Page 86 of Tainted Blood
That’s when I realize he’s smirking at me.
Bastard.
“Stop winding me up, Carrera!” I yell.
“But it’s so easy to do, Carrera,” he drawls back.
I go to punch his arm, but somehow our fingers get tangled up and crash back down to the table together as one. At the same time, our waitress arrives with our coffees. She bangs them down next to our hands and gives me a ghost of a wink.
“I’m not going to say, ‘I miss you,’ because that’s against the rules,” he says, dragging his coffee cup toward him and spilling half the contents onto the saucer.
“I miss you, too,” I say softly, doing it anyway, because I’m being led astray by the warmth of his skin seeping into mine.
He lifts his coffee to his mouth and takes a sip, making me wait on tenterhooks.
“Bad girl,” he says eventually, his dark eyes gleaming. “See how I’ve corrupted you?”
“Corrupted by a corrupt god,” I muse thoughtfully. “Is there any hope left for me, do you think?”
“All the hope in the world, muñequita.”
Soulful. That’s how his voice sounds. Like his soul is full of me and my new ambitions, as well as his own, and it’s making it fit to burst.
His phone beeps again, lighting up the table. I watch him glance at it, and then at RJ, who climbs down from his bar stool and heads for the exit.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” he soothes.
“Don’t lie to me, Santi. Is it Zaccaria?”
Saying his name out loud causes my stomach to churn. I’m healing well during my daylight hours, but my nights are still Il Re Nero’s to terrorize. It doesn’t matter how much Vicodin I take… The Black King still manages to take a sledgehammer to my medicated walls.
Santi’s fingers tighten around mine. “We uncovered a Villefort trafficking network in Eastern Europe that led us all the way to the US. Your father and his team shut it down.”
“But that’s good, right?”
“Yes.”
My heart sinks. “From the look on your face, that was just the bad entrée.”
He blows out a heavy breath. “Zaccaria lost a significant money spinner when we destroyed his fortress in Italy. Grayson’s convinced he’s using another of his European estates to resurrect it.”
I stare at him in horror. “Oh my God. Santi, we have to stop him.”
“And we will. Unfortunately, the cunt’s been buying up property all over the world for the past ten years using different pseudonyms and offshore accounts. Locating it is going to take some time… Hey...” Sliding a finger under my chin, he tips my head up to meet his fierce reassurance. “He’s not coming within a thousand feet of you or Lola, muñequita… Not as long as there’s still breath in my body. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I whisper. “So, what’s the shitty dessert in all of this?”
“Are you sure you’re not full on information yet?”
I shake my head.
“He’s pissed about the truce,” he says, dropping my chin. “Pissed with the Italians, or what’s left of them. A man like that can’t stew silently. He’s putting on a show by having The Odessa flood our streets with heroin.”
“The Odessa?” I say, frowning.
“Ukrainian mafia. They’ve always had a presence in New York and New Jersey, mostly in Brooklyn, but thanks to Villefort’s extensive political connections, they’ve suddenly become the new players on a huge stage. They’re bypassing the ports and flying the heroin in direct to both states. No checks. Zacarria even has sway over the DEA. It’s the Bad Shit, too. Cut with Fentanyl. Highly addictive. With the hits on our dockside warehouses still hurting us, our profits just took a nosedive.”