Page 49 of Irish Brute

Eliza Canna.

But there is no Eliza Canna, not anymore. She became Elisabetta Russo, and she’s dead.

My stomach twists, and I’m suddenly grateful I haven’t eaten all day. My finger shakes as I tap the screen.

“Mott,” I say, from years of habit.

“Youarea difficult woman to reach.”

Of course it’s Don Antonio. I’d know his grit-and-skewer voice anywhere. “What do you want?”

“Ah, Giovanna… Always full of fire.”

“I’m hanging up now.”

“I would not do that,” he says.

And God save me, I can’t. “Why are you calling?”

“So that you will have my private phone number.”

“I don’t need it.”

“But you will, Giovanna. Not today, and not tomorrow. But I promise you, you will.”

He ends the call before I can.

I do the right thing. I tell Liam I’ve been threatened. I let him draw his gun and lead me out of the building and into the car. I stare at his tense shoulders all the way back to Thornfield.

And when I get home, I go straight to Braiden’s desk.

“Long day at the office,” he says, with a calculating smile that tells me I may have broken a rule. “But before we discuss that, shall we get back to our interrupted conversation? About compliments you say you don’t?—”

“Don Antonio called.”

“What the?—”

I cut him off to repeat every word of my conversation with the Russo family don.

I expect Braiden to ignite. Instead, he gets quieter and quieter as he listens. His rage concentrates, like coal becoming a diamond. And when I’m through, he says, “New rule: No more work at the freeport.”

“We have a deal!”

“I just changed the terms.”

“If you keep me penned up here, then Don Antonio wins.”

“Nice try.”

“Trap will never go along with this.”

“Trap knows something about protecting women under his care.”

I could continue arguing. Eight years of practicing law have taught me how to muster facts. I’m an expert on harnessing laws—real ones, and the rules Braiden makes up out of whole cloth.

But the truth is, I’m more afraid of Don Antonio than I am of losing my freedom.

Still, I have to say: “If I’d known you’d do this, I would have brought things home from the office.”