“No, I have—”

“He will pick you up and carry you.” He would have been shouting if his voice had been raised, but he kept all the power and tension while practically whispering.

I knew then why he was capo. I hung up on him. I wouldn’t disobey him, but I didn’t have to tolerate the tone either.

“Kat,” I said, “this guy’s driving me to see Antonio. We’re going to follow you home first and make sure you get in the door, okay?”

“Okay, Tee Dray.” Her voice was suspicious even as her words were compliant.

I turned to Otto. “Okay?”

He held up his hands in surrender and smiled. Both of his pinkies were missing. “It’s no problem.” He had a thick accent.

He opened my car door. I started to get out, but Katrina put her hand on my forearm.

“Thank you,” she said.

“It’s no problem,” I said in Otto’s accent.

She smiled. “You’re pretty badass. I didn’t know that about you.”

“Me neither.”

Otto had parked his incredibly nondescript silver Corolla two spaces down, and he opened the back door for me.

When he got in, I said, “The car smells nice.”

“Grazie. There’s no smoking in the car. Still smells new, no?”

“It does.”

“Okay, I take your friend home, then we go, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where are we going?” I asked after we’d walked Katrina to the door.

Otto tapped on his phone from the front seat. “The office. But I confirm now.”

“How long have you been watching me, Otto?”

He shrugged and pulled out. “A week. I sleep in the car. But no smoking in it. My wife, she’s mad I’m not home, but I have a job to do until the boss tells me to stop doing it.”

“I hope you get to see her again soon.”

He waved the notion off with a flip of his four-fingered hand. “Spin, he save my life. She just make me crazy all the time. Watching you? Like a vacation.”

“How did he save your life?”

“That is a long story, I promise.”

“I have time.”

He made a motion of locking his lips and throwing away the key. “Let him tell you. But he won’t. He is too modesto.”

“Antonio Spinelli? Modest?”

“Like a priest.”

I bit back a laugh.

We approached East Side Motors. The yellow and black sign faded orange in the dimming light. The parking lot was clearer, so we pulled in without much trouble. Antonio stood in the middle of the lot in a black suit, waiting. The security lights cast a sunburst of shadows around him.

Otto pulled up. “Buonasera, boss.”

“Thank you, Otto,” Antonio said as he opened my door. “Go on inside and get coffee, then go home and rest.”

“Grazie,” Otto said and disappeared through the garage door.

Antonio took my hand, and I got out of the car.

“Contessa,” Antonio said softly, his face deeply shadowed in the artificial light.

“Yes, Capo?”

He pushed me against the car. “I told you not to see him.”

“He slapped Katrina around. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t wait for you to take care of it.”

“And did you take care of it?” His hands moved up my rib cage, thumbs tucking under my breasts.

I looked down. “Not really. He won’t take prepayment. He made threats.”

He held my face in one hand, a little too tight, to make me look him in the eye. “He threatened you?”

“He threatened Katrina.” I pushed him off me. “I want to go home. My God, how did I let myself get stuck here?”

I pushed him hard, and he stepped back. Having gotten out from under him, I walked to the open gate. I didn’t know where I was going. I guessed I’d have to call a cab. I could wait for it in the pupuseria down the street, but I knew he wouldn’t let me go. I still wanted the freedom of that open gate and that dark street and those empty sidewalks. I heard him one step behind me, then he grabbed my forearm.

I twisted and yanked away. “Stop!”

His gaze was dark and unreadable for the second I saw him. He shifted, a blur in my vision, then he became a force of movement against me. He picked me up at the waist and carried me over his shoulder. I would have screamed, but he’d knocked the breath out of me. All I could do was watch the light shift on the blacktop as he carried me across it.

I pounded his back, but I was helpless. “Antonio!”

“Be quiet.”

“Stop!”

“Basta, woman.” He avoided the garage where Otto had gone and opened the door to the dark office without breaking his stride, passing the water cooler and the reception desk. He smacked open his office door then slammed it closed with his foot.

With a lung-emptying thud, I was dumped into a chair. He leaned over me, so threatening and powerful that if he demanded it, I’d have told him the sky was beneath my feet.

“Listen to me,” he growled, putting his hands on the chair arms. “I will kill any bastard who touches you. So you walk into a room like that again without me, you’d better want the man dead.”

He meant it. From the tightness in his lips and the lines in his brow, I knew he wasn’t speaking metaphorically. He’d kill for me, and it would be my responsibility.

“I’ll admit I was scared, and you were the first person I thought of,” I said. “And the last person. But in between that, I was afraid of getting you involved.”

“You’re involved. I’m involved. We can’t go backward now. You said you saw that stupid punk face to face, and I went crazy. I saw you with that other ass, the one who cheated on you, and I went crazy. I don’t have a brain when it comes to you. You know how much trouble it could be for me if I get arrested for something stupid? Like beating that guy with the ugly Porsche? But I thought he kicked you, and I lost my mind.”

“You didn’t even know me.”

He continued as if I hadn’t spoken. “When I was a young, they called me Tonio-botz because I’d go off over nothing. But I’m a man now, and I don’t do that. Tonio-botz was a garbage kid who had no control over himself. But he’s back every time I see you.”

I was scared of him, for him, about him. I was also turned on. I touched his face. “I bet he wasn’t so bad.”

“Please understand.”

“I do. Would you kiss me?”

With breakneck speed and intensity, he kissed me, using his tongue without prelude as if it was a dick shoved in me. I leaned up and he knelt back until we were both on the floor.

“Here.” I pulled his wrist and slid his hand between my legs. “Feel how wet I am.” I pressed his hand under my skirt to my damp panties, moving until his pinkie touched my soaking skin. “It’s never been this easy, and it’s you. This is how I react to you. It terrifies me.”

He sucked air through his teeth. “We’re even then, Contessa.”

“Take me now, please. Fuck me scared.”

He slipped two fingers in me all the way, pressing as if he wanted to get his whole hand in, and I spread my legs as if I wanted exactly the same thing. He put his face to mine until he took up the curves of my vision. His breath fell on my open mouth as he watched me react to his touch.

“I want to fuck you so hard we have the same skin.”

“Yes,” I gasped, reaching for his belt.

A knock came at the door. “Spin? You in there?”

“Fuck,” he grumbled, then shouted to the door. “What, Zo?”

“Uh, sorry, but uh, we got word from Donna Maria. And you said—”

“All right.” He removed his fingers from me.

Zo didn’t get the message. “You said if we heard from her that—”

“Zo! Basta! I’ll see you inside.” He straightened my panties and skirt. “I’m sorry, Contessa. Business calls. You and I will share a skin later.”

“Can Otto drive me home?”

“I’m sorry, but you’re not going home tonight. I’ll have one of the guys go to your house and pack you a bag. But until I take care of Scott Mabat, you’re staying at my side.” He stood, erection apparent under his pants.