Page 53 of Unchained

I fire him a look that tells him to knock it off. He diverts his attention back to his food.

“And you think you can come in here and make demands, Gianna?” I ask, my voice low.

“I offered my services to kill two men in Greece for you. You should be thanking me? Why are you always getting this wrong?” she snaps.

“And I’m saying, I’ll come with you.”

She glances at her nails, almost zoning out of this entire conversation, and the room hollows around me. She then casually says, “Well, I’ll accept this as the honeymoon you never delivered. I’ll leave you to book the villa, somewhere on the beach. Private jet only. And toys. I need toys.”

I nearly choke on my spit. “Toys?”

She rolls her eyes. “Get your brain out of the gutter. Weapons. Guns. Knifes. You know, the real adult toys.”

That’s all it takes. Jett is laughing so hard he has tears streaming down his cheeks, and Ace isn’t far off that either; he’s now joining in on stuffing his face with popcorn too. Hunter isn’t saying a single word.

“When do we leave?” she asks Hunter.

“Tonight? Jet is ready and waiting,” he offers.

Gianna’s dark eyes land on me. “I’ll go pack, make sure the villa has at least two bedrooms and a pool.”

I bite my tongue to stop myself from speaking. The more I say, the more ammo she fires back at me.

“This ain’t a vacation,” I add.

Gianna taps her nail against her lip. “Not everything in life is work, Colt. You have to play. Relax. Take a vacation. You never know; you might find a personality under all those tense muscles you’ve got.”

My mouth falls open, and that’s enough for Jett to roll out of his seat, land with a thud on the floor, laughing to the point he’s wheezing.

She’s right. I need a damn break from this place. Last time I took a vacation, I was a kid. Every day since I turned sixteen, I’ve worked. I don’t know how to relax, even if it slapped me in the face as hard as Gianna did on our wedding night.

Hunter responds, “Gianna, you go; I’ll send over all the intel we have to Colten.”

She nods and stands. “Thank you, Hunter,” she says, and then she’s gone, without even a second look at me, Dom following behind her.

I’m starting to gather that Dom is the only one Gianna truly trusts. Her family dynamic… is a big contrast to my own; I can’t really work that out yet. But Dom, it’s clear she loves him, and that’s why he’s here.

Once the door closes, I let out an exhale and grip the table. She drives me in-fucking-sane. Still want to bend her over this table though.

“What the fuck is going on between you?” Hunter hisses.

I tip my head back and groan. “It’s a long story.”

“How? It’s been what? A week? Man, she is not a fan of you,” Ace says.

“She’s… difficult. Okay?”

“You think you can work with her? It sounds like you two will kill each other, not the Greeks,” Hunter points out.

“Nah. She doesn’t mean it. Not really,” I say, although I’m not sure how far from the truth he is.

“Why did you give her this job?” I ask Hunter.

“A test, Colten. I need to make sure she isn’t the same as her brother.”

I swallow. That is the crux of all my issues with her. She is a Milano.

“Fair enough. Well, if I make it back alive and the Greeks die, then I guess we have a better answer.”