Page 34 of Sin City Obsession (De Salvo Empire #1)
Chapter seventeen
Connections
“I know I agreed to this,” Rocco said, his voice pitched low but not so low that the nearest men couldn’t hear, “but I still don’t like it.”
Alessa smoothed her palm over his chest, as if she were pressing out a wrinkle in his pristine shirt.
“I know.” She offered him a soft smile. She really did understand.
She imagined he felt as though he were being tugged in five different directions, and spending any length of time on one task likely made him feel as if he were neglecting the rest. She hated contributing to that.
“But it needs to be done, and there’s no sensible reason for you to have to come along. ”
Still, Rocco scowled. “I—”
“Have at least three other places you should be,” Alessa said pointedly. She pushed herself up, grazed his lips with hers in a brief whisper of a kiss, and retreated. “I’m a big girl. I can handle myself.”
Finally, Rocco bit out a sigh. “I know. You’re right.” He raised the hand he’d yet to release, kissed her knuckles, and gave her a nod. “Just be safe out there.”
Alessa smiled. “Isn’t that why you’re sticking me with a new shadow?” That, and because Ignazio was neither fully recovered from the shoutout nor willing to abandon his rotation in Cavallo Senior’s security post. Alessa suspected Rocco hadn’t pushed too hard on the latter.
Rocco’s lips twitched and he slid his stare promptly to the side, where Emanuele and the younger, less-familiar male, Marzio, stood in patient silence. “Marzio.”
His gaze snapped up and over immediately, and Alessa couldn’t help but think that he really did look like a younger Ignazio.
The two were biological siblings, Marzio four years Ignazio’s junior.
Their relationship was glaringly apparent in their features, with their facial structure and coloring similarities.
Marzio was actually a bit taller, but physically slimmer, and he hadn’t mastered the hardened exterior quite yet.
“Sir?”
Rocco released Alessa’s hand in order to take hold of her shoulder in an unnecessary statement.
“Alessa’s safety is your utmost priority.
If she gets so much as a scratch, you lose a limb.
You will be respectful, and you will do what she asks so long as it doesn’t jeopardize her wellbeing. Is that understood?”
She saw Marzio nod sharply in assent, but Rocco’s words resonated with an old, buried memory. And no sooner had that whisper of a memory crossed her mind than her breath caught in her throat and Alessa found herself chasing it, replaying it, listening closer. Looking for clues.
Late the previous summer, she had been kicking up her feet in a makeshift breakroom with Al and a few of their colleagues.
It was technically Al’s off-day, but he was as much a workaholic as her, so on his off-days he hung out in family spaces anyway.
She remembered the look of wide-eyed surprise on Al’s face even clearer than Tony’s words.
Though, to be fair, she had often only paid Tony the bare minimum of attention.
“Hey, did you guys here what happened to Jarrod? Boss had him babysitting some pretty girl he’d picked up the other day …
but Jarrod was Jarrod, y’know? Word is, dumbfuck jerked her around or something, and the boss lost his shit.
Beat Jarrod senseless in front of his whole crew, then used Jarrod’s gun and blew his face off.
” Tony mimed an explosion over his own face in case none of them knew what to envision.
“Boss used a gun?” one of the guys asked skeptically.
“Over a chick?” another one asked.
Tony leaned forward in his seat. “Not a chick. His woman . He made a big damn deal about it. Told everyone there. We lay a hand on this lady, we go out like dumbfuck Jarrod.”
Al let out a sharp whistle. “Boss has a woman. ”
Alessa remembered having been skeptical about the entire story for another day or two, until word broke that Dante did, in fact, have a woman in his life all of a sudden.
A slip of a redhead he couldn’t seem to pry himself away from.
From her vantage everything had seemed to happen so quickly it almost felt like a prank …
but that unknown redheaded female was Iris De Salvo now, and on the verge of delivering the boss’s heir.
There was no denying it had all been very real.
Her heart beat a little harder, a little louder, as she replayed Tony’s year-old words against Rocco’s minutes-old words one more time.
“Boss had him babysitting some pretty girl … jerked her around … Boss lost his shit. We lay a hand on this lady, we go out like dumbfuck Jarrod.”
“If she gets so much as a scratch, you lose a limb.”
And it wasn’t as if Rocco didn’t have a history.
“Alessa?” Rocco tilted her head up with a warm, gentle hand at her jaw. “You good, beautiful?”
Did that mean … was she Iris in this situation?
She drew a shaky breath. She really did not have time to analyze that.
“I’m fine,” she said, finding a smile to offer with her words.
To distract him from hearing the uncertainty in her answer, Alessa kissed him one more time and lowered her voice to a whisper.
“Go, check in on your father. Touch base with your men. Do what needs doing. I won’t be all day.
” Her fingers landed over his heart. “Stay alive for me.” The request was past her lips before she could hear it, let alone stop it, and it made her breath falter .
But it softened his expression and he stroked a thumb over her cheek. “I will if you do, my queen,” he murmured, his lips against her forehead. Then he stepped back, stepped aside, and let his arms hang at his sides. “Check in with me if I won’t see you for lunch.”
Alessa willfully ignored the swelling lump in her throat. “Deal.” Then she forced her feet forward, nodded briefly to Emanuele, and stepped into the elevator.
Marzio entered behind her, twisted in place, and positioned himself directly in front of the sliding doors.
Alessa pressed the button for the garage level and asked, “Do you have a car we can use, or should we do this with an Uber?” It was an asinine question, but they had to start somewhere. We will not be starting with an Uber.
He turned just enough to cut an incredulous look at her for a lingering second, straightened, and said, “Don Cavallo clearly has faith in you, but if you insist on a rideshare, the only place I’ll be willing to take you is an emergency mental health facility.”
Alessa grinned. “A full sentence, and snark. You’re not entirely your brother. We can make this work.”
His shoulders tightened with tension. “Ma’am.”
“Relax, Marzio. I wasn’t serious about the Uber. Obviously, we’re taking a private vehicle.” The elevator dinged with their arrival, the doors swished open, and she patted him on the shoulder before he could step away. “You do understand what it is I need to do this morning, right?”
“It’s not my business to invade your privacy,” Marzio replied as he took one single step beyond the elevator.
His head swept from side-to-side, his body blocking the opening, and only when he was satisfied they weren’t about to be ambushed or shot at did he make room for her to exit the box she had twice had to stall during his sweep.
“We’ll use the vehicle Emanuele had me bring, I’ll take us where you request to go, and if there’s any danger—”
Alessa jumped in front of him as he spoke, spinning in place and planting her hands on her hips.
It was a classic, downright cliché, power stance, but it made its point.
She raised her chin and narrowed her eyes just enough to make sure he could see she wasn’t joking around this time.
“Listen, I respect that Rocco told you to keep me safe. I will completely allow you to do your job … within reason. But let’s get a couple things straight, Marzio. ”
He narrowed his eyes but did not attempt to interrupt.
“I am no damsel,” Alessa continued. “I am no wilting wallflower. I am no ignorant, swooning female who just happened to fall into Rocco Cavallo’s bed.
I’d lay odds I’ve been in this life longer than you , even, and I can damn sure promise you I know how to hold my own.
So in the event of danger, the absolute last thing I will be doing is cowering behind some improvised shield and shaking in my goddamn boots. Got that?”
With that pinch of irritation in the corner of his eyes and the taut jaw, he looked more like Ignazio than ever. “Difficult and overconfident. Got it.”
Well. So much for getting along. She huffed out a purposefully audible breath. “Ditto. ”
They lapsed into silence as Marzio led the way to his low-profile SUV. He insisted, of course, that she ride in the back, and he refused to make conversation beyond acknowledgment of her directions on where to go. Seemed like they’d made fast friends.
Alessa sat back and tipped her head toward the window.
She wasn’t honestly even in the mood for what she needed to do, but she hadn’t lied about her reason for getting it done.
They couldn’t leave the arguably little things to sit and wither just because something bigger had come along.
That was the kind of irresponsible, reckless behavior that got people caught and busted.
So she used the short drive to reflect on the relevant incident, to make sure anything she needed to touch on was fresh in her mind. It helped the drive pass quicker, too.
“How do you know about this location?” Marzio asked after they’d exited the vehicle.