Tempting the Mafia Twins novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Terms

His penthouse sat on the fortieth floor of a building on Lake Shore Drive, and it was the same as I remembered, only emptier.

White walls, gray couch, a wall of glass over the black lake.

I stood in the middle of the living room with my wet coat still on.

"Ten days," I said.

Carmine stood by the bar, keeping the whole room between us.

"Ten days," he agreed.

"I sit at your father's table on Sunday, because I won't let him call my daughter's mother a runaway in front of that family again."

"Yes."

"I sleep in the guest room. You don't touch me. And you tell me everything about that night before the ten days are over."

"I'll tell you what I can."

"Everything."

"Cassie."

"Then I'm on the next plane."

He put his glass down.

He looked at me for a while, and in the light from the window the scar through his eyebrow showed pale.

"The woman in that suite was put there," he said. "I never saw her before I came through the door."

"I was ten minutes late, and she was already there."

"Late from where?"

"The garage. Somebody called me down for a business matter. It was nothing. It was a way to keep me away from the room."

"Who called you?"

His mouth closed.

"Who, Carmine?"

"I know who put her there," he said quietly. "I knew by the next morning."

"If I say the name, someone in this family dies, and I can't be the one to do that. Not yet."

"Not yet."

"That's half."

"It's the half I can give."

I took off my coat and dropped it on the floor.

I did not decide to.

My heart was going so hard it made me dizzy.

I was so angry that my hands shook.

Under the anger was another thing I had been starving for five years.

"You know what I hate?" I said.

"Tell me."

"I believed you. In the cemetery, in that bakery, just now. I believe you, and I don't know why I do, and I hate it."

"Cassie..."

I crossed the room.

I took a handful of his shirt, and I kissed him.

It was not a kind kiss.

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