Page 192 of The Enslaved Duet

“Look just like your father there, Davenport,” di Carlo rasped in his smoked-out voice as he raised a thick cigar to his lips. “Slick cat thinks he can just stroll into my territory mighty as he pleases without even asking my leave. How’s that workin’ out for ya?”

I looked over my shoulder to see Alexander standing stock-still under the press of a gun at the base of his neck. There was no sign of tension in the bored set of his features, no panic in his easy, regal posture. Only his stillness hinted that he was aware of the threat at his back.

He adjusted his cufflinks and checked the face of his Patek Phillipe watch. “Quite frankly, Giuseppe, I’m surprised you let us through the door.”

Thecapofrowned for a long moment and then laughed so loudly, his weak chin warbled. “Gotzo!What balls you have for a man in such jeopardy. You know this, that your father, he would pay me a princely sum to hand you over to him?”

Alexander scoffed. “Doubtful. I’ve been operating without threat from my father for years now.”

Di Carlo’s brows cut thick creases into his florid forehead. “I wasn’t speaking to you.”

Both men looked at me.

I could feel the air around Alexander surround me like smoke before it solidified to stone. Threatening him was one thing, but me, another.

In ten seconds, accompanied by a series ofsmacks,clicks, and grunts, Giuseppe’s thug was disarmed and Alexander was aiming his gun at his own temple.

“Speak to her like that again, and I’ll kill every person here,” he explained calmly.

The thug hissed through his clenched teeth, and Xan pressed the gun tighter to his head.

“Oh, sit the fuck down,” Giuseppe barked. “These poker nights are fucking sacred. Don’t need you ruinin’ that with bloodshed before we even get started. You see, fancy pants, how it works is like this. You want to threaten me, go ahead! But you do it through your wagers.”

He sat back in his chair to smoke, big belly protruding like a pregnancy bump as he waited for Alexander to decide.

After a moment’s pause, he took the gun from the thug’s temple and handed it by the barrel back to him. “Might want to learn how to use that, mate.”

He ignored the way the man cursed and collected my arm to guide me toward the table, taking a seat directly across from Giuseppe and installing me beside him.

“You are not the only unlikely guests who have arrived tonight,” Giuseppe added conversationally as he slid his eyes behind Xan’s shoulder. “Welcome,capo.”

My head turned so quickly, something crunched in my neck. I ignored the flare of pain when I took in Dante standing in a black suit with a dark red shirt looking every inch the mob boss he was. Complete with a glower that could have killed a grown man where he stood.

“Dante,” I mouthed, not wanting to give away my relief at his presence to the other men at the table but needing him to know I was outrageously happy to see him.

He blinked at me, but otherwise his expression didn’t change. He was channelling Alexander, the mighty coldness and impassivity that made him more statue than man.

“di Carlo,” Dante almost drawled as he moved farther into the room with his man Frankie at his back. “You wanted to talk so desperately that you sent men to ambush me. Well, here I am.” He unbuttoned his blazer and sank into the chair with infinite grace for such a large man. “Well, talk.”

Di Carlo licked his fleshy lips in undisguised glee. “So many interesting people here tonight. Tell me, Davenport and Salvatore, do you know Ren Tarsitani and Hugo Ralston?”

Dante had told me about Ren. He was the man everyone went to for information because, somehow, he knew everything about everyone in the New York City’s underworld. Not just the organized crime syndicates, but also the dirty politicians, society scandals and more. Based on the way he smiled slyly as he looked back and forth between Dante and Alexander, I figured the gorgeous, sharp-featured man with the ice chip eyes was Ren.

The other, bigger man who sat in his chair like an amorphous blob, I didn’t know, but on sight, I knew he was bad news.

“Pleasure,” Ren said with a nod of his head to both men on either side of me before affixing his almost colourless eyes on me. “Who, may I ask, is the great beauty you’ve brought with you?”

“She is of no consequence to you; therefore, you don’t need to know her name,” Alexander said calmly in a voice as implacable as forged steel.

Di Carlo huffed a laugh, obviously delighted with the tension solidifying the air in the room like taffy, sticky and impossible to tear through.

“Oh, but I think she could be very much of interest,” Ren rebutted. “We all know why you are here, Davenport, and it’s not to win dirty money from dirty men when you already have an abundance of your own. No, it’s to wininformation. Information that I happen to know.”

Di Carlo’s pleased expression creased into a jowly frown. “Now, Ren, I don’t want you to go stepping on my toes.”

Ren studied him for a long minute, reaching over to lift his rocks glass to his lips and take a draught of his whiskey. “If you leave us, Giuseppe, I don’t think anyone would hold you accountable for what goes on here tonight.”

“Why would I do that and miss all the fun?” he demanded like a spoiled child.