Consumed by the Mafia (De Salvo Family #5)

3. New Plan

three

New Plan

“Checkout’s not until one,” Ryōma said, watching his freshly showered seductress walk around the bed to perch stiffly on the opposite corner with her coffee clutched in her hand. It was clear she was not as comfortable with the morning after situation, whether that was because she’d sobered up or for any number of other reasons, he could only guess. Shame. Though probably that meant it had been wise of him not to join her in the shower when he’d returned and heard the water running.

The fact that he’d been tempted was about as jarring as the certainty he felt at knowing he wasn’t ready to walk away from this woman. A fact he supposed he’d keep to himself for a short while longer.

He watched her take a sip of the coffee and saw her shoulders relax a fraction.

“Thank you for the coffee,” Abby finally said. “How much do I owe you?”

He scoffed. “It’s just coffee, you don’t owe me anything.” He crossed his ankles and took a gulp of his own before adding, “You wanna chat for a bit? Get to know each other without the alcohol?” He wasn’t sure if he made the suggestion because he was genuinely interested or simply to get a reaction out of her. When Abby twisted in place to gape at him, he decided both were perfectly acceptable reasons.

“I—What? No.” She shook her head and stood, looking around as if she were confused before bending and lifting her boots from the floor. “I should get home. I have things I need to get done, and really, we both know last night was….”

Ryōma watched her move to the desk, set down her coffee, and pull the chair around in order to sit and tug on her boots. He waited, but she seemed to have decided not to finish her thought. “Last night was what?”

Abby didn’t meet his stare as she focused on her self-assigned task. It was hard, after all, wedging a foot into a boot that already had a gun inside and keeping that gun from making itself known. He didn’t care that she carried, but he wasn’t going to confess to having recognized the sensation of a gun pressed against his back when her legs had wrapped around him, either. She grunted under her breath and finally jammed her foot properly into the boot. “I’m not that kind of woman,” she said. “I won’t lie and say I didn’t have a good time. I did. But I shouldn’t have let it happen, regardless. I was raised better than that.”

Ryōma kept his expression calm as his grip tightened on his cup. “Doesn’t it make it worse if we go back to being strangers now?”

She froze for a beat, her left foot hovering in front of the opening for the next boot. A strange, undesirable detachment chilled her voice when she said, “We are strangers.” Her foot slid easily into the shoe, she wiggled the ankle as if to settle it, then rested it on the floor.

Ryōma frowned. “I may not know a whole lot about your daily life—” Yet. “But I’d bet my motorcycle I know you in ways at least most of the people you spend your time with never will.” He paused to toss back the rest of his coffee. “And for the record, I love my motorcycle.”

Abby tucked her legs beneath the chair, the skirt of her dress hanging over her knees and giving her an almost proper appearance as she twisted her own coffee in her hands. The blemishes he’d left on her skin were even more exposed after whatever scrubbing she’d done and now that she’d positioned herself almost directly in the sliver of daylight streaming in through the curtains. She looked like a naughty secretary out of a damn porno. It was distracting as fuck. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just … don’t know how to do this.”

He blinked at her. “Do what?”

She blew out a breath, chugged her coffee, and set the cup back on the table. Her cheeks were flushed again when she met his gaze, though whether from embarrassment or too much hot liquid he wasn’t sure. “You’re only the third man I’ve ever been with, and the last guy I made wait for … months.” She rolled her eyes briefly at whatever thought followed. “My point is, I’m not good at quote-unquote-normal relationships, so if last night was anything more than just wild, drunken sex, I’m definitely not good at that.”

Well shit. Obviously, he’d figured out she was a few years younger than him, but he hadn’t thought she had such limited experience. Ryōma swallowed back an ill-timed groan and willed his blood to cool. “I don’t think you need to worry about that. Just let it happen and wait for it to play out.”

Abby made a face. “That seems illogical. And in any event, what am I letting happen? I don’t really understand what we’re talking about.”

Ryōma swung to his feet and strode up to her, moving purposefully but slowly enough to let her react. Her only reaction was to lean back in her chair, eyes widening as she craned her head in an effort to maintain eye-contact. He bent over her, bracing himself on the desk with his arms on either side of her shoulders and lowering his face to hover just above hers. “This. Whatever this is between you and me. This is what you’re letting happen, baby girl.”

She stared at him, her tongue running out to dart across her lips.

His phone cut through whatever she might have been working herself up to say.

Ryōma grunted a curse, pressed an apologetic kiss to her forehead, then twisted around to retrace his steps and grab the offensive device up off the side table where he’d left it. Of course this was when Cris called him back. “Have I ever told you that sometimes you have the worst timing?”

There was a momentary pause on the line before Cristiano spoke. “Can’t say you have, actually. You good?”

The agitation that had sparked with the interruption of the call settled back to calm at the faint note of concern in his surrogate brother’s voice. “Yeah, I’m good.” He watched as Abby retrieved her clutch from the dresser where they’d dropped their things the night before. “Just otherwise occupied.”

“You’re the one who called me.”

“I was free and I have some stuff to tell you.” He should be getting on that, too. “You gonna be available in a bit? I need maybe half an hour, but any time after that works for me.”

Cris chuckled, the sound a direct contrast to the frown furrowing Abby’s brow as she stared at her phone. “Now I know why you’re always single, if you only need half an hour.”

Ryōma choked. “ Oi ! I just need time to get back to my car and get her safely home, smartass.”

Abby’s head snapped up, her beautiful eyes going wide again. She shook her head as Cris spoke in his ear.

“The fuck happened to your car?”

Ryōma held her stare and nodded firmly. No way was he leaving her to some random cabby, looking so obviously like she was leaving from a night of thorough fucking. She might have washed out the bedhead, but the hickeys and the cocktail dress told the story just fine. “Left it at the bar,” he said into the phone. “Had too much to drink. ”

Abby turned back to the table, reaching for the paper and pen.

“Where are you? I’ll send a car. They can drop her for you if you want the out,” Cris offered.

Ryōma mulled it over for a second, watching Abby hurriedly uncap the pen with her teeth and start scribbling something. He frowned. “I don’t need the out, but the rest sounds good.” He let Cris know which hotel they were at and disconnected, dropping the phone onto the bed as he started back toward her. “What do you think you’re doing, Abby?”

She jabbed the pen back into the cap and swept the whole pad of paper around to show him. “I don’t need a ride. I’ll just call an—”

Ryōma tugged the stationary from her, tossing it over his shoulder, and framed her jaw in his hands. “You shouldn’t have put that in your mouth, baby girl. You don’t know where it’s been.” He barely waited for her brows to arch before dipping his head and plunging his tongue past her lips in a rough, demanding kiss. He moved one hand back to thread his fingers through her long, still damp hair, using his other hand to hold her face to his.

She made a sound of surprise but hesitated only a moment before responding to the kiss.

They were both breathless when he broke the kiss.

“Wha-what the hell was that?” Abby asked, her fingers pressing into his sides where she held onto him.

Ryōma trailed a finger along her jaw. “A warning. Next time you do something unnecessarily reckless, like putting unfamiliar things in your pretty mouth, I’ll work you up so much more.” He leaned in to breathe the rest of the promise into her ear. “But I won’t let you come.”

As close as they were, he heard her breath catch in her throat. She said nothing for a long moment. Then, finally, she whispered, “Are you serious right now?”

“Very.”

Her forehead dropped to his shoulder. “Why is this when I realize we never talked about … any of the important things?”

Ryōma grinned and smoothed his hands down her sides, curving them around her back. “I’m clean if you are.” Considering what she’d said about her experience, more than likely she was.

“Thank fuck.” She blew out a breath and straightened. “But that’s only one of the things.”

His grin didn’t falter. “I told you I was gonna fill you up. I’m guessing you’re not on birth control?” He heard his own words like some filtered question asked by and about entirely separate people. He really ought to have had a different opinion on the subject.

Abby’s face heated and she looked away. “I am, actually,” she said softly. Then she swatted his arm. “Not that you asked.”

“Nor did you volunteer.” He shrugged, but a twinge of relief assured him the disassociation would have been temporary. He hadn’t fully lost his mind. He lifted her chin to encourage her to meet his stare again. “We were both a little tipsy last night, Abby. Let’s be more forgiving to ourselves.”

She looked like she was trying valiantly to maintain a stubbornly stoic expression, but her lips twitched in defiant amusement. “I guess we were.” She leaned into him again. “I’ve never met a man who admits to being tipsy.”

He grunted. “It is what it is.”

Abby nodded, then pushed away from him and walked around the bed. She found the note he’d left for her, which she had left on the bed, and began folding it up.

Ryōma arched a brow. “Feel like a memento?”

She popped open her clutch. “My phone’s dead.” She waved the folded-up paper before tucking it inside. “This way, I have your number.”

He couldn’t stop the grin. He hadn’t made an effort to keep in touch with a woman romantically in years. The desire he had to hold on to this one, at least long enough to see if they could become something, was foreign to him. But he was willing to go along with it. Eager, even. Watching the people he was closest to find their perfect matches had only emphasized his own loneliness.

His phone beeped with an incoming text so he swept it up. He was sure he knew what it said even before he looked, and of course he was right. Their ride had arrived. “I hope you have everything you need,” he said, meeting Abby’s gaze again. “Our chariot awaits.”

She snorted, then clapped her free hand over her mouth and nodded.

As much as she hadn’t wanted to be seen leaving the hotel in Ryōma’s company in what was obviously going to look like exactly what it was, Abigail consoled herself with the unexpected opportunities this unideal situation provided. For whatever reason, Ryōma wanted to stay in touch. He was at least acting as though he was genuinely attracted to her. It boggled her mind, but she could definitely use that to her advantage. She didn’t have time to play the long seduction game, but she could make it a priority to see about playing a shorter one.

It wasn’t a crime to use someone’s feelings against them in the interest of putting away real, violent, life-long criminals. But she would be lying to herself to pretend resorting to that sort of tactic didn’t feel terrible. She would just have to make it up to him by doing her best to keep him out of prison—if that even proved possible.

Then there was their escort. The man named Benny who had picked them up seemed nice enough. If she weren’t suspicious from the onset, she probably wouldn’t have found it curious at all the way Benny avoided looking at her or the way he phrased his questions. She doubted most people would give a thought to the technically unremarkable black SUV. The most blatantly suspicious thing were the overly tinted rear windows .

“You need anything else?” Benny asked as he pulled up beside one of two lonely vehicles in the bar parking lot.

“Nope, I got it from here,” Ryōma replied. He popped the door open and stepped from the SUV before holding out a hand to her expectantly. “Come on, Abby, let’s let Benny have his Saturday back.”

Abigail obligingly released her seatbelt and scooted carefully across the bench seat. She tucked her clutch under her arm and aimed a smile at their generous chauffer. “Thanks, Benny.”

Benny offered her a flash of a smile before looking forward again. “Happy to help.”

It really was interesting, though. She slipped her hand into Ryōma’s and let him help her down, suddenly remembering the way he’d growled at the cab driver the night before. She’d appreciated it at the time, but in retrospect, it seemed noteworthy. He’d made a point to avert the hotel clerk’s gaze, too. Was it just part of his personality? Was he the kind of man who couldn’t stand letting his woman be seen by other men?

The thought made her insides clench. That would make her newly devised, already undesirable interrogation-through-seduction plan more dangerous than it arguably was. She’d need to keep her eyes open and her guard up.

Ryōma opened his car door for her like a gentleman, clicked it closed once she was seated, and jogged around to duck into the driver’s seat. “Now, you are gonna have to tell me somewhere safe I can take you. If you don’t want to tell me your address, then maybe another place you can definitely get home from. That choice is yours, but remember your phone’s dead.”

She arched a brow at him at the odd statement .

He gave her a look. “If you choose a nearby park and presume you can make the walk, you won’t have a way to call for help if you’re wrong.”

Abigail winced and ducked her chin. “That’s sensible. I’m sorry.”

He clicked his tongue. “What the hell’d you think I meant?” He curled his finger under her chin and turned her to face him again, frowning. “I know you’re still feeling skittish about this, Abby, but I’m not gonna hurt you.”

She knew better than to trust him. She told herself it was their proximity, and the massive risk she was taking, that had her heart beating faster. “Sorry,” she said again. “I bet you underestimated how bad I am at this sort of thing.” ‘This sort of thing’ being the lying and manipulation she’d always associated with the criminal element. She was even worse at trying to have a social life. She offered him a small smile. “I’ll listen better.”

He lowered his hand to catch her nearest one and give it a squeeze. “I don’t know what kinds of morons you’ve dated in the past,” he said, “but don’t box me in with them.”

She couldn’t stop the short laugh that escaped her. “Oh, we’re dating already, are we?”

Ryōma growled low and leaned in, crowding her against her seat until his lips were a hair’s breadth from her own. “Yeah.” Then he kissed her, all lips and tongue, leaving her breathless when he retreated. “Now, where to?”

Abby had made surface conversation while they drove, confirming the bit of information he’d gleaned off her license and telling him how her work in graphic design enabled her to work from home most of the time. Something she admitted could get boring, but was still better than spending every day in an office. None of the information was overly personal, but Ryōma wasn’t bothered by that. He hadn’t told her anything personal about himself, either. The fact that he’d finally gotten her talking was satisfying enough for the time being.

He pulled up to the curb in front of her apartment building, eyeing the single-story unit beyond the small, half-dead lawn. The building looked to be in decent shape, and was in a fairly good area of town, but it was ground level. Easily accessible. The complex was neither gated nor guarded. Too vulnerable.

“Thank you for the ride,” Abby said, releasing her seatbelt. “I’ll text you once my phone’s charged so you have my number.”

Ryōma turned his frown away from the building and lifted his lips into a grin. “I know where you live now, so if you try to ghost me, I’ll just show up at your door.”

Abby rolled her eyes. “If that was my plan, I’d have had you drop me somewhere else.” She paused, then leaned over and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to his lips before swiftly popping her door open. “Have a good day, Ryōma.”

He licked his lips. “Call if you miss me.”

She graced him with a laugh before pushing the door shut and striding down the concrete walkway toward her door.

He stayed where he was, watching her hair swish across her back and the way her ass swayed in her wrinkled dress as she walked, until she had dug her key out from her clutch and disappeared from sight. She never looked back and he wondered if that was intentional or if she was still more anxious than she was letting on.

He let himself mull over his curiosities as he took the quickest route to his own home, a single-family house on the city-side edge of North Ward. It was small enough to be unassuming and close enough to the various people who mattered most that he could usually get where he needed to go quickly. The house had been acquired for him as part of a promotional gift—a sign of recognition and appreciation—by his employers for this thirtieth birthday.

He swung into the driveway, not bothering to raise the garage door since he wouldn’t be staying long, and another question rolled through his mind. Would he bring Abby here someday? He’d never brought a woman to this house. The only woman he could even think of who’d seen the inside was Felicity De Salvo. He kicked the front door shut, pausing before lowering to unlace and toe off his boots.

He wanted to see inside Abby’s place. He wanted to see how she lived, whether she kept a meticulous apartment, lived in a mess, or somewhere in between. He wanted to stand in her space and breathe her in at every turn.

If she would relax a little, and trust him, he thought maybe he could see himself bringing her over. They weren’t there yet, but hell, the thought hadn’t once crossed his mind for as long as he’d lived in this house. That had to mean something. Might just mean I’ve finally lost my mind. He’d barely known the woman for twelve hours, and she was under his skin.

Ryōma pushed the thought down for the time being, extracted the handgun from its holster in his boot, and strode through the house. He grinned to himself as he set the gun on his nightstand. It amused the shit out of him that they’d both had guns tucked into their boots last night. Normally he used the waistband of his pants, but it was easier to be casual if people weren’t staring like he might start shooting, and they tended to do that when a gun was visible. So he’d opted for his boot.

He tore off his day-old clothes, dumping everything through the faux laundry chute that led to the actual laundry room on the other side of the wall. Not ten minutes later he was publicly acceptable, gun properly holstered, and back in his car. He texted Cris to give the man a heads up and aimed himself in the direction of his friend’s penthouse.

Saturday traffic slowed him down by a few minutes, but soon enough Ryōma was riding up to the penthouse in the main elevator. He was technically the only non-De Salvo Cristiano had given access to the private elevator, but he tried very hard not to use that elevator now that Cris had a woman. He didn’t ever want to walk in on them having lost track of time .

The elevator deposited him at the first floor of the penthouse and Ryōma pocketed his key, opting to ring the bell beside the private door instead of letting himself in. It was the same thing otherwise.

Cris pulled the door open thirty seconds later. “Still a chicken-shit, I see.”

“No one wants to walk in on their siblings getting freaky,” Ryōma tossed back.

The door clicked behind them and Cris turned to lead the way through the small in-home gym and back up the stairs to the main space. He had other rooms, and the conference room down on floor twenty-five, but he made no bones about keeping his wife included. Ryōma admired that, and the fact that it seemed to be a genetic trait in the man’s family.

“You do realize you’re going to have come clean about this mystery woman now that you’re here,” Cris said as they climbed the stairs.

Ryōma rolled his eyes. “ Hai, hai .”

When they stepped into the sitting room, Felicity unfolded from the sofa and set her Kindle on the side table. “Ryōma! I want to hear all about this new girlfriend of yours. Cristiano says he’s never known you to look twice at a woman.”

Cris chuckled and dropped into the far corner of the sofa, leaning back to get comfortable. “That’s not exactly what I said, baby.”

Felicity shot him a poorly suppressed grin. “I’m not repeating what you said. It wouldn’t sound right coming from me.”

Ryōma grinned, reached out to ruffle Felicity’s hair while she wasn’t looking, and moved to the chair he usually claimed as her protest filled the air. “Don’t worry, little sister, I’ll answer at least most of your questions.”

Cris pulled his wife up to his side while she fussed with her hair. “Let’s get work out of the way first, then. Your text sounded important.”

Right. That. Ryōma let his amusement fade. “I had an unexpected visitor at my favorite bar last night,” he said, though he didn’t make his friend guess. “Chief Silva came up to me and made a point of saying how he’s been tryin’ to get hold of the boss, but hasn’t heard back. Said he wanted to pass along his congratulations.”

Felicity’s eyes widened as Cris’s narrowed. She looked up her husband. “Is he supposed to know yet?”

“No,” Cris said, voice low and tight. “No, he’s not.”