“You know I don’t watch those stupid mob movies.” He scoffed. “I’m still recovering from when you forced me to see Goodfellas.”
“Hey, that’s an American classic.”
“Good thing I’m not American then.”
We smiled at each other for a long minute that knit my torn edges together seamlessly. The dirtiness I’d felt after leaving Ashcroft felt washed away by Dante’s love and attention.
“Tell me, tesoro,” he urged softly, reaching over to brush a lock of errant hair out of my face.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out his beauty while I talked about something so ugly. “Ashcroft found me.”
Instantly, the air went hot and metallic as if the car itself had caught on fire.
“When?”
I winced because I knew he would be furious with me for what I was going to say. After Alexander had dismissed me permanently in Milan and told me never to set foot on English soil again, I’d returned home more broken-hearted than ever. It wasn’t as if I could turn to my family. They didn’t know what I’d been through or how I’d fallen for my own personal villain.
Only Dante and Salvatore did.
They’d been stone-cold furious on my behalf. Honestly, it had gone a long way to repairing some of the damage Alexander had inflicted on me. It reminded me that even though I was damaged and depraved, there were two people who loved me more than anything. Salvatore had even proven he loved more than his own life by staging his death to end Alexander’s vendetta against him as peaceably as possible.
They were going to freak when they knew I’d been back to England.
And they would both know because anything I told Dante would inevitably be passed on to my birth father.
“Sebastian was nominated for a BAFTA,” I muttered. “It was a huge accomplishment for him, and he has…his own issues with that country. I had to go with him for moral support.”
Dante stared at me, breathing in such a controlled way I knew he had to be counting back from ten in order to stay calm with me. I had told him I wasn’t fragile a million times, but no matter what I said, he still thought I’d had enough violence and aggression to last a lifetime.
It was the other reason he kept his mafia business separate from me.
“I know you love your family. In fact, I know it more than most people will ever have the opportunity to. But, Cosi, that was just an exercise in stupidity! The Order has people everywhere, but London is their fucking hub. How did you think you could get away with that?”
“I was there for barely twenty-four hours,” I snapped. “I doubt Alexander has someone stationed at London’s central surveillance hub just waiting to catch sight of me setting foot in the city.”
Dante arched both brows and pursed his lips.
I hesitated as he meant me to.
It was difficult to put anything past Alexander. If he wanted something enforced, he would go to any means to see it through.
“I didn’t see him, anyway. It was just pure bad luck that Ashcroft was at the awards and ran into me,” I argued.
“You think Alexander is the only one keeping an eye on you? I know Frankie and I did a fine job erasing you from Italy and your old life, but you kept your name, and you’re a fucking international supermodel, Cosima. It’s not rocket science to find you. How do you know Sherwood wasn’t the one to send Ashcroft?”
I thought about the way Ashcroft has acted, sly and giddy with it like a child who had stolen another boy’s toy.
“No, Sherwood didn’t send him. Honestly, Dante, I think it was purely coincidental.”
“You can’t know that.”
“No…but given Ashcroft’s plans for me, I think I can guess.”
Dante’s body expanded even more until I thought his muscles would tear through his expensive suit like the Hulk.
“What. Is. His. Plan?” he demanded through clenched teeth.
“Ugh, sorry to interrupt,” the cabbie said in a thick Bronx accent, “but we’re here.”
I peered out the window at Osteria Lombardi and felt relief pluck a resonant chord in my chest.
“Listen, we can talk about this later, but I have to go,” I told him, leaning forward to press a kiss to his bristly cheek.
He snagged my wrist gently before I could make it out of the car, but his face was creased with conflict as he mulled over his words.
“I try to give you space, si? I try to give you freedom to live the kind of life you want to live because you were so long in a cage, and not just one owned by my brother. I try, Cosima, when all I want to do is stand guard like a sentry by your side every single minute to make sure life cannot fuck with you anymore. So have a care, hmm? Take pity on this overprotective guy, and promise me, when I come to you next, you’ll tell me what happened, and you’ll let me help.”