Shielded Wrongs (Bellandi Crime Syndicate 4)

I smiled at her, pausing to study her face for a moment before I gave her the answer I already knew she'd never expect.

"You are now."

8

Sadie

I blinked up at him in shock.

I was not touching that statement with a ten-foot pole. I'd seen three women get wrapped up in the ridiculous insanity of Bellandi men. I would not become the next victim.

Not that it would matter. Enzo wouldn't want me for long. They never did once they got a glimpse at the real me and the amount of energy it took to keep up with my shit.

I opened my mouth, then thought better of it. Shaking my head, I turned on my heel and went for the kitchen. As soon as I opened the cupboard below the sink, my fingertips grazed against the bucket I kept there.

Right where it belonged.

Tugging it out, I reached down blindly and wrapped my fingers around the handle on the spray bottle of carpet cleaner. I didn't suspect it would be enough to get the blood stain out of my beige carpeting, but any little bit would help.

It had to.

I pulled on rubber gloves and filled the bucket with water. Grabbing a rag, I made my way back to the living room. Enzo stood right where I'd left him, studying the cleaning supplies in my hand. "Someone will take care of that," he said, pushing off the door with his foot.

"You're still here," I said, stating the obvious.

He just grinned at the best bitchy face I could muster, so it didn't seem like that would work in my favor. "You're cute."

"Don't call me cute," I warned, kneeling on the floor and using the rag to soak up as much of the blood as I could.

He studied the motion before the smile faded from his face. "Have it your way then." He walked past me, going straight into my open bedroom door. I hated him in that moment when I had no choice but to drop my rag into the dirty pink water and strip the gloves from my hands. Strange men did not get to wander about in my bedroom.

Under any circumstances.

The major reason for that wasn't that I had anything to hide or was afraid of what someone might find. It was that he might touch my shit.

I liked my shit right where it was.

By the time I made it to the doorway, the drawers of my dresser were all tugged open and he stared at the meticulously folded clothes and studied them. "You like folding laundry?" he asked, picking up a shirt from the top drawer. I strode forward, ripping it out of his grasp and refolding it to place it back on top of the pile where it belonged. His eyes were too knowing as he studied the way everything was arranged by color, at least until his eyes wandered to the drawer closest to my bed.

The apartment above the gym was small. Thanks to the high ceilings downstairs, there was only so much room we'd been able to work with. It was perfect for me, because I didn't need a lot of space. But it meant my dresser served as both that and my nightstand.

Tucked into a little box on the right side of my underwear drawer, my bright pink vibrator stood out like a shining beacon of masturbation. Enzo shook his head and bit his bottom lip to stifle his laugh as he lifted the tote bag he must have taken off the hook on the back of my door and grabbed a handful of underwear to shove into the bag.

"Pervert much? Should I just tell Matteo to call you the panty thief?" I asked, and he gave me a single bland look before reaching back in for a second handful. "Do me a favor? Leave the vibrator, Big Boy. I'm going to need it, and I ain't going with you."

He took a handful of shirts, and I studied the motion more than I wanted to as he shoved them into the bag unceremoniously. "Carina," he warned on a growl. "I promise, you will never need that again."

“If only that were true,” I mumbled, crossing my arms over my chest and arching a brow at him.

He plucked it out of the box, getting oddly intimate with my vagina for a stranger, and tossed it into the garbage bin on the other side of the room. Then without another warning, he moved on to my shorts and pants and shoved some of those into the bag for good measure. "Stop it," I hissed, my voice nearly betraying the panic I felt. The thought of my things being so dislocated from where they belonged made my heart race in my chest. He ignored it and didn't seem to notice the genuine distress that I tried to disguise, but my eyes never left the bag in his hand.

Not until he tossed a pair of sweatpants at me.

"Put them on. Can't have you freezing your fine ass off on my bike," he ordered, snapping me out of my trance the slightest bit, as I glanced down at the pants in my hand.

"Excuse me?" I wanted to deny the flattery I felt that the man thought I had a fine ass. Considering he was walking sex, that comment was okay with me.

Mostly.