Another shot was fired from behind us, this time wedging itself with a clunk into the trunk of the car.
Dante curled even tighter around Yara and me, protecting us with his massive frame. Surrounded in the warm citrus and pepper scent, pressed tight to his unyielding chest, I almost felt safe despite the madman shooting at us.
He remained there for a few moments until we were long gone from the scene, racing through the streets like a northeasterly storm.
When he finally pulled away, he checked Yara quickly then turned his eyes to me. One large hand went for my face, and I flinched despite myself.
I’d never seen hands like that, hands that large, that rough, that undeniably cloaked in metaphorical red.
Something in his eyes flickered at my reaction, but still, he reached out to pluck a small shard of glass from my cheekbone. I didn’t notice the pain until he pulled it out, making me hiss at the little burst of hurt.
“It’ll heal,” he assured, swiping his thumb over the droplet of blood there then, shockingly, disgustingly, he brought it to his lush mouth and sucked it off.
My stomach roiled, but my thighs tingled even as my mind rebelled against the unwanted intimacy of his touch.
“Stop trying to unsettle my associate,” Yara ordered calmly, righting her suit jacket as if she was shot at every day, and this was just another nuisance. “Sit down and watch that you don’t cut yourself on that glass.”
I blinked at the gorgeous older woman beside me, but she ignored my silent inquiry. Instead, she watched Dante grin and settle in the seat on the other side of the broken window, perpendicular to us.
“Ma’am, should I take us to the nearest precinct?” Mr. Janko asked in a thin, shaky voice.
It made me feel infinitely better to know I wasn’t the only one rattled by the shooting.
“No, Janko, continue to the courthouse,” Yara instructed as her manicured fingers flew over the screen of her iPhone. There was a short pause while she finished her text message before she looked up at Dante, and they shared a secret, mischievous kind of grin.
“That should do it I think, si?” Dante asked with humor rich in his deep voice.
Yara’s answering grin was smug as the cat who ate the canary. “I should think so. Judge Hartford can’t very well deny you solitary confinement if they won’t post bail.”
I blinked heavily again, feeling, for the first time ever in my career, completely out of step with proceedings.
“Are you saying you knew that man would shoot at us?” I asked weakly.
Yara laughed lightly, but Dante threw his head back and laughed from his belly as if my innocent question was the funniest thing he had ever heard.
Embarrassment scorched through me, turning the tips of my ears red hot.
I was not used to being made a fool of—not intellectually, not at work.
And I did. Not. Like. It.
“The likelihood of Judge Hartford, who is notorious for harsh sentencing, posting bail for our client is slim, Ms. Lombardi,” Yara informed me slowly, overly solicitous as if speaking to a small child. “It is our responsibility to do everything in our power to get Mr. Salvatore the best sentencing we can.”
“And so you arranged someone to attack us on the way to the courthouse just in case Mr. Salvatore is arraigned and imprisoned?” I clarified, the words clicking like ice cubes in a glass by the glacial cast of my tone.
She slanted her dark gaze at me, her diamond-faced Bulgari Serpenti Incantati watch winking brightly even in the low light as she pushed an errant lock of hair behind her ear. I hadn’t had the opportunity to work with Yara Ghorbani before in my history at the firm. She was one of the youngest female partners and specialized in criminal defense litigation. Her reputation was ruthless, sly, and slippery as a serpent in the grass, getting even her most notorious clients off with severely reduced or completely severed sentences.
Now, it seemed, I was getting a clearer picture of how she did that.
“We merely leaked the information that Mr. Salvatore was being transported at this hour to the courthouse to certain…interested and unsavory elements. You’ll learn,” she said softly, menace just a silver edge to her words. “That the law is particularly malleable in the right hands, Ms. Lombardi. It was my understanding you are an ambitious associate, which was why I agreed to your presence on this legal team. Must I adjust my assumptions?”
I stared into her dark eyes, just as black and slicked with sly intent as the most seasoned mafiosos in my past in Naples, and something monumental occurred to me as I did so.
In order to represent the monsters of New York, did one have to become monstrous too?
I swallowed thickly as I fought a silent war in my head.