Page 35 of The Price of Power

This is really happening, I thought to myself as I plopped down in one of the finely upholstered chairs by the windows. My eyes focused on nothing in particular as resignation took root in my heart.

I was well and truly trapped, and the only way out was time.

Chapter Eleven

GABRIEL

“Oh, good. You’re here.” Matteo glanced up from the neat stack of papers centered on his desk the moment I walked through his door. An uncharacteristic grin lifted his lips. “I was just working on the books and wasn’t sure how to square up Theo Collins’ loan. Should I count the payment you accepted as ‘goods’ or ‘services’?”

I shot my brother a glare from the doorway. “It’s a lucky thing you’re so good with numbers ‘cause you sure as hell can’t tell a joke.”

“I thought it was funny.” Matteo’s self-satisfied smile only grew at the jab, and it didn’t fade as he leaned back in his chair. Crossing his arms, he looked me in the eye. “But seriously, what’s your plan with the girl?”

That was a damn good question. And even though it was one I knew was coming, one that had rolled through my mind the whole ride home, I still didn’t have an answer for it.

Not a good one anyway.

All I’d been thinking when I made the deal with Liv was how much I wanted her in my bed. How much I wanted to relive the ecstasy of the night before. How badly I wanted to taste her again and again. And make it so, this time, she couldn’t run away.

Beyond that? Well…

It only took Matteo half a second to correctly read my silence.

“Shit,” he groaned, pushing himself back from the desk. “You don’t have a plan, do you?”

“Of course I do.”

“Fucking your enemy’s sister is not a plan,” he tried to tell me.

“Sure, it is,” I shot back. “It’s just not one you like.”

Now Matteo was the one glaring, his disappointed and frustrated gaze locked on me as I moved to sit in one of the worn, brown leather chairs in front of his desk. At least that stupid grin was gone.

“I don’t care if you want to screw the Collins girl all the way to Chicago and back,” he said. “But unless you’re planning on letting me sell tickets to let the crowd at La Sera watch you, that kind of payment isn’t going to balance the books.”

I waved off his concerns with a toss of my hand. “Don’t be so damn dramatic. It’s not as if the family is doing badly. I’ve seen our numbers. We haven’t been doing this well since Papà was alive. We can easily absorb the loss.”

Matteo didn’t look convinced by my argument. His head cocked to the side as his eyes narrowed. But I didn’t know just how serious he was until he tented his hands on the desk in front of him.

Crap.

I knew that pose. It was Matteo’s serious look. The expression and posture he took on when he had to deliver hard or troubling news.

Even though we were identical twins, born only minutes apart and sharing the same face and form, my brother and I had developed very different personalities. So different that, after only being around us for a few minutes, most people had no trouble telling us apart.

Matteo, of course, was the more intellectual and businesslike one. Practically minded and slow to anger, I couldn’t remember him making a single rash decision in his life. His more level-headed attitude made him a perfect fit for his role as consigliere—advisor to the head of the family.

On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine anyone using my name and “level-headed” in the same sentence.

Of course, thoughtful consideration wasn’t my job in the family. It never had been. I’d been raised to take the reins of my father’s empire one day. I was taught to make snap decisions. To take action. To do what needed doing, consequences be damned. And I was just as good at my job as Matteo was at his.

“And if this situation was just about money, I would agree with you,” Matteo started. “Our Uncle Sal could have loaned that idiot, Theo, ten times the cash, and it still wouldn’t have put a meaningful dent in our finances.”

Great. “So why the hell are we having this conversation?”

If that was true, then all this bitching over payment and the books made no sense.

Matteo pinched the bridge of his nose as if talking to me was giving him a headache. “Because there are some things more important than money. Respect for one. Obedience for another.”