I shot a harsh look to the man on the floor clutching his throat, unsure if I could let him walk away from me, but Maria and Natalia were in the other room, and could I kill someone with them here? What would that do to them?
“They’re practically kids,” I hissed. “I suggest you encourage them to shut down their side operation and knock some sense into them when they get back home. Or I’ll hunt them down after they leave here and do it myself.” I focused on the man who’d been on top of Maria, my eyes narrowing his way. “If you ever touch a woman inappropriately again, you’ll beg me to kill you after what I do to you, understand?”
He wrapped a hand over the small puncture at his throat where I’d nicked him, and he nodded.
“I’m showing them mercy, Giovanni. That’s something I don’t do.” I peered back at the phone. “There won’t be any tomorrow if I don’t have the name.”
“Understood,” was all Giovanni said, and then I motioned to Jensen to end the call.
“Leave before I change my mind.” My eyes fell to the blood on my white carpet near my feet as I waited for them to go.
A minute or so later, I looked up to see Ryan now there with a brown bag cradled in his arm. The door must’ve been left open, and he’d assumed Natalia was here, and . . .
Ryan looked at me, then at the 9mm at my side, and the bag fell to the floor as his face went pale. “What the hell happened while I was gone?”
ELEVEN
Maria
“Mafia?” Natalia exclaimed, eyes wide as she spoke with her hands, pacing around the living room. And from the looks of it, that was one secret she hadn’t known about.
I honestly wasn’t sure what to do or how to process anything that happened before my brother-in-law had shown up with my sister’s everything bagels she’d been craving.
So far, all I’d done was put on pants and one of Enzo’s hoodies to hide my body. Not that Ryan would check me out, but still.
“I’m not mafioso,” Enzo said in a low, grumbly voice, and his gaze snapped to me as I stood by the wall of windows. It felt wrong somehow for the sun to be spearing through the room as it was, illuminating the place. “I don’t know what you heard through the door, but you’re wrong.”
Ryan stopped my sister from wearing a hole in the floor and pinned her back to his chest, setting his chin on her head. The fact someone had pointed a gun at her had the tic in his jaw on overdrive ever since he’d arrived. He wanted to wipe the floors with those men’s blood, too, didn’t he?
And honestly, when we left the office, I’d expected there to be more blood staining the carpet. Enzo had shown restraint, which meant he wasn’t the monster he tried to make himself out to be.
“But those men are in the mafia, and they have a connection to you, right?” my sister asked, still searching for answers I wasn’t sure Enzo would give.
“I need to call Constantine since I’m now planning to go there instead.” Enzo left her question unanswered, and he grabbed his phone and went into his office.
I wasn’t sure if space was what he needed, but I had no plans to give it to him. Not after some man got on top of me and set a bat to my throat and my life had flashed before my eyes. Chiara being raised without me wasn’t an option.
“Give him a second.” Ryan’s request had me remaining still. “He’s running on adrenaline right now. And he’s probably upset that he let three men walk away alive after what they did.”
“And are you upset?” Natalia faced him, and I tugged the hoodie strings, my mind spinning every which way.
Ryan tipped her chin and stared down at her. “A man pointed a gun at my pregnant wife, and the only reason I’m not going after him is because I know you won’t let me kill him.”
“And because you want to be in our son’s life instead of prison, right?” Natalia whipped her arms across her chest, glaring at him.
He cocked his head as if unsure prison was a deterrent to murdering anyone who’d dare hurt the woman he loved and his unborn child.
“Ryan,” she hissed. “You and Enzo, I swear. Cut from the same cloth.” Her attention landed back on me, her arms still tight above her pregnant belly. “Let’s go in there before he goes nuclear. He doesn’t need space. He needs sense knocked into him.”
“I agree.” And I was glad we were on the same page.
Ryan trailed right behind us, but we halted the second we entered the office. The bookshelf wasn’t in the same place, and there was a six-foot wide-open space in the wall there instead, exposing a second room.