Romeo The Mafia Casanova

She would die tonight. Rhia thwarted a sound of pure dread forcing an escape from her suddenly parched throat.

Rhia worked her throat a couple of times, but truly nothing dislodged the sandpaper stuck there. Despite heroic efforts, nothing allowed her to swallow the clump of fear choking her.

Would they kill her as they had her father? Or worse?

Admittedly she couldn’t think of what worse would look like.

Growing up telling the truth always seemed to work out better. It was just how she worked. However, in the last few months, she’d swan-dived into her first crash course of subterfuge and the art of lying. She found out that swimming with great white sharks would have been safer than walking through the doors of Haven.

Yet all that flew out the window the second their voices hit her ears.

And calling her ‘my little one didn’t make her fear them any less.

Sevastyan posed a good question. She could write a twenty-page single-spaced report on why she’d braved all the rumors she’d heard about him and his men.

Rhia’s spine went rigid, and the soles of her bare feet squeaked on the polished floor as she slowly turned.

She swallowed. Steeled her resolve like the fucking badass she was and glued her feet to the floor. For a moment the silent mental pep talk worked. And then reality set in.

Badass. Yeah, right. Who would believe that? But she had to try to work up her courage when facing the big bad wolves somehow.

The facts were better.

She braced her knees, a heel and a half in hand, and let the fear leech from her only to shove a brave face in its place. And like the whipped cream on a sundae, she topped it off with a killer smile.

Eat your heart out, Sharon Stone. Somebody give me an fucking Oscar. Her love of Basic Instinct finally paid off.

Her gaze found first Sevastyan’s before stealing over to Matteo’s. Her heart wanted to climb out of her chest. But she locked it down fast.

She’d been right. These men personified dark and dangerous. She hoped like hell deadly wouldn’t be added to that list. At least not with her in the room.

And so much for not running into walls. Though not exactly made of stone, this wall materialized mere inches from her nose, yet equally formidable and rock solid. The walls were cold and unforgiving, but this one was decked out in three-piece suits tailored to find every contour on a man and hug it just right.

The forgiving part was yet to be determined.

From the tight-lipped expression on Sevastyan’s stony face, the cold analogy probably held though.

He came off as polished and sophisticated but not in a pretty sense. He carried himself with confidence and had a look about him that screamed power and money. He moved like a predator. But it went deeper. She saw the same rough edges in her second oldest brother. A man that had spent the last decade of his life in the Special Forces. She witnessed the young man she’d grown up with turn from an easygoing boy full of life to a hardened man with horror in his eyes. When she used to ask him to talk to her, his only answer was always the same quick shutdown. So she stopped asking. Every deployment he returned darker, the tattered edges of the boy she grew up with more jagged. Even now after leaving the service and working for their father, he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. And she saw the same in Volkov. Except his jagged edges were sharp enough to cut anyone who came too close.

And Matteo seemed to be no different.

He weighed her silently from beside Sevastyan.

You had to look past the deceiving quiet outer layers, she’d learned long ago. People loved to put up walls. This particular one had broad shoulders perfect for well, anything. Long powerful legs that had him towering over her by a good three inches or more and hands she bet knew how to pleasure every part of a woman’s body and handle a firearm with the same easy grace. Matteo was a man a woman would be hard to say no to and why they probably didn’t see the dark angles of the man until it was too late.

Sometime between leaving the main floor and making his way up to the third-floor offices, Sevastyan had loosened the gold tie he’d picked for the evening and popped the buttons at the base of his throat to reveal more black ink.

Matteo the same. Only he liked to show a little more skin. Her attention washed over the dusting of hair on his chest.

The dark jacket Sevastyan paired with his pristine dress slacks hung over one shoulder. Both men wore their cuffs rolled back to reveal thick forearms and a blaze of colorful tattoos that teased her curiosity. Anything that started that low on the forearms had to encompass the entire arm. Maybe more.

In the span of a millisecond, Rhia drank in every inch from the way biceps pushed at the material of dress shirts; to the white material clinging to very evident ripped abs. Her gaze shifted. She couldn’t help but watch as Matteo crossed beefy arms across a wide chest and closed in another step.

She stumbled a half pace back, but the large desk kept her from moving another inch.

They tilted their heads, waiting for a good enough answer, no doubt.

She wanted some of her own but knew it wouldn’t be that easy. Millions of questions banked on the back of her tongue, ready to spill out like alphabet confetti despite the fear that trickled into her veins on a steady drip for the last hour.

Self-preservation had her eyes darting to the only exit unfortunately blocked by the wall of muscle in front of her.

Sevastyan caught her gaze with his penetrating glare. Danger or not, part of her couldn’t help but wonder what his muscular form would look like spread out on a bed of white sheets.

Silence hung between them, but she swore these men did more talking than most with the intense stares they used to glue her to where she stood.

Rhia swallowed hard and wrestled every drop of self-dignity left in her body away from the temptation to beg for mercy and instead lifted her chin high.

The man oozed anger and had a toughness about them that no fancy suit could suave over.

Like a sleeping cobra, Sevastyan hid his true self under a deceptive calm. Even in the low light, she noticed the swirling anger in their eyes and the sheet of false patience that covered both men’s expressions.

Here goes nothing.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I only needed to see a friend.” She masked her nerves with a sultry laugh.

Sevastyan tossed his jacket on the end of the desk. “I see.” His expression turned dark. “And who did you come here to see, kroshka?”

A small humorless quirk of a smile played on his lips. If she ran, he would catch her. The way he watched her every minute movement made her believe she wouldn’t make it an inch from this desk until they allowed her to move.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry for disturbing your evening. I’ll return to the main floor now and finish out my shift.” She took a step to her right, intent on leaving, and just like she feared, a steel band clamped around her middle and yanked her back into place.

Surprise forced a yelp from her.

“Going somewhere, carina?”

Sweetheart? God, he made dying sound so sexy.

When she didn’t answer Matteo laughed deeply and it pulled an invisible string attached to the dread in the pit of her stomach. Damn him.

Matteo pressed his body closer to hers, tracing a finger along the side of her cheek. His body encased hers, cutting off any hopes of leaving here unscathed.

“I guess not.”

She didn’t mean to sound sarcastic, but there it was. Fear of death did funny things to the brain. And so did lust.

Matteo let out a soft chuckle, his busy hands brushing over her shoulder and down the outside of her bare arm.

“Claro que no, amor,” he murmured and God did it sound equal parts sexy and scary. Because while his voice did things to her body, it also sent up red flags in her mind.

From in front of her Sevastyan’s expression shifted from pissed off to inquisitive to downright devilish in a blink of an eye. The exchange had been fast, but she picked up the glint in his piercing eyes. He’d used it on her earlier that evening, and she hadn’t mistaken the meaning then nor now.

He angled his head low and leaned in. “Tell me something. What piques your interest so much to risk your job? Your life, moyakroshka?” Rolled ‘R’s and soft vows hit her ears. Being agitated made his accent thicker. At the same time, there was a sharp edge to his voice as he cast a glance over her shoulder.

Of God. Her head spun. She gripped the edge of the desk as tightly as she could and held in a cringe as pain jolted through her fingers. Channeling her inner Sharon Stone grew harder by the minute.

Kroshka? When the sweet endearment came from Sevastyan’s lips, the little pet name came off as a cloaked threat. If the set of his shoulders didn’t give it away, the growl in his voice did.

She forced a tight smile to sell her lie, but the crease in his brow only deepened. Sweet endearment or not, the power of his wrath wasn’t in his words, but his actions.

She swallowed down an embarrassing whimper.

“You,” she whispered, unable to meet their eyes. “I’m here for you.”

Instead, her attention drew to his side where he slowly tucked a hand into his pocket.

“Both of you.” She might as well go all in.