I handed over my black Amex.
“You should come over for dinner soon,” I said as Luca processed the payment. “Dante and I would love to see you.”
A long pause, followed by a vague, “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving.”
Frustration needled at me. I hadn’t seen or talked to Luca since the engagement party. I couldn’t shake the sense he disliked me for some reason, and his cool reply confirmed it.
“Have I offended you in some way?” I had half an hour before my meeting and no time to beat around the bush. “I get the sense you don’t like me very much.”
Luca slid the sales receipt across the counter. I signed it and waited for an answer.
His work wasn’t the best place to have this conversation, but the rest of the customers had left, and the other staff members were out of earshot. This was the best chance I had of getting a straight answer. I’d bet my new jewels he would go out of his way to avoid me if we weren’t forced to talk one on one.
“I don’t dislike you,” he finally said. “But I’m protective of my brother. It’s always been the two of us, even when our grandfather was alive.” Luca’s voice dropped. “I know Dante. He never wanted marriage. Then, one day, out of the blue, he announces he’s engaged? It’s not like him.”
A strange current ran beneath his words, like they were a mere cover for what he really wanted to say.
It made sense though, even if I was startled by how readily he’d answered. I’d expected him to deflect.
“And yes, I’m aware of the business side of the arrangement,” he said. “But your family gets much more out of the deal than ours, does it not?”
Heat crawled down the back of my neck. Everyone knew Dante was “marrying down,” but no one dared to say it to my face.
Except for his brother.
“I understand your concerns,” I said calmly. If Luca was trying to get a rise out of me, he wouldn’t succeed. “I’m not here to disrupt your relationship with Dante. He’ll always be, first and foremost, your brother. But I’ll also be your sister-in-law soon, and I hope we can at least establish a civil rapport, for both ours and Dante’s sakes. We’ll see each other plenty at family functions in the future, including Thanksgiving, and I would hate for animosity to ruin a good meal.”
Luca stared at me, his surprise tangible. After a long, drawn-out moment, his face softened into a small but somewhat genuine smile.
“Dante got lucky,” he muttered. “It could’ve been a lot worse.”
My brows pulled together at the odd response. Before I could question him on it, an explosion of noise yanked my attention to the entrance.
My blood iced.
Three masked men stood by the door, two of them holding assault rifles and one holding a hammer and a duffel bag. One security guard lay unconscious on the floor next to them; the other faced down the barrel of a gun with his hands in the air.
“Everybody get on the fucking ground!” One of the men waved his gun while his accomplice smashed the glass of the nearest display. “Get down!”
Luca and the other two employees complied, their faces leached of color.
“Vivian,” Luca hissed. “Get down.”
I wanted to. Every instinct screamed at me to crawl into a corner and curl up until the danger was over, but my muscles refused to obey my brain’s commands.
I’d lived in New York for years, but I’d never experienced a mugging or assault. Sometimes, I’d watch the news and wonder how I’d react if I were caught in such a situation.
Now I knew.
Not well.
One second, I was signing receipts and talking to Luca. The next, the sight of the masked men had pressed pause on the tape of my life, and all I could do was watch, numb, as the one who’d shouted instructions caught sight of me still standing.
Anger lit his eyes.
Fear ricocheted through my body as he stalked toward me, yet my feet remained rooted to the floor. No matter how hard I fought the creeping paralysis, I couldn’t move.
Everything felt surreal. The store, the robbers, me.
It was like I’d floated out of my body and was watching the scene play out as an invisible third party.
The masked man neared.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
My pulse reached deafening levels and drowned out everything except the heavy, ominous thud of his boots.
I should be focused on how to escape my current situation, but time flipped back with every footfall.
My first camping trip with my family. Walking across the graduation stage at Columbia. Meeting Dante.
Life events, big and small, that’d shaped me into who and where I was today.
How many more of those did I have left, if any?
Pressure squeezed the oxygen from my lungs.
Get down. But I couldn’t.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
He was here.
The last thud finally kicked my fight or flight into high gear.
My body jerked, a gasp of life in the face of death, but it was too late.
The cold metal of a gun pressed against the underside of my chin.
“Did you not hear me the first time?” The man’s hot, wet breath fanned across my face. My stomach turned. “I said get on the fucking floor, bitch.”
His dark eyes gleamed with malice.
Some criminals were all bravado. They just wanted to snatch the goods and leave without actually killing anyone.
But the man in front of me? He wouldn’t hesitate to murder someone in cold blood. He looked like he was itching for it.
The drumming of my heart reached a fever pitch.
Less than an hour ago, I’d been agonizing over Dante and over the moon about hosting the Legacy Ball.
Now…
There was a possibility I might not make it to the next morning, much less the ball or my wedding.
CHAPTER 15
Dante & Vivian
DANTE
“This better be important.” I put my phone on speaker and shrugged off my jacket. “This is the first damn break I’ve had since I landed.”
My trip to San Francisco had been a whirlwind of meetings, photo ops, and dealing with people whose heads were so far up their asses they’d require surgery to see daylight.
I’d barely slept in the past forty-eight hours, but we were finally closing the deal with Franco Santeri in two hours.
Until then, I wanted to shower, eat, and, if I was lucky, grab some shuteye for five minutes.
“It is. There was an attempted robbery at the Lohman & Sons flagship store in New York.” Giulio, my head of corporate security in North America, cut straight to the chase. He was one of Christian’s men, but he’d worked for me for so long he answered directly to me instead of Christian. “We apprehended the perpetrators before they escaped. They’re currently in our custody.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
“One of the security guards was knocked unconscious and has a concussion. Other than that, no, sir.”
“Good. Take care of it the way we usually do. Make it clean.”
There hadn’t been an attempted robbery of a Russo Group property in two years, but fools were born every day.
I kept to the right side of the law when it came to finances and boardroom dealings. But when it came to people who tried to steal from me? I had no qualms about making an example out of them.