Page 90 of Deadly Alliance

"I thought it might be," Noemi smiles. "Leave your paperwork with Matteo. We will let you know if you are approved."

She dismisses him with a flick of her wrist. Costa scrambles backward, completely humiliated, disappearing into the crowd as fast as his legs can carry him.

I reach out, my hand wrapping securely around the back of Noemi's chair, pulling her closer to me. The heavy, gold-chained trafficker is already forgotten.

"Thirty percent?" I murmur in her ear, my breath ghosting over the sensitive skin of her neck. "You’re bleeding them dry, Noemi."

"They are paying for the privilege of using the safest port on the eastern seaboard," she counters smoothly, turning her head to look at me, her eyes practically shining with power and wicked intelligence. "If they want to play in our sandbox, they pay our prices."

I stare at her, the overwhelming, all-consuming devotion hitting me straight in the chest.

I lean in and press a firm, bruising kiss to her mouth, entirely uncaring of the hundreds of eyes watching us. She kisses me back, her hand coming up to rest on my chest, right over the scar she healed.

When I pull back, I look out over the busy ballroom. The old men, the soldiers, the vast empire we built from the ashes of a forced marriage. A sense of satisfaction hits my chest as I realize that the underworld is at our command. And for the rest of our violent, beautiful lives, they will always be.

The End.