlo had something on Santoro, the old man didn’t stand a chance, and neither did his daughter. Which was why she needed protection. I wasn’t going to let my fuck of a brother get his hands on her. I didn’t give a damn what I had to do. Giancarlo wasn’t touching her, not while I was still breathing.
Reluctantly letting go of her, avoiding her question, I gave her an order instead. “Get back upstairs.” I didn’t want her anywhere near the entry hall when my brother reemerged. “Before I leave tonight, I’ll hide the charger for the cell in the room with the books. Bottom shelf, closest to the window.” Grabbing her shoulder just so I could fucking touch her one last time, I turned her toward the stairs. “Go, Principessa.”
Without comment, she obediently did exactly as I said.
I couldn’t stop myself. Fucking high from her innocent submissiveness, mesmerized by the sway of her hips, I thought about every dirty thing I wanted to do to her to make her mine and mine alone. My cock hard, I watched her until she disappeared around a corner at the top of the stairs.
Shaking my head, I pulled out my cell, brought up the contacts and quickly typed. Deleting Unknown, I replaced it with a new name—one I stared at for five fucking seconds.
Then I cursed under my breath and scanned the hall and courtyard before going to my SUV for the charger.
Sancia
Lying in the dark, the cell phone in my hands, I stared at it like a lifeline.
Maybe it was.
Or maybe it was the worst mistake of my life.
I did not know.
All I knew was that I wanted to text him.
Was I supposed to text him?
I had been so stunned, I had not asked. I had not asked any of the questions running through my mind so fast, they were making me dizzy. Why did I need to be able to contact him? Why was he giving me a cell phone? What was I supposed to say to him? What was his name? Why did he smell like metal and spice and soap? Why had he asked my age?
How old was he?
I wanted to type every single question out and press the arrow, but I did nothing.
I simply held the phone and stared, waiting, hoping.
My window open, a soft evening breeze blew in the scent of the orchards followed by the distant hint of the Mediterranean. It had always smelled like home to me here, but now another scent was playing across my senses.
The masculine smell of him barely lingering on his phone and my hands was mysterious and elusive. Like midnight and danger, it all swirled around a dark musk that was as forbidden as it was intoxicating.
Wishing I could have leaned into him, just to inhale, to feel if his chest was as hard as it looked, I was foolishly entertaining the fantasy when I heard the front door open.
Rushing to my window as footsteps sounded in the gravel courtyard, I stood back in the shadows.
The same two men who were with him before were beside him now, both keeping their heads down, while my mysterious gift giver looked across the courtyard as he opened the front passenger door of his SUV.
A silent plea played through my mind.
Please. Please, please, please look up.
The two other men got in the vehicle, and he walked around the front.
Moving closer to the window, I leaned on my desk.
Please look up.
He opened his door.
The plea escaping my lips, it whispered on the wind. “Please look up.”
His hand on top of the vehicle, one foot resting on the sill, he lifted his head, and his gaze cut right to my window.
My heart leapt, my breath caught, and I leaned forward.
Moonlight fell across my face, and his eyes met mine.
For one suspended moment, we stared.
Then, with the slightest of movements, he tipped his chin before getting into his vehicle.
The engine roared to life, large tires crushed the gravel and taillights glowed bright red as the SUV swung around and disappeared down the driveway.
I did not realize I had been holding the phone to my chest until I heard Papà’s voice call up the stairs. “Sancia?”
Spinning around, panic struck.
“Are you awake, cara mia?”
Dropping to my knees, I shoved the phone under my bed, then jumped up and rushed to my door. “Coming, Papà!”
My heart pounding, my feet still bare, I flew down the stairs.
Looking rumpled and tired, Papà glanced up and waved his hand. “Slow down, child. You do not need to rush every time I call.”
