I shoved the first two thoughts away and let my anger begin to grow again.

  No, it wasn’t my business.

  But Sloane had been holding my heart for long enough that I wasn’t going to be okay with being in the same city as she was and failing to protect her from a guy who pretty obviously meant to do her some sort of harm.

  My father might have walked away. My brother, too.

  But that wasn’t me.

  It never had been.

  7

  SLOANE

  WALKING THE LINE

  I let my eyes dance over the parking lot as we pulled in, looking for a certain nondescript sort of car. You know the kind. The ones that no one notices. The ones that aren’t brightly painted or too flashy or too interesting.

  The ones that can melt into the background—along with the people driving them.

  Don’t look at me like that. When you grow up in the mafia and find yourself related to the head guy, you start to pick up certain habits. Like making sure that if you’re going to get out of your car, there’s no one waiting to kill you when your feet hit the pavement.

  “But what do you think he’s even doing here?” Brooks was asking.

  Brooks, of course, had grown up close to the mob but had never actually been related to it. She'd never been the target of a hit, or seen her own bodyguards go down for her, giving their lives so she could walk away.

  She'd never seen her father's best friend shot so many times she lost count.

  So she could pull into a parking lot without giving the other people in said parking lot a single thought.

  Lucky bitch.

  She was, instead, still harping on Joseph Rossi and his sudden presence in town.

  Not that I blamed her. That same question had been playing in the background of my mind ever since we left the beach—and him—behind.

  I had yet to come up with anything even remotely resembling an answer, and as much as I hated to admit it, I didn’t think that was going to change anytime soon. He obviously hadn’t been there to talk to me—as evidenced by him lying there and staring at me rather than coming over to say hello—so it wasn’t like I was going to get a straight answer from him, and though I still knew people in New York, I doubted they would know why he was here.

  They weren’t exactly privy to the inner workings of the Rossi clan.

  Which left me with exactly one choice.

  “How about we just forget about Joseph Rossi, hm?” I asked, pulling into a space that had three empties on either side of it.

  I’d paid for this car on my own. I didn’t want anyone else screwing it up.

  “Excuse me, missy,” Brooks scoffed. “One does not just forget Joseph Rossi.”

  Okay, so that was true.

  One didn’t just forget Joseph Rossi. Or his gorgeous eyes or broad cheekbones or firm jaw or that tousled hair that always looked like he’d just crawled out of bed. One didn’t forget the way his gaze shot right through you, as if he was staring into your very soul.

  Unless one didn’t know why he was in town but doubted that it had anything to do with you, and had watched him see you and then very specifically not come to talk to you, despite your long history and what you’d once thought of as a close friendship.

  “He’s not here for us, B, and that’s really all I need to know,” I told her bluntly. “And just in case it wasn't, here's one more: He's fucking dangerous, and no longer my best friend or someone I can count on, so we're probably better off if we don't see him again. Let’s go. I don’t want to get in trouble for being late to cut up stars or something.”

  Brooks didn’t say anything else, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking it. And since I’d known her most of my life, I was guessing I probably knew exactly what she was thinking.

  And if I was being honest, I was thinking the same thing.

  I hadn’t spoken to Joseph Rossi in approximately five years, and I hadn’t seen him in all that time, either. It wasn’t like we’d kept up on one another’s lives or anything like that.

  But I would have expected him to at least say hello if we saw each other again.

  The fact that he hadn’t… Well, it stung more than I was going to admit to anyone. Even Brooks.

  It also made me incredibly nervous.

  They’d already started decorating the lobby at the front of the building when we got there, and we were definitely in trouble for being late.

  “You call this helping?” Mel Jones, a portly, overwhelming black woman asked me, her eyebrows rising all the way up to her hairline. “Rolling in here an hour late like you only came because you don’t have anywhere better to be?”

  Anyone else might have backed down and apologized, terrified of the look on her face.

  But Brooks and I had been volunteering with her organization since we moved to LA, and I knew her well enough to know when she was bluffing.

  I shrugged and made like I was going to turn around and head back out the door. “I mean, if you don’t want us here, Mel, you could just have said so. I’m sure we can manage to—”

  She grabbed my arm and yanked me around before I could finish the sentence, her eyebrows returned to their natural placement now. “That’s not what I mean, little miss, and you damn well know it. You two are on the line in the back.”

  I grinned at her, not even caring about the scowl she was currently wearing. “Thanks, Mel. We’ll get on it.”

  “I think my hands are actually going to fall off soon,” Brooks moaned an hour later.

  “‘Woman dies when her hands fall off during her volunteer work,’” I intoned, suppressing a smile. “‘Cause of death: Stacking toys for children.’”

  She poked at me and I squirmed away, giggling. Brooks was nothing if not dramatic. The work we were doing was beyond easy. Every year, the charity we worked with decorated rec buildings throughout LA for needy kids, going all out with Christmas trees, decorations, lights, a full sled getup, Santa Claus (or at least an actor who portrayed him), and stacks and stacks of toys put out for the kids to choose from. The conveyor belt in the back of each location—or ‘the line,’ as Mel called it—was just that: a supported belt with an engine attached so that the thing revolved around the entire room, the stacks of toys on it moving through the space like a fucking buffet for the kids.

  It was one of my favorite features because it required at least a little bit of ingenuity when it came to figuring out how to put the toys on the belt in a way that would keep them stable even when they started moving. And I’d been there on Christmas, when someone turned the belt on and the kids got to see it for the first—or tenth—time.

  The looks on their faces were worth every single penny.

  “Stop complaining,” I told her firmly. “Remember last year when Mel made us go around hanging mistletoe? That was worse.”

  Brooks shook her head. “I’m still surprised we both came through that alive.”

  She was right. We hadn’t been able to reach a certain part of the ceiling, and someone (Brooks) had had the brilliant idea of stacking a smaller ladder on top of a table.

  It had resulted in both of us hitting the floor a whole lot harder than we would have liked. I was surprised we hadn’t cracked our heads open on the linoleum.

  I was laughing at the vision that brought into my head—limbs and hair tangled on the floor and both of us caught between laughing and crying—when I looked up and saw Joseph Rossi staring at me from the fake-snow-encrusted doorway into the auditorium.

  “What. The. Fuck,” I muttered, riding the line between the fear of seeing someone you didn't expect, who you knew was dangerous... and the thrill running up my backbone at the idea that the boy who’d once been the most important person in my life was in the same building as me.

  The same thrill I'd always felt when I saw him. The one that I was now starting to think was way off-base.

  Brooks, who had also been laughing, looked up as well, and then stepped protectively in front of me. “What’s he doing, fucking stalking you? Really?”

  I peeked around her shoulder, half loving her for wanting to protect me and half hating her for having cut off my view of the room. “Yes, I’m sure he came all the way out to LA just to stalk me. It’s so much more convenient than just picking up a phone.”

  I felt Brooks stiffen, and knew she was doing her best protective stance—which honestly wasn’t that impressive. I’d seen it from the other side when she was having a fight with her ex in high school, and it had just looked like she was about to turn and run away.

  Still, it came from a good place.

  “You don’t have to protect me, you know,” I muttered, shoving her to the side. “I know you think that you do, just because you’re bigger than me, but it’s not true.”

  “Oh no?” Brooks asked, her eyes still front and center. “Are you going to say that same thing when Joseph Rossi gets here holding the gun I’m pretty sure he has in his coat?”

  I turned to follow her eyes without asking anything else, and saw why she’d grown so stiff. Joseph was wearing an expression that said he was about to murder someone, his right arm folded over his chest and his hand resting just inside the edge of his leather jacket, his steps as he walked toward us quick and purposeful.

  Shit. Maybe I’d been wrong about him not being here for me.

  My body tensed, all of my instincts going on high alert as the muscle memory of being the hunted came back to me, and I was about to turn and look for the closest exit when my eyes caught on something else.

  Someone else. Someone behind Joseph.

  Caleb Massimo.

  My ex, and the guy who hadn’t exactly taken it well when I broke up with him a year ago. The guy who hadn’t taken anything well when we were dating, either, if I was being honest, and the guy none of my friends had liked.

  Breaking up with him had required my gun, let’s just put it that way.

  I felt it the moment Brooks saw him too, by the increased stiffness in her arm.

  “Well this just went from bad to worse,” she muttered.

  “Agree,” I replied. I grabbed her hand, turned, and started walking. “I hope you don’t mind if we go out the back way.”

  It wasn’t like they wouldn’t see where we were going. They were both following us, so it would be impossible for them to miss.

  But the back rooms of this place were a fucking maze, and it had taken me years to figure out how to navigate them. I was counting on that experience—and Joseph and Caleb’s lack thereof—to give Brooks and me time to get to my car and get the hell out of here before anything went down.

  I could flat out guarantee that my car was faster than anything either of them was driving.

  And thank God for that. Because I didn’t know about Brooks, but I just wasn’t in the mood to get shot today. And though I never would have dreamt it, it was sure starting to look like that was what Joseph was here to do.

  8

  JOSEPH

  DOUBLE TALK

  "They honestly do this every year?" I asked, my eyes on the floats crowding the street in front of us.

  "Every fucking year," Donny Patrelli muttered from my right. "It's a crock of shit, you ask me. But it makes for a good cover when it comes to meeting people you don't want anyone to see in your office. If you take my meaning."

  Oh, I took his meaning all right, and I moved my hand slightly, looking for the outline of the gun in my pocket. I knew it was there. I'd put it there this morning when I put on my jacket and headed out the door, and could still feel the weight of the thing against my chest.

  But knowing it was there and actually feeling it with my own fingers were two different things, and right now, out here on the West Coast and meeting with a family I'd never had any contact with before—and without any backup—I didn't want to leave anything to chance.

  I jerked at the thought, trying to remember why I hadn't brought reinforcements with me. Had my father offered? Had he told me I should bring someone along to help in case something went wrong?

  No, he didn't, my brain supplied, with a healthy dose of irony.

  Right. He'd told me to come alone. For reasons that I was now starting to think weren't entirely aboveboard.

  "And why exactly did we need another meeting in the first place?" I asked, forcing my voice to be as cold as possible. "I was under the impression that we'd already finished our business, Patrelli."

  The man next to me snorted. "We may have come to an initial agreement. That doesn't mean we're finished with our business."

  Oh. Right. Obviously. How could I have missed that?

  I'd thought we had a deal. Evidently I'd been wrong. Dammit. I didn't think I'd ever get used to the double—and triple—talk of the mob. People saying one thing and meaning another. People telling you that you had a deal when in reality, they meant to drag you out to some fucking parade in the middle of a hot LA day and passively threaten your life a little bit.

  Probably because they regretted the deal they'd made with you in the first place.

  The corners of my lips curved at the thought and I turned to Patrelli, taking in the already receding hairline—even though he was only thirty-two—and the sneer on his face. I allowed one eyebrow to rise up at him, already knowing what he saw when he returned the look. Aviator sunglasses. Square jaw. Pursed lips.

  A full head of hair.

  "Patrelli, as far as I'm concerned, our deal's already done," I told him coldly. "And that means that we don't have any other business here. Now, unless you have more to offer me and my family, I'd suggest you get the hell out of my hair. Before I have to do something we'll all regret."

  Was it overkill? Maybe. An overreaction? Probably.

  Was I out here on my first big assignment for the family and feeling like I needed to prove myself?

  Absolutely.

  Patrelli narrowed his eyes at me, then turned his eyes out to the crowd, like he was trying to get away from my glare. As he should.

  I turned and followed his eyes, my own eyes going right past the Santa-Clause-flavored float in front of us and to the crowd on the other side of the street.

  And that was when I saw Sloane.

  She didn't have Brooks with her, at least not that I could see, and she also wasn't looking at the float passing in front of us. Instead, she was staring right at me, her eyes narrowed and her mouth tight. Those eyes flew to my left and took in Donny Patrelli, and her mouth tightened even more.

  When her eyes came back to me, they were contemplative. Wondering what exactly I was doing.

  Maybe even concerned.

  Which was fucking rich, considering she’d ducked out on me last night via that maze of rooms at the back of the building I’d found her in. Not one single care for whether I was going to get stuck in there for an hour, trying to find my way out.

  Which I had.

  I glared back, putting all my frustration into that one look, and saw her eyes flare with recognition.

  And then the float got between us, and I lost sight of her. I stiffened, hating that I didn't know what she was doing in that moment, and nearly moved, just to try to keep my eyes on the spot where she'd been standing.

  Then I remembered that I was in the middle of threatening Donny Patrelli. I couldn't exactly excuse myself, tell him I'd be right back, and move to try to catch sight of Sloane again.

  I mean I could. But I was thinking it would probably ruin the whole ambiance I'd been putting together up to that point.

  "Look, I'm not saying we don't have a deal," Patrelli said, ignorant of the million and one thoughts that had just flown through my head. "I am saying that there might be other business to be done."

  Oh.

  I hadn't even considered it, but if he had other loads of jewels to move—if I could go home with more loot than I'd originally been sent here for—then it could change everything. It would do a whole lot to show my father that I was capable of more than he realized.

  It might even keep him from sending me into the lion's den without backup in the future.

  I was opening my mouth to say that I might be agreeable to further business when I saw Sloane again. And she hadn't just moved a little bit. She'd moved a lot.

  In fact, she was on her way over to my side of the street, her eyes still flitting between me and Patrelli and her lips still drawn into a thin, displeased line. She was also walking very quickly, nothing casual about her stride. She wasn't trying to hide that she was coming over here.

  She was being completely fucking obvious about it.

  And the moment she caught sight of me looking at her, she tipped her head again and gave me the look she'd always given me when she knew she was doing something I didn't want her to do.

  The look that said she didn't give one single damn what I thought about it, because she was going to do it anyhow.

  I knew that look by heart. It was one of my favorite looks in her arsenal, though I never would have told her that, and the moment I saw it, my heart did some insane thing where it managed to grow three sizes in the space of about a second.

  But none of that—not the look or the heart-growing thing or anything else—was going to change the fact that this was not the time for my reunion with Sloane Brennan. This wasn't the time for Sloane anything. I was in the middle of a meeting with the first guy my father had given me to meet with—the guy my father had sent me all the way to the West Coast for—and it was not the time for my former best friend-slash-crush-slash-daughter-of-my-enemy to just show up and start shouting at me.

  And based on the daggers she was shooting my way with her eyes, that was exactly what she was going to do.

  That was Irish Brennan's daughter right there, about to bust in on Official Rossi Business. And if that happened, I'd have to do something about it.

  Something I didn't want to do.