Her thoughts were oddly detached as she prepared herself for the end. With Silvio by her side, there would be a fight, she knew that. But it was a fight they couldn’t possibly win.
Would the end be quick?
Would it be a knife? A gun?
Suddenly she realised that she didn’t want Silvio to die. Not for her.
She drew breath to speak but before she could utter a sound Silvio brought his mouth down on hers in a brief, scorching kiss.
Jessie was too shocked to protest, or perhaps her lack of resistance had something to do with the fact that her thoughts had skimmed perilously close to this exact scenario in the last few moments. Her lips parted beneath the pressure of his, hot, liquid pleasure diluting the fear. Far from resisting, she kissed him back passionately, her desperation as powerful as his, her demands every bit as urgent.
For most of her adolescence she’d fantasised about this. Even after that terrible night, when her world had darkened and her attitude towards him had irrevocably altered, perversely she’d still thought about it.
But of all the dreams she’d had, none of them had come close to the reality.
His mouth drove every thought from her head except one…
That if she had to choose a moment to die, this would be it.
Through a haze of desire she heard a snigger from the watching men. ‘Now, that’s just greedy,’ one of them complained.
Her head still spinning from the kiss, Jessie didn’t even realise Silvio had released her until he stepped forward out of the shadows. There was an air of menace attached to that simple, understated movement and she shivered as she watched, frightened and fascinated at the same time. He didn’t speak or bluster—instead, he was terrifyingly cold, his spectacularly handsome face displaying not a single flicker of emotion as he confronted the men. And that, Jessie thought numbly, said everything there was to be said about Silvio Brianza. A lone warrior.
Her legs were threatening to give way, although whether it was from desire or fear she was no longer sure. All she knew was that she wanted to shout a warning. She wanted to warn him not to die for her, but her lips had been paralysed by the touch of his mouth and she couldn’t think of anything except how it had felt to be kissed by him.
And then she realised that this scenario wasn’t playing out the way she’d anticipated. Instead of attacking Silvio, the group was falling back. They’d lost the fierce bravado of a pack intent on a kill and instead they were just staring at him.
Water dripped from the gutter down the back of her neck and Jessie shivered as she tried to work out what was happening.
Why would six men retreat from one?
Confused, she glanced at Silvio and realised that he was standing in the faint shaft of light created by the final flickers of an exposed bulb presumably intended to provide light to the dank corners of the filthy alleyway.
And suddenly she realised what they’d seen. The distinctive scar that ran down one cheek—the only blemish in a face so insanely perfect that if it hadn’t been for that one single flaw, his features could have been the work of Michelangelo.
Jessie strained her ears to hear what was being said but the relentless drip of water from the surrounding roofs all but drowned out the words he was speaking and the eerie darkness made it impossible to read his lips.
At one point Jessie thought she heard someone mutter something that sounded like ‘The Sicilian’, but she couldn’t be sure and they obviously had no interest in including her in the conversation.
Just when she was wondering whether she could slip away unnoticed, they all turned to look at her.
Jessie stood welded to the spot and for one crazy moment she wondered whether Silvio was going to join them. Strip away the expensive clothes and he had the credentials. He’d lived his early life among people like these. He’d led the most feared gang of all.
Those dangerous dark eyes fixed on her and for a fraction of a second he was a stranger to her. She saw what the others had seen. And what she saw was frightening.
Jessie sucked in a breath, reminding herself that, whatever their differences, this man would never hurt her physically.
Emotionally? Emotionally he’d achieved what a childhood lived rough hadn’t managed to accomplish.
He’d broken her into tiny pieces.
Her eyes slid to the scar, her breathing stopped and they stared at each other. The tension in the air shifted and morphed into something different, something a thousand times more dangerous.
Without breaking eye contact, Silvio strolled towards her.
He was frighteningly calm and Jessie wanted to warn him not to turn his back on the men, but she didn’t dare snap the tension that held them all immobile.
As he reached her he lifted a hand and stroked her hair away from her face, the gesture oddly out of place in such a tense situation. His touch was both deliberate and possessive, as if he was making a statement about their relationship, and she didn’t understand that because they didn’t have a relationship any more.