Page 22 of His Kidnapped Queen
And I’d give anything for one last night.
I wouldn’t even tell him about Rosa. After all, what if heisa mobster? If he’s in the life, I cannot trust him to be any kind of father.
It would just be hot and rough and mindless and everything I need.
“Must have been one hell of a night,” Scott says with a chuckle, and I don’t respond, shaking my head and smiling slightly.
Scott has no idea. It’s not even one of those nights I’d told him about in detail while we giggled over wine. I’d kept it to myself, held it close to my heart.
I have to think Rosa was conceived out of something more than lust. Passion, at least. Luca and I had that, didn’t we?
But musing about the past isn’t going to get me any closer to being Angela Ricardo, arm candy of the Rossi family mobsters.
“Guess it’s time to see my first target,” I say to Scott, and I flip open the dossier. The first thing I see is a huge picture, a side profile of a man smoking a cigarette, the smoke floating around him.
He has a Roman nose. A sharp jawline.
My heart starts to race. It can’t be. It’s just that all the Italians in this city look like that, dress like that?—
The next photograph he’s looking right at the camera, a half-smile on his face, stubble on his jaw. I could never forget those green eyes, not if I lived a hundred lifetimes.
“Sc-Scott,” I stutter out, grabbing his arm across the table.
Scott looks at me, tilting his head almost like a confused puppy.
“What’s going on, Soph?”
“I’m going undercover,” I breathe.
“Yeah?”
“To take down the Rossis.”
“Yeah?” Scott keeps staring into my eyes and then glancing at my hand tight around his forearm. “What’s the big deal?”
I can’t stop staring into Luca’s green eyes. I remember how they flashed at me when he grabbed my arm, how intense his gaze was when he leaned down to kiss me.
Scott stares at me some more then glances down at the page, whistling.
“He’scute,” he mumbles, and I hate him at that moment. I hate him and I hate my job and I hate myself.
“I’m going undercover to take downLuca Rossi,” I say flatly, finally, as it washes over me. “The father of my daughter.”
6
LUCA
“Lie to me again and you’ll regret it,” I growl, staring down Nico Rossi, my little brother and bane of my existence.
Nico holds up his hands as if in defense, but I can see the pistol at his waistband, the jut of the hilt of the knife down his spine.
“Who’s lyin’?” he drawls, unbothered. “If someone’s taking money off the top of the Hillside fights, it’s no skin off my teeth.”
“Isn’t it? You’re the one overseeing the project, Nico. Father will?—”
“Father isn’t going to touch me,” Nico says smugly, leaning forward, and I narrow my eyes, trying to determine if his pupils are normal or not.
My brother doesn’t hesitate to use any and everything available to him as the little brother of the Rossi mob boss.
