“What the hell are you doing?” it burst out of me. “I won’t make out with you after you killed someone.”

Matteo gripped the back of my neck and pulled our bodies flush against each other before pressing his mouth to mine, kissing me hard. I panted for air when he drew back. His lips brushed my ear. “You look so fucking sexy. I could fuck you in a room with a dead body and wouldn’t care.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I muttered, but I didn’t try to pull back. His warmth and strong body steadied my trembling limbs. Maybe the events were affecting me more than I thought.

“But that’s not why we are here,” he murmured.

A loud shot carried through the house. I jumped. “What--”

“That’s why,” Matteo said calmly. “We’re going to pretend we had a quickie. We don’t want people to think we had something to do with Bardoni’s unfortunate end, right?”

He ruffled my hair, then his own before unbuttoning his top two buttons. He raised his dark brows. “Ready?”

I nodded.

“Remember we don’t know anything. We are shocked, and surprised.”

Matteo ripped open the door, and headed out, pulling his gun. The lobby was filled with other guests, most men with their weapons drawn. Confused looks were exchanged. Luca and Bardoni’s son ran toward where the gun shot had come from. Several people gave me and Matteo disgusted looks. They seemed to believe the lie Matteo wanted to. It probably helped that they all thought I was a whore.

“Stay here,” Matteo said. “I’ll have to see what’s going on.” He looked so honestly worried and alert as if he really didn’t know why a shot had sounded. Nobody would doubt him. If I didn’t know better, even I would have believed in his innocence after that show.

He hurried toward the crime scene. I could only watch in stunned silence. Matteo was a master manipulator.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Gianna

It was way past midnight when we finally got home. Most of the other guests had left long before us, but Luca and Matteo had to stay as heads of the Cosa Nostra and pretend they were trying to figure out what had happened. Nobody had suspected them, at least not openly. To be honest, neither Bardoni jr., nor Mrs. Bardoni had looked too distraught. Their tears had been crocodile’s tears if I’d ever seen any. Maybe he’d been as unpleasant to them as he’d been to me in the short time I’d spent with him.

I couldn’t believe my life had changed from waitressing in Munich to covering up my husband’s crimes. After a quick shower, I slipped into bed. Matteo was still arguing with Luca in our living room. This was one of the few instances where I understood Luca’s anger completely.

I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling as I listened to their voices. The ankle monitor lay on my nightstand, mocking me. Maybe I should have used tonight’s confusion to escape. Luca, Matteo and Romero had been busy cleaning up their mess, and I had been without my stupid ankle bracelet. It had been the perfect opportunity. Then why hadn’t I run? I doubted anyone would have stopped me.

Because of Aria? I wished that was the only reason, but as I’d stood in the lobby waiting for Matteo to return, I hadn’t even considered escape. Why wasn’t it at the forefront of my brain anymore? Six months ago it had been all I could think about, had been an obsession that had consumed me, and now it sometimes felt that I only thought about running because I felt that I was supposed to do it.

It was confusing. I wasn’t as miserable as I’d worried I’d be living with Matteo. Of course, he was a crazy-ass killer, but it wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to that kind, and it actually made life exciting even if I hated admitting it. Living life as a normal person, doing normal things, earning money with normal jobs, had been an incredible experience, but for some reason it had never felt like more than a distraction.

The door opened and Matteo strode into the bedroom. He wasn’t wearing his jacket anymore and half of his shirt buttons were already unbuttoned. He flashed me his usual grin before he disappeared in the bathroom.

I could have pretended to be asleep to avoid talking to him but for some inexplicable reason I wanted to talk to him. When he emerged from the bathroom in his boxer shorts, flashing his lean muscled torso, I almost cancelled my plans. But that would really have felt too wrong. A man had died, albeit a horrible man, and having sex so shortly after his death would have felt utterly wrong.

Matteo slid under the covers and reached for my waist, pulling me toward him. His eyes were hungry. There was no sign that he even still remembered what he’d done not too long ago. His lips claimed mine and I let his tongue in, let the kiss consume me until my body was humming with pleasure and I forced myself to push him away before I did something for which I’d despise myself tomorrow morning.

Matteo flung himself on his back with a groan. “This is because of Bardoni, right?”

I glared. “Maybe I’m just not in the mood. You aren’t that irresistible.”

“If you say so,” he said in a low voice that sent a traitorous shiver down my spine. The bastard was way too manipulative.

I decided to steer this conversation toward safer grounds. “So will Luca punish you?”

Matteo chuckled. “Luca has never punished me for anything. He’s used to my proactivity.”

“Proactivity?”

Matteo winked and I almost reached for him again. Instead I pulled the blankets up to my chin as another barrier between us.

“Luca looked furious.”

“He’ll get over it. He always does. He would have had Bardoni killed anyway. It was only a matter of time.”

I had a feeling this wasn’t ordinary bedtime talk. “When did you kill your first man? Kindergarten?”

Matteo propped his head up on his arm, smirking. He ran a finger down my arm in a very distracting way. “No. I was a late bloomer in comparison to Luca.”

“Really? That seems unlikely.”

“Not really. Luca made sure I didn’t get in trouble when I was younger. He was a protective big brother.”

“I can’t even imagine Luca being a kid, much less him making sure you stay out of trouble.”

“He did. Is that really that surprising? Didn’t Aria try to protect you when you were younger?”

“She still does,” I said with a grimace.

“See. Luca’s the same way. Of course now I’m making it harder for him to keep me in check, just like you make it hard for Aria.”

“I think there’s a huge difference between the kind of trouble I stir up and the trouble you cause.”

“Give it some time. I have a feeling you haven’t reached your full potential yet.”

A laugh bubbled out of me. Damn it. Why did he have to say things that made me laugh? “You didn’t answer my question. When did you kill the first time?”

“It was a few weeks after my thirteenth birthday.”

“That’s what you call a late bloomer? Most guys that age worry about their sprouting pubic hair and not killing someone.”

“Oh, I’ve come to terms with my pubic hair a long time before,” he said in a teasing voice. “And most guys aren’t the second son of the Capo of the New York Cosa Nostra.”