The Woman with the Ring (Costa Family)

“Yeah.”

“Good. She stays in the apartment until I tell you to bring her.”

“Oh, but I’m not a prisoner or anything, right, warden?” I griped, getting his gaze to lift, that brow quirked up again.

“Just do what you’re told, Isabella.”

“If you thought that was the kind of wife you were going to get, you chose the wrong woman, Primo.” I spat out his name like it was sour on my tongue. He kept using mine, so I wanted to use his. Even if I said it like it was a curse.

“You’re only going to make things harder on yourself with that attitude,” Primo said, shrugging. “But whatever sets your panties on fire, baby.”

“Don’t talk about my panties,” I snapped, jaw tight.

That got his full attention, though. And I knew from the way he slowly tucked away his phone and stalked toward me, leaning down as he held my gaze, something dark and wicked in his eyes, that I’d fucked up.

“I will talk about your panties anytime I want, Isabella. Or have you forgotten that you will be my wife in all ways a woman is a wife?” he asked.

That flip-flop in my stomach, that was absolutely disgust. Right?

It was a moment of pure insanity that had me lashing out. And I mean lashing out. I cocked my arm back and slapped him across the face. Hard enough that the sound ricocheted around the empty room.

Oh, I’d fucked all the way up that time.

Because the men in the room all stiffened and reached for their weapons.

“One, little lamb,” he said, running his fingertips across the red mark on his cheek. “You get one of those. Now get your ass up to the apartment before I drag you there myself. Terzo,” he called, keeping unnerving eye contact the whole time it took for his brother to move in at my size.

“Ready?” Terzo asked, tone lighter, like he was trying to deescalate the situation.

“Yeah,” I agreed, gaze moving away from Primo, looking at his little brother who seemed like a more friendly face at that moment. “Sure,” I added, falling into step with him as he led me away from the boss of the Esposito crime Family.

My soon-to-be husband.

“Why are we going up?” I asked when we walked into the oversized elevator in the warehouse.

“Primo lives here,” Terzo said, shrugging.

“He lives in a warehouse?”

“The top floor,” Terzo confirmed. “The lower floor is for the trucks to back up into and the workers to load in and out. The second floor is the meat processing and packaging center. We are leaving the third floor. And the top is Primo’s place.”

“He lives above a meat packaging facility?” I asked, nose wrinkling.

“Primo likes to be close to work if or when something is going down,” Terzo said as the elevator came to a stop.

The doors opened to a, well, metal box.

My stomach immediately dropped at the tight space.

“Half-inch steel wall, a layer of Kevlar, then another half inch steel wall,” Terzo explained. “It’s bulletproof,” he told me when I didn’t respond. Not because I wasn’t interested but because I felt like the air was suddenly very thick in the small space as the doors behind us slid closed.

Terzo pressed a button on the wall, making a drawer move out. He pressed his finger into a screen there, then ran his fingertips over a number pad, typing in a passcode.

Then, finally, what felt like a lifetime later, the box opened, and I felt like I could take a proper breath again.

I don’t know what I thought the home of a man like Primo Esposito would be like. But this definitely wasn’t it.

It was, well, homey.

I guess I figured a cold man like him would be all about that awful, industrial look.

But no.

The whole space felt warm and inviting, if a bit masculine, but not in an oppressive way. The walls were exposed red brick, the floors dark hardwood, and the ceilings were exposed wooden beams stained to match the floor. Except for in one area where there was a closed-off loft. The bedroom, I figured. And there was only one.

I tried not to focus on that. It wouldn’t do me any good.

I focused on the space instead.

It was huge.

I’d seen the warehouse from outside, but I’d been a little too busy running for my life to take in the size. But it must have been a big warehouse to make such a roomy space.

Windows lined the whole front of the building, letting in a fair amount of light, but there was some kind of film on them that didn’t let it come in completely.

In the center of the room was the living room with a giant brick fireplace that seemed to separate the living room with its framed flatscreen, brown leather couches, and a long, low table behind the couches filled with what looked like a huge collection of records with the player perched on top.