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“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, since you seem to know?” I stick both hands in my pants pockets and tilt my head to the side like an asshole, my left brow quirked.

“You said you’d never lie to me. But you do know lying by omission is still a lie, right? An extremely wealthy man like you, who has armed guards wherever he goes, you’re just a paragon of virtue and morals, right? It’s just a coincidence that the mobster Luigi Grasso seemed to respect you so much that he let me and Jayla go the moment your name was dropped?”

“You said it yourself, Portia. I’m an extremely wealthy man. A highlyrespectedman. Why wouldn’t my name drop mean something?”

“To a mobster?”

“Why not? He’s a person just like everybody else. Powerful people respect other powerful people. I bet he respects the fucking president of the United States too. That suspicious now?”

“I would ask him. But I saw the headlines earlier today. He’s suddenly turned up dead.”

I scrub at my jaw amid a low chuckle. “Again,dolcezza. I ask, what exactly are you insinuating? Be clear. Be bold. Use your big girl voice.”

“My big girl voice,” she repeats with an incredulous shake of her head. “I’ll do you one better, Rafael. I’ll use my big girl investigative skills to get to the bottom of whatever the fuck is going on. You better hope you are as virtuous as you claim to be… or else you might wind up with a few problems.”

“Is that a threat,dolcezza, or is this some new form of bedroom talk? Because, let me tell you, it turns me on when you get a little feisty.” I’ve edged even closer, lowering my voice to a husky rumble that only she can hear. “Choose wisely. You could end up in trouble.”

“My choice is more than clear. Stay away from me. Stay away from my sister.”

Portia pivots on her heel and storms off. I watch her go, half amused while another part of me wonders if I shouldn’t have been so petty. I should’ve been more consoling.

But how was I supposed to react when she was essentially accusing me of being a criminal?

One of the ER nurses stops her, likely to update her on Jayla’s status. The two exchange some words and then the nurse leads her past the flapping doors where the patients are kept.

I sigh and think some more about how the fuck I’m going to fix this now.

It’s gotten to the point where Portia is openly accusing me of criminal association. She’s suspecting I’m not the man I’ve presented myself to be—and she would be correct in many ways.

Except my intentions with her are real. The man I am when with her is real. Shouldn’t that be enough?

“Trouble in paradise?” Anthony asks from behind. He’s been loitering around the ER since he was discharged earlier for smoke inhalation. He cracked a joke to the nurse that he inhaled plenty of smoke on his own as a daily cigar smoker.

But I haven’t been fooled one second—Don Vito’s consigliere has hung around for one purpose only.

He wants to finish what we started earlier on the yacht before he departs for Sicily.

“The only one who’s going to have trouble is you if you think you can fuck with my operation,” I snipe from over my shoulder.

He grunts out a laugh. “You mean your operation that’s getting your boats blown up? Some operation,mio amico.”

“I mean my operation that will eliminate anybody execution-style on a public street who dares fuck with me. You want to be next,suino?”

“You don’t still think I had a hand in this, do you?” He laughs again, wiping a fake tear of laughter from the crinkly corner of his eye. He’s moved up to my side, his belly jiggling from his deep laugh. “Think,idiota. Would I blow up a boat that I was on? What sense does that make?”

Anthony has a point. I’m simply too pissed and worn down for the night to think straight.

I scrub a hand over my face and let out a rough breath. “It was Tuco. Revenge for Grasso.”

“The boss was very impressed you did that. It was a big move.”

“The first of many. My yacht sinking won’t slow me down. Everything’s already fallen into place.”

23

PORTIA

Rafael Calderone was bornto Verona, the son of a young seamstress in the humble Italian village Ragusa. His birth father was never in the picture. He was still a boy when she died under mysterious circumstances. Into early adulthood he was taken care of by his grandmother Ornella, Verona’s mother, who also happened to be a seamstress.