“Nowhere, Gianna.”
“Fine.”
I hung up and tossed the phone on the couch.
Twenty minutes later, Lorenzo and Luca entered the apartment. Lorenzo whistled, giving Charming’s leg a kick. “He’s dead, all right.”
I grimaced. “Could you not kick a dead man?”
Luca dropped to his haunches beside the body. “Gianna, do I want to know why this douchebag was in your apartment?”
I was trying to win a game . . . and lost so hard.
“No,” I sighed.
Lorenzo rubbed some blow from the kitchen island onto his gums. “I know this guy,” he said. “Knox, I think. Real slimy dude, been visited by our enforcers a couple times for gambling debt. Still owes some money.”
“I don’t think you’re going to get it from him now,” I muttered, heading into my room. I took a shower and then blow-dried my hair and pulled it up. I dressed in Daisy Dukes and an off-the-shoulder top that showed a few inches of my midriff. When I came back out, the body was gone but blood still coated every surface of my kitchen. Anger grabbed me by the throat and squeezed.
Lorenzo and Luca walked through the front door, laughing at some joke.
“Where does Allister live?” I asked, not able to control the venom in my voice.
Luca snorted.
“What do you think you’re going to do to him?”
Lorenzo shook his head. “He’s not someone you fuck with, Gianna.”
“Where. Does. He. Live?”
Luca shrugged. “Sometimes, little girls need to learn a lesson or two.” I gritted my teeth at his response but forgot the vendetta as soon as he rattled off the name of an apartment building.
“Call a couple men in. I ain’t cleaning up this shit.” Luca’s voice trailed off as I slammed the front door behind me.
Rage vibrated in my veins the entire drive to Allister’s place.
The high-rise was nicer than any special agent could afford. It touched the sky, all sleek lines and dark glass.
Since Allister wasn’t expecting me, I had to charm the woman at the front desk with every ounce of sweetness in me. I might have convinced her I was Allister’s long-distance girlfriend and that I suspected he was cheating on me. A tear made its way down my cheek.
Shaniqua sighed in sympathy. “Oh, honey, you go on up there. And if you don’t beat his ass, I will.”
Allister’s apartment was one of three on the forty-third floor.
My hand shook with anger as I pounded on the door. After the first three knocks came up empty, I raised my hand again, but the door opened before I could make contact.
Without looking at him, I marched past him and into his apartment. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I’d rather not do it in front of the security camera in the hall.
I didn’t take in a single detail of the space because all I could see was red soaking into my vintage rug. I tensed as the door shut with a small click, and then turned to see him leaning against it. His arms were crossed, white dress shirt pulled tight across his biceps. A single light above the kitchen island lit the space, and a shadow caressed the side of his face. Darkness loved him—I knew without a doubt they were on good terms.
I couldn’t help but think this was a man all other men aspired to be. He was the perfect prototype, and everyone else had just gotten the small details wrong.
As he watched me with a dark, half-lidded stare, I became abundantly aware that I stood in his domain. With his large form blocking the door. With the oxygen in the apartment burning up like fuel.
His eyes dropped, almost unwillingly, to coast the length of my bare legs, from the frayed hem of my shorts to my sparkly-painted toes. His attention came back up and, like the glide of a drop of sweat down my back, it brushed the diamond piercing in my navel, over my breasts and my throat, before reaching my eyes.
My heart raced with an edgy beat. I didn’t understand it—not him, or my reaction to him—and that made my blood flow with pure anger and frustration.