Page 46 of Scorned Beauty

“It’s you,” I rasped, and I winced at the pain needling my larynx.

The concern in Dom’s eyes slowly morphed into rage.

Wait, was he mad at me? But no, he was glaring at my throat.

“What the fuck?” His fingers traced my neck. “Who did this?”

Dom

Some fucker strangled Sloane.She had fingermarks around her neck. Someone was going to die.

“What piece of shit did this?”

She grabbed the covers and pulled them over her head. “I can’t right now.”

I dropped to my knees, trying to rein in my anger because if Sloane was a victim of violence, my fury was the last thing she needed to see. “Talk to me, baby, please?”

I gently drew back the blanket to expose her eyes. “What happened?”

“Why are you here, anyway?”

“You haven’t been responding to my texts tonight, and I got worried.”

“Didn’t you have a gala this evening?”

“Yes.” And my date was pissed because she thought she was going home with me. It was the third event in a row that I’d asked her to be my date. The evenings always ended up with me taking her home.

“How did it go?”

Frustration at my inability to protect her clawed at me. “You’re seriously asking me about an event when you’re lying here hurt?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

And there it was. Suspicions scrambled my brain. It wasn’t a mugging. It couldn’t be the Italians, so it could only be the Russians. But why? I made sure Billy got sent away to Florida, involving him in a high-stakes gambling operation I’d partnered with Grigori. That way I had more control and cover for Billy in case he fucked up and keep the heat off Sloane. Meanwhile, Grigori had kept me dangling on the properties. He was saying he’d been in talks with their pakhan to sell them back to me.

But the properties weren’t my priority right now. Luca had issued a lockdown last night. He wasn’t forthcoming with information, but everyone I contacted in the Moretti crime family denied or blocked my calls. We were on edge not knowing what was going on, and that was why I panicked when Sloane wasn’t responding to my texts.

And I found her strangled?

“Was it the Russians?”

Her lips trembled. “You can’t do anything about it.”

“The fuck I can’t.”

“You and Grigori have business together,” she whispered. “Don’t think I don’t know that. Billy…you had Billy sent to Florida.” At the narrowing of my eyes, she added, “He sent money for Harriet and called me. We had a chat. But this has nothing to do with Billy. It’s just…my life associated with the mob is catching up with me.”

Did that include me? No. I was projecting my own guilt because I was a part of the world responsible for the marks on her neck. We kept our relationship a secret. It worked fine until the inability to protect her started eating at me, especially now that Luca was up to something. He was in a tit-for-tat war with the Russians in Chicago, which made my association with the New York bratva treacherous. One wrong move and we could end up in a bloody war.

“I don’t want to leave you here.”

She pushed up on her elbow and then slowly rolled to a sitting position, swinging her legs off the bed so we were face to face. “I think we shouldn’t see each other for a while.”

“What? No,” I growled. “I’m moving you to The Grindhouse.” The Grindhouse was our building in Hell’s Kitchen. The Syndicate and De Lucci crime family met in the basement we called The Underground. The first level housed the family’s boxing gym and Jabbin’ Java, Renz and Liz’s café bakery. Above it were apartments and the third-floor unit was frequently used by the De Luccis for safe houses or simply a place to crash in.

“And what? Just advertise to the entire underworld that we’re together?” She shot up to her feet and scampered out of the room, mumbling about needing water. I stalked after her. She filled an electric kettle and plugged it in.

“I need you to tell me what happened.” Frustration gnawed at me.