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But she would never know that.
“Sit down.” I gestured to the sofa next to me.
She shook her head and crossed her arms. “What do you want from me?”
I shook my head. “Want from you? Nothing. I do have something I would like to offer you.”
She looked confused, and then I saw hatred contort her face. “You, and especially your brother, have nothing that I want.”
I stood up, bluffing, but she didn’t need to know that. “Then, I’ll let the cops know that you tried to kill my brother, not once, but twice. Attempted murder gets you how many years in jail? I forget. Do you know?”
Her face turned white and she placed a hand over her belly as if she were about to be sick. I almost felt bad. Almost.
But now I had her right where I wanted her. Fearful. Fear was the best motivator.
“So, what’s this? Blackmail? Look around, genius. I don’t have anything you could possibly want.”
I smiled then, my eyes holding hers. So quickly, she had figured it out.
“You can’t be serious….you want…me?”
It all seemed to hit her full force. She let out a humorless bark of laughter. “I’m not going to whore myself?—”
“And I would never ask that of you,” I said sharply. I was insulted. I was a kingpin. Not a pimp. That wasn’t my style.
“Then what do you want?”
“You. I want you to marry me.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Are you insane? I wouldn’t marry you if my life depended on it.”
“Well, it kind of does. Unless you feel like doing five to ten and hoping you get parole.”
She swallowed hard, visibility shaken. This time, she wrapped her arms around herself. She looked so tiny then, like a young girl. I felt terrible again, but that didn’t stop me from going for the jugular.
“Marry me and no one needs to know that you were trying to kill Nico.”
“You don’t have proof that I?—.”
“I’m the head of a two-hundred-year-old Mafia family, Mya. You think I didn’t watch you and keep track of the evidence? You think you just happened to break down in front of my house? I know everything about you. I know where you work, how long you sleep, I know where the freckle is behind your left ear.”
She seemed to shrink into herself. I kept going. Showing mercy wasn’t what I was known for.
“Everywhere you went, everything you did, has been watched by myself or a member of my crew for the past two years…”
Her head shot up, the fire back in her eyes. “You’re a sick bastard.”
She moved toward me and raised her hand to hit me. I caught it and pulled her toward me until her body was pressed against mine. She was breathing heavily.
The way her breasts rose and fell under her baggy sweatshirt made me think of that night on the balcony. I felt myself growing hard, and she felt it, too.
She tried to push away from me, but I caught her other hand, backed her up against the wall, and pinned her there. My hips were against hers.
“Let me go.”
“You promise to keep your hands to yourself?”
The fire was still in her eyes, and she took a moment before she slowly nodded.