Page 8 of Filthy Little Regrets (Princes of NYC #2)

five

CASSIA

An hour passes, and Rose gets pulled a million different directions, leaving me at the table alone.

I don’t mind, but the longer she’s away, the more I worry about what Mace said right before he disappeared down a hallway with that man.

I sent Ian a text, but he hasn’t responded.

I can’t stop picturing him dead in some ditch, killed by the bratva or maybe even the mafia.

My nails dig into my palms, pain counteracting the tightening of my lungs. Mace hasn’t come back, either.

Is he in trouble?

Does it have to do with what I did to help Ian?

Rose is talking to Senator Kane’s daughter. I release a heavy breath. Normally, I’d ask her what to do, but I don’t want to risk getting her into some sort of trouble when she’s already dealing with so much. Besides, I don’t even know what’s happening. I should talk to Mace first.

I pick my way through the tables of men and women dressed to the nines, eyes set on the hallway Mace went down.

This is probably a bad idea. This is a terrible idea.

The tightness in my chest begs me to leave it alone, but I can’t.

Somehow, Mace knew about that wire transfer I initiated. Is he going to rat me out?

Checking to make sure no one is following me, I scan the room.

My eyes connect with Remy’s, and his eyebrows press together.

His loyalty is to Rose, but it’s clear the bodyguard is wondering what the hell I’m up to.

I smile at him as if nothing is wrong and duck into the hallway, hoping he won’t follow me.

With a deep breath, I creep down the hall, eyeing the doors I pass like someone might jump out and grab me.

The only sign of life comes from the door at the end of the hall.

Muffled voices slip beneath the door. The music from the main party is so loud, it’s hard to make out any words.

I edge closer, pressing my ear to the wood, barely registering the conversation within the room over the thudding of my heart and thumping bass.

“He’s a fuckin’ liar, Boss,” a guy says, voice strained. “I swear I’m not working with Morozov!”

Stomach flipping, I suck in a hard breath. Oh my god. Morozov was the name on the other account.

“The fuckin’ money doesn’t lie, Luca!” another voice booms.

“I’m loyal to the family, Vito. No. No, Vito! Come on, man, don’t do this. I’m loyal to the?—”

A soft pop sounds, followed by a sharp cry and a hard thud. My eyes widen and my heart hammers. Was that what I think it was?

“Clean it up,” the same booming voice snarls.

Movement heads toward me, and I take two quick steps back, but before I can make a run for it, the door is ripped open and I’m face-to-face with none other than Vito Marino.

My knees threaten to buckle. The head of the Marino family—whose picture I’ve only ever seen in think pieces about the evolution of the mafia and its influence over politics and billionaires—glares at me.

There’s no mistaking him. Olive skin. Rich, dark hair with streaks of gray. A hardness that only comes with doing unthinkable things, accented with the gold rings and chains. Vito stops in his tracks when he sees me and tips his head, his vitriol and irritation lancing through me.

“Who do we have here?” he asks in a thick Queens accent, the inflections sounding like a death sentence.

An invisible hand clamps around my throat.

“I was looking for the bathroom,” I say quickly, preparing to take another step away, but he surges forward, wrapping his hand around my bicep hard enough to bruise.

I yelp. He yanks me into the room, releasing me so quickly that I stumble in my heels. My ankles scream in protest.

“We got a live one,” Vito says.

A rich and heady copper scent hits my nostrils right before my eyes land on the man lying face down on the floor, crimson pooling around his head. A hole sits prominently on the back of his skull. Terror slices through me, my breath stuttering.

A gunshot. That’s what I heard. The guy isn’t moving.

My knees weaken. There’s blood. Everywhere.

He’s dead. A gasp rips out of me, but before I can scream, a hand clamps over my mouth and a hard body presses into me from behind.

Heart threatening to leap out of my chest, I thrash, fighting the hold.

My gaze skips over the men in the room. I vaguely recognize one of them as the guy who came to get Mace.

There are seven in total. No, eight with the man at my back, and only one of me .

My bladder trembles.

Vito caught me eavesdropping. There’s a dead body. I’m a witness they didn’t expect. I think we all know how this ends.

“Cassia,” Mace growls into my ear.

His voice should be a relief, but my heart seizes with the realization that he was here, with the men who killed... What was his name? Luca. The guy whose bank account I hacked into and stole from. He’s dead because of me.

This is my fault.

Guilt skewers me, turning me inside out. This is nothing like what I had done to Ryker and Rayce. I knew they both deserved it. I did my research. I had time to prepare for their deaths, and even then, I didn’t actually watch them die. I didn’t see their lifeless bodies.

“You know this broad?” Vito snaps, gun drawn and hanging at his side.

When did he take that out? Is he going to shoot me?

My stomach revolts, bile rising. I swallow and press into Mace, the only person in the room who might help me.

I wanted to uncover his secrets, to understand what he was hiding so I knew exactly who I was dealing with, but now I wish I’d left it alone.

The arms around me tighten. “This is my fiancée.”

My entire body is trembling, but those words stop the shaking. I’m sorry. What?

Vito’s eyes assess me, then narrow on Mace. “Since when are you engaged?”

“Since today,” he says, turning me away from Luca’s lifeless form, pinning the front of my body to his. His eyes sear into mine in warning, and my chest heaves as panic settles in.

“What are you saying?” Vito asks .

Mace smooths one hand up my spine, burying his fingers in the strands of my hair and tugging my head back so I’m looking straight at him.

My heart stumbling over itself, I bounce my eyes between his.

There’s a flash of something in his gaze, maybe regret, only it’s there and gone before I can analyze it.

My lips part to ask a question, but suddenly his thumb is there, stroking over my bottom lip.

Shut up the pressure of his touch says.

“She’s going to be my wife,” he murmurs, his gaze breaking away from mine to stare down the man with the gun. “Wives are protected.”

“But,” Vito says slowly, “she’s not your wife.”

“Yet,” Mace says, voice dangerously low. His next words yank a pin out of a grenade and toss it into the middle of the room. “Kill her, and we’ll have a problem.”

Silence follows, so heavy and oppressive, it squeezes my lungs until my hard pants fill the space, everyone suspended in some violent in-between. Vito has a decision. Shoot me and Mace and see how Darius Astor reacts, or let me live and take the risk of my snitching.

The weight of Vito’s gaze feels like a thousand knives digging into my back. My skin pebbles and every hair rises, instincts telling me not to give him my back, but I don’t think I can look at the body again without throwing up.

“Are you tying your life to hers?” Vito asks.

He doesn’t even hesitate. “Yes.”

“Make it official and keep her in line.”

“Done.”

My heart jackhammers.

“Good. Now, get her the fuck out of here,” Vito snarls.

Mace glances at me, and I grip his shirt, terrified, relieved he found a way to save me, but more than anything, confused. What the actual fuck is going on?

Mace practically carries me out of the room, slipping into the conference room across the hall and closing us inside.

The weight of my unspoken questions teeter on the edge of the silence stretching between us.

Heart slamming against my rib cage, I take a shallow breath, trying to steady myself, but it’s not easy after everything that just happened.

Most concerning of all is that the idea of marrying him is far more terrifying than seeing Luca’s dead body.

Reality settles in my blood like a frigid winter’s breeze .

Mace’s embrace is suddenly stifling. Every instinct screams at me to fight against it, to keep from drowning in a life that isn’t mine.

Prying his hands off of me, I whirl around and take a few steps away on weak legs. “What was that?”

His eyes glint when ours clash. “What was that? What the fuck were you thinking?”

I rear back. “Excuse me? There’s a fucking dead body in the next room, Mace!” As soon as the words are out, I know it was a bad idea to shout, and he goes from angry to furious in a matter of seconds.

One moment, he’s a few feet away, and the next, he’s pushing me into the wall, pinning me to it with a hand around my throat.

My pulse careens off its tracks, my breath stumbling in my lungs.

His fingers aren’t as tight as they could be, but I still feel trapped, caged in.

The shadows in his gaze have my scream evaporating, and intrigue flares.

There’s that darkness I recognize.

Mace searches my face for a few seconds, making sure I’m not going to scream again before growling, “The fucking mafia, Cassia? Do you have a death wish?”

I scoff. “Me?” I grab his forearm and try to rip his hand from my throat, but it’s useless. Mace is too strong. “You’re the one sucking mafia dick.”

“Careful,” he says, voice low and full of venom. There’s a promise of violence in the way he searches me, and without even having to say it, I can hear the warning. Don’t make me hurt you.

Fear has adrenaline shooting through my veins, hot like acid, and everything in the room seems to hyper focus. His breaths are harsh. His pulse thrums against my skin, a fast and brutal beat vibrating through the pads of his fingers. His navy irises flicker with ire.