A smooth smile spread across his face, crinkling his eyes and alerting me to the fact he had square white teeth behind those ruddy lips.
It annoyed me that I found him so attractive.
No, it did more than that.
It felt like blasphemy after the oath I’d made to avoid beautiful men in the wake of my fiancé leaving me. Sacrilegious that I might ever find a mafia man, once the tormenters of my youth, even marginally desirable.
“As a six-foot-five, two hundred and thirty-pound Italianate-looking man, did I ever have a chance of appearing in any way less than I do now? In my experience, it is riskier to assume a person’s ignorance than it is to play into their desires. The world, Ms. Lombardi, wants me to the be their villain. So, I will give them one they can truly sink their teeth into.” He punctuated his tidy speech with a wink.
This time, it was Yara who let out a thin chuckle, much to my surprise. “Of course, I should have known you would want to play that angle.”
He inclined his head with gracious solemnity, but there was mischief in his ink-dark eyes.
“You’re assuming the public loves a bad boy more than a good man,” I argued. It was my job to look at both sides, but also because I’d always been inclined to play the Devil’s advocate. “You expect the public to cheer for a murderer?”
His eyes narrowed, jaw clenching as he studied me again for one long interminable moment. “I expect the public to fall for an anti-hero. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it certainly won’t be the last.” He leaned forward, his body so big it seemed he took up the entirety of the roomy car. I could smell him, something bright and sharp that mellowed into sweet warmth like lemons heated by the Italian sun. “Can you tell me, Elena, that you’ve never been drawn in by a bad boy?”
I arched a brow at him.
I’d had all of two lovers in my twenty-seven years of life.
Christopher and Daniel Sinclair.
The former was more than a “bad boy.” He was worse than the scum scraped off the bottom of my shoe.
And Daniel?
He had been perfect, or as close to it as you could find on this earth.
Bad boys with their cigarette-stained teeth, their lack of proper diction and abundance of curse words, their rough hands and animalistic impulses?
My only interest in them was putting them behind bars where they belonged.
So why was I in that car on the way to an indictment representing one of the most infamous criminals in New York City?
Because my sister, the same gorgeous sister I’d loved and envied all my life, had begged me to take on the case.
Cosima was one of the only people I loved to the depths of my soul. One of two people, including my mother, who had ever supported me and loved me despite my obvious flaws.
So of course, I would do this for her.
Even though, for the first time in my career, I knew I was representing someone who, without a shadow of a doubt, was guilty of this crime and probably many others.
As if on cue, there was a knock on the side window.
My head snapped to the side to see a homeless man beside the car where we waited at a red light. He was heavily draped in threadbare layers against the deep chill of late autumn in the city, but there was something in his anticipatory manner that seemed off.
I watched as he pointed at his sign––Cold and hungry, please help––and opened my mouth to say something to Yara, when Dante’s voice snapped through the air like a whip.
“Drive!” he barked. “Now.”
But Mr. Janko was driving the car, a man who drove exclusively for the firm with a sensible manner and careful politeness.
He only blinked in the rearview mirror at Dante.
And by then, it was too late.
The homeless man had dropped his handmade sign, hand delving into his layers of clothing to produce a long gun, the barrel of which he pressed to the window.
I had time only to gasp before he fired the shot.
Crack.
The bullet shattered the glass, but I felt none of those sharp edges nor the impact of that metal projectile lodging itself in my flesh.
Instead, I gasped because the air compressed from my lungs by the weight of a large, incredibly heavy Italian man caging me against the seat.
I tipped my face up, mouth open, eyes dry and prickling with shock. Dante caught my gaze, his own burning coal black and just as hot.
For an instant, just one, I felt his wrath move through me like a tangible thing, something heady and drugging like the finest whiskey or the best Italian wine.
Then he was yelling, “Cazzo, drive, man! NOW!”
With a squeal of tires, Mr. Janko revved the engine and gunned us forward into the intersection despite the red light.