Page 34 of Dangerous Men (Fortune City Mafia #1)

SYDNEY

“How many sex toys do you have?” I ask Jade, leaning my hip against the counter and watching her carefully write out a new café specials board in perfect, practiced calligraphy.

The soft morning sun is brightening into early afternoon, and traffic to the café has finally hit its usual mid-morning lull.

“Tons,” she answers, not looking up at me. Lavender Bunny Macaroons, she writes on the board. Then, after a moment of contemplation, she adds a little heart next to the words.

“And do you… use them often?” I ask her, genuinely curious. “Like… all of them?”

“You’re going to need a different best friend to answer that question without a fat glass of wine in front of her,” Jade tells me. “What happens between me and Lady Petunia is a complex business, thank you very much.”

“Did…” I blink. “Did you really name your vagina Petunia?”

“ Lady Petunia,” Jade corrects me, crossing a T on the board with a flourish. “She’s a classy bitch, and she deserves a proper title.”

“You know, I can still never tell when you’re joking or not,” I tell her, shaking my head.

“Good.” Jade smiles. “That’s half the fun.” Apparently satisfied with her creation, she sets the sign back in its usual place next to the register.

“Why do you want to know, anyway?” she asks, capping her marker and looking at me. “Did you spend some quality time last night getting acquainted with all those gifts Alec sent you?”

She wriggles her eyebrows suggestively, and I look away, blushing as I mutter “something like that.”

“You can spare me the details,” Jade says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I’m just glad your own Lady Petunia is finally getting the attention she deserves.”

I roll my eyes and turn away from her, facing the shop. And not for the first time, I find myself looking for one particular person at one particular table.

Sebastian.

He’s been back here every day since the first morning he came in, always arriving less than ten minutes after I flip the closed sign to open and staying until we close for the night. Like clockwork.

At least Jade finds our new high-tipping customer amusing.

“Are you glaring at him again? Come on, Sydney, how can you be upset?” she asks me, leaning against the counter next to me and shaking her head. “Look at him. He’s not bothering anyone. Just think of him like another piece of furniture.”

She smiles at him, almost fondly. “He’s like a plant we never have to water.”

I hate to admit it, but she’s right. Sebastian doesn’t bother any of the other customers, and he always orders more than enough from the café to justify taking up a table all to himself.

Aside from the revolving door of women who spend a little too long sitting at the tables across from him, trying to catch his eye, he draws very little attention to himself.

“He just…” I struggle to put it into words before finally giving up. Shrugging, I admit, “I just don’t like him.”

“Uh-huh. Sure, Syd. I’m sure that’s the reason.”

Jade saunters away with a knowing smile on her face. I’m not sure why she looks so smug, but even I can’t unlock all of that woman’s mysteries.

I let out a long, deep breath. I have a lengthy list of things that need doing in the bookshop, and I should get started sooner rather than later.

Shooting Sebastian one last suspicious look, I wander back into the bookshop to get started.

Work waits for no woman, and all that.

It’s just over an hour later, and I’m busy at the back register, finishing up with a customer, when I hear the shouting.

“I don’t know why the fuck I even bother coming here!” It’s a man’s voice, raised enough to carry over the store, reaching every corner of our shop. Loud and angry enough to draw attention from several other customers.

I shove a receipt into the book I’m ringing up and pass it to my waiting customer with a quick apology before abandoning my register and racing toward the front of the store.

“At least the Starbucks around the corner can get my fucking order right!” the man bellows.

I break into a jog, heart in my throat and fists already clenching. Jade doesn’t need me to protect her. She’s a grown woman, capable and independent and strong. She doesn’t need me to protect her .

But I sure as hell will do it, anyway.

When I reach the front of the store, I spot the problem customer immediately. A balding, middle-aged man with a polo shirt stretched too tight over his stomach is waving his hands around, shouting at Jade.

My Jade.

With one glance at her face, I can tell Jade is already close to crying.

Her eyes are a little too wet, and her bottom lip is quivering almost imperceptibly.

Jade wasn’t built for this sort of confrontation.

For all her swagger, for all her confidence and strength, a raised voice is enough to strip her to her core.

“Sir? What’s the problem here?” I ask, managing to make the words sound calm as I approach them. I move behind the café counter, placing myself so I’m standing between the irate customer and Jade.

“This, this… whatever she is …” he starts, waving his hand in Jade’s direction, “doesn’t even know how to make a decent Americano. She keeps telling me there’s no milk in an Americano.”

“That’s probably because there is no milk in an Americano,” I explain as diplomatically as possible. I keep my palms flat on the counter between us, scared I might slap the words right out of his mouth. “But we’d be happy to add some if you’d like.”

His face turns red at the indignity of it all, at the unfathomable disrespect of being questioned, and he’s so mad he’s close to shaking.

“No milk in an Americano!” he shouts at me, throwing his arms up in the air in frustration.

He stares around at the other customers, a can you believe these idiots?

expression on his face. He doesn’t seem to notice that none of the looks from them are friendly or sympathetic.

They’re uncomfortable, at best. Disgusted with him, at worst. “You’re as stupid as she is! ”

I take a deep breath, schooling myself just a bit. If it were just me that he was shouting at, I think my breathing exercises and mantras might work. I think I’d be able to calm down enough to talk to him sensibly.

But no one— no one —calls Jade stupid in front of me. No one makes her cry in front of me. And I won’t let that go.

I want him to pay for that.

“You know what? Let’s do this.” I pull out my phone and bring up my search bar, leaning over the counter closer to him, and tapping the search into my phone. He instinctively leans closer, eyes tracking my hands as I type. “Why don’t we Google it together?”

I’m entering my sickly saccharine form of sarcasm that comes before the dead-eyed rage brewing beneath my surface. I can tell this man is about to argue with me more, so I lower my voice until only he can hear me, twisting my phone around and showing him the search results.

“You see here, where the internet defines an Americano as fucking espresso and fucking water and no fucking milk ?” I hiss at him. He takes a step back, jarred by the level of my anger.

But this is nothing compared to how angry I can really get.

He opens his mouth to speak, but I cut him off before he can utter a single word.

“And before you try to argue again or threaten us or whatever bullshit you think you can say to me, let me assure you that I don’t care who you are, why you’re here, or if you ever come back to my store.

I will literally jump over this counter and smash my phone into your face as many times as is necessary for this very simple information to make it to your useless fucking brain. ”

He's so bewildered he’s frozen in place.

“Don’t you ever, ever , insult my friend again,” I say, baring my teeth in a snarl. “Or it will be the last thing you ever do.”

A tall specter appears behind the man, the sunlight coming in from outside casting an odd halo around him. I shift back in surprise at the familiar figure as he places a long-fingered hand on the customer’s shoulder.

“If your little tantrum is over, I think it’s time for you to leave,” Sebastian says to him in a quiet, menacing voice. “Now.”

The sharp look in his eyes as he stares this man down sends a shiver down my spine and an unexpected surge of heat through my veins.

Honestly, his cold, angry intensity is kind of hot when it’s not directed at me.

“Fuck you,” the guy snaps, finally breaking out of his stupor and trying to shrug Sebastian’s hand off his shoulder. “Piss off and mind your own business. This has nothing to do with you, so?—”

It takes barely any movement at all. Sebastian’s hand tightens, and a look of pure agony bursts over the man’s face. I watch as Sebastian digs his thumb under the man’s shoulder blade, hitting a sensitive bundle of nerves with enough accuracy it looks like this asshole might pass out.

“You should leave,” Sebastian repeats in that same measured tone. His face is completely blank, the same cold, bored expression he always wears. “And if you ever come back here again, you’ll be leaving in pieces.”

And that’s all it takes. The guy practically runs out the door after Sebastian lets him go, leaving his Americano behind on the counter, steam still rising from the cup.

Jade stares at Sebastian as though seeing him properly for the first time, her mouth open in shock.

I’m sure I look just the same. Never in a thousand years would I have expected this.

Without a word to either of us, without even glancing in our direction, he reaches out to take the man’s drink, lifting and taking a sip.

He rolls it in his mouth .

“The man’s an idiot,” Sebastian declares, eyes flicking up to Jade, before setting the drink back on the counter. “This drink is perfect.”

Jade’s expression lifts, and she gives him a small, proud smile.

“Thanks. Really. I did have it handled,” I say. I may hate him, but anyone that defends Jade deserves some recognition from me. “But thank y?—”

“Forget it,” he cuts me off in an indifferent tone and turns around to walk back to his table, dismissing me entirely.

Maybe he doesn’t deserve anything from me after all. My anger rises again, threatening to break the surface for the second time today, but this time I’m able to quiet it. Pushing that rage down, I close my eyes and go through my breathing exercises.

One, two, three, four, five … I hold the air in my chest.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten … I let it out slowly.

“Why do you do that?”

The voice jars me out of my routine. It’s Sebastian, paused halfway to his table, staring back at me over his shoulder.

“Do what ?” I snap.

“Swallow your anger like that.” For once, he seems genuinely interested. Almost confused. “Pretend you don’t feel it.”

“I’m not pretending.” The words come out harsher than I mean to, and I force myself to take another deep breath.

I am an ocean of calm.

“I won’t let myself be a slave to my negative emotions,” I tell him, reciting another mantra one of many, many therapists I went to following my parents’ accident taught me.

I have a journal full of them somewhere in my bedroom—lines and lines of positive affirmations about reclaiming the good and letting go of the bad.

About refusing to let the darker, angrier side of me take over.

Sebastian considers me, eyes narrowed. Then, with a dismissive snort, he walks away.

“You should hire him for security,” Jade tells me later, during the evening lull while she helps me restock books. I know without asking exactly who she’s referring to.

“We couldn’t afford him,” I scoff. “I don’t know what Alec is paying him, but I’m sure it’s more than this place makes in a year. And let’s not forget, he’s an asshole . And, also, I hate him.”

“He’d do it for free, I bet,” Jade shrugs, ignoring the second half of my statement entirely. “Hell, he’s doing it for free right now.”

“You just like that he appreciates your drinks and pastries,” I tease. Sebastian has been eating breakfast and lunch from the café every day this week and has had nothing but compliments for the food.

“I like a man with good taste, that’s true,” Jade agrees, nodding. “But I think it’s your pastries he’s really interested in, Syd. Not mine.”

I scowl at her suggestive wink.

“I know you’re coming off the high of being right about Alec, but can we please not forget the most important thing here?

The whole ‘he’s an asshole’ and ‘I hate him’ thing?

He’s done nothing but ignore me, cut me off, and belittle me,” I remind her.

“He’s not interested in anything but insulting me, believe me. ”

Saying it aloud makes something twist unpleasantly in my stomach. It feels like a lie. He is interested in me; I just don’t understand why. Or what his interest means .

I never catch him looking, but it’s like I can feel Sebastian’s eyes on me all day, all over the store. It’s not a friendly feeling. It feels like he’s constantly assessing me, judging me. Waiting for me to make some kind of mistake that he can use to tattle to Alec.

Still, it was nice to have him step in like that. Like he was looking out for us. And seeing him handle that man? Seeing that dangerous side of him?

It was strangely thrilling.

“Maybe you’re interested in his pastries, too.” Jade laughs, watching me blush.