I FLED.

Fighting tears, feeling like a coward, I didn’t stand there and fight for what I wanted. I walked away.

My stomach in knots, my head spinning, I didn’t know what had happened but all I knew was that he’d had an opportunity to at least call me and he didn’t. He’d had a chance to explain before sending me off, and he didn’t. He’d had all the opportunity in the world to tell me I was more than a single fuck, but all he’d said before sending me away was watch it. And nothing in his expression since that moment had changed.

I didn’t want to be with a man that didn’t fight for me.

I knew it was a double standard because I wasn’t fighting for him, but I’d already fought. I’d told him up at the cabin in front of everyone what I’d wanted, and he’d said nothing.

So here I was, aiming for the exit and my dignity, but fate wasn’t done screwing with me.

Massimo Vincenzo, in all of his custom suited glory, was walking in with muscle on either side of him.

“Miss Amherst, a pleasure to see you again.” Ignoring Shade who’d suddenly appeared at my side like a silent sentry, Massimo Vincenzo took my hand and kissed my knuckles as he smiled down at me with his white teeth and unusual eyes. “I hope you’re staying for dinner.”

Fear crawled up my spine and settled in my stomach. Forcing a smile, I pulled out all the socialite manners Fallon had tried to instill in me. The same manners I’d used on Shade not seconds ago. “Mr. Vincenzo, what a surprise.”

He turned up his smile. “A good one, I hope.”

Expression lethal, Shade glared at Massimo. “Touch her again and I’ll break every bone in your body.”

Looking like pure money in his Armani tux, Massimo laughed. “Spoken like a man possessed. Or should I say possessive?”

Shade said something to him in Italian.

Massimo listened with a look of smugness then he glanced at me. “I am going to assume you do not speak Italian?”

Shade clipped out a single word in Italian.

“No, I do not,” I answered Massimo.

“Pity.” His gaze roamed from my face to my hair to my hips. “You make a lovely brunette.”

Shade shouldered between us, grabbing my arm. “Let’s go.”

I forgot about the bullshit manners Fallon had drilled into me. “Take. Your hand. Off me,” I practically growled at Shade.

As if on cue, Massimo’s two bodyguards suddenly flanked Shade.

His tone short and curt, Massimo spoke to them in Italian before turning a charming smile on me. “I would love for you to join me at my table for dinner, Miss Amherst, if you are so inclined.” He held his hand out to me.

Shade growled at Massimo. “Sei un uomo morto.”

Massimo chuckled, but he didn’t drop his hand. “I assure you, Miss Amherst, you will be safe with me. And unlike your companion here, I promise not to lose my temper with you.” He amped up his smile.

Shade reached under his coat, and everything went to hell.

Shade drew on Massimo. Massimo’s bodyguards drew on Shade, and André and Talon appeared, each of them aiming at one of Massimo’s bodyguards. The collective sound of weapons being pulled from holsters, combined with the sight of five men with guns out was so unreal, it was like a ridiculous action movie.

If I wasn’t so pissed off, I might’ve rolled my eyes.

As it were, Talon grinned. “Looks like I almost missed the fun.” He glanced at me and winked. “I think your dance card just filled up, darlin’.”

Andre said something low in Shade’s ear I couldn’t hear, but I didn’t need to. Shade’s temper flaring with his every inhale, he didn’t lower his weapon.

Seeing all I needed to, I looked at Massimo. “Thank you, I think I will join you.” I took his hand.

“Woman,” Shade barked at me in warning. “Don’t even think about it.”

André rattled off something in Spanish to Shade. Shade growled low and threatening, and Massimo ignored them both.

Squeezing my hand in his cool, smooth touch that was nothing like Shade’s, Massimo glanced down at me. “Shall we?”

Swallowing past the fear in my throat and fighting the urge to pull my hand back, I nodded.

Leading me away from the testosterone fest with more of a forced pull than a gentle guide, the Mafia boss with unreal blue eyes swept me across the ballroom. Before Massimo had made even a full stride, two more bodyguards in black suits appeared out of nowhere and blanketed us with a stifling reminder of exactly who I’d gotten in bed with.

“I must admit, bella, this isn’t the evening I imagined when I got dressed tonight.” Massimo casually looked down at me but his grip on my hand tightened to the point of pain. “You?”

“No.” Definitely not. “Are you disappointed there was no bloodshed?” I asked dryly.

He chuckled. “Guns have never really been my thing.”

“And yet you hired four to kill me.” And Shade. But here I was, walking toward a ten thousand dollar a plate fundraiser dinner with him.

He shrugged casually. “Not me, my brother, but nonetheless an oversight in my opinion.”

“I’m so glad a bounty on my head by a mob boss was merely an oversight.” What the hell was wrong with me? This was a bad idea and getting worse by the second. Shade, angry or not, would never stab me in the back if I blinked wrong.

Massimo pulled out a chair at a ten-person table that had no one sitting at it. “I think your imagination is running away with you, bella. Perhaps too much television has filled your head with fantastical ideas of bounties and the mob. Surely your position in life would shelter you from something so preposterous.”

I took the seat even though I wanted to bolt. The way he spoke, formal and with a slight accent, I couldn’t tell if he was twenty-five or forty. “How old are you?”

He took the chair next to me but he didn’t lean back. Studying me, his eyes roamed over my face. “Does it matter?”

“No.” I was out of here the second a six-and-a-half-foot bodyguard with an attitude problem wasn’t standing between me and the exit. I glanced back the way we’d come and immediately wished I hadn’t when I encountered furious dark eyes on a Marine covered in tattoos. Tuxedo or not, there was no disguising the warrior Shade was.

Massimo’s eyebrows drew together in concentration as he continued to stare at me.

With Shade’s glare burning a hole in the back of my head, and a mafia boss’s gaze making me squirm, I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh, run, or cry. “What?” Maybe all three.

“Curious,” Massimo quietly ruminated before tipping his chin at one of the guards standing behind us.

The expressionless man who I wasn’t sure spoke, turned his back on us and signaled a waitress.

“What’s curious?” I stupidly asked.

“You look like neither your father nor mother.”

“Fallon is my stepmother.”

“I am aware.”

My back stiffened and for a moment, I forgot all about the irate bodyguard across the room. “You knew my birth mother?” It wasn’t a secret that Fallon was my stepmother and, as far as I knew, my father had not made any great effort to hide who my mother was, but neither of us ever advertised it or even spoke about her anymore.

A waitress appeared with a nervous expression. “Excuse me, sir. I have your drinks.” She set a tumbler with amber liquid in front of him and champagne flute in front of me. “Would you like anything else?”

“No, thank you.” Massimo smiled pleasantly at her before looking back at me and picking up his drink. “Salute.”

“I don’t drink.”

He smiled softly. “It’s champagne, bella. A sip will not hurt you.”

“I just got out of rehab.”

“A mere retreat for a minor indiscretion involving your stepmother.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I do my homework, signorina.” Casual as you please, he leaned back and nodded at the champagne. “Have a drink.”

A chill, from him, from the air conditioning, swept up my back, but I didn’t touch my glass.

“As you wish.” Massimo took a swallow of his drink and set it back down, and that’s when it occurred to me.

There was a reason he was here.

“What do you want?” I no longer cared if he knew who my birth mother was or what information he’d found out about me before coming here tonight. My skin crawled, and I’d had enough of alpha assholes to last me a lifetime.

“Ah.” The side of his mouth tipped up, but it wasn’t like when Shade did it. This was practiced and affected, and a move purposely made to entice or coerce. “I am glad that you asked.” He leaned closer. “I think we have a certain rapport now. I think we understand each other, no?”

“No.”

“Then let me rephrase.” He smiled. “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”

“You tried to kill me,” I reminded him.

He made a sound of dismissal. “You insulted a Vincenzo woman. Antonio did what he had to do to protect her honor. It is done. The past is not my concern.”

“Her honor?” I practically spat. “She—”

“It is done.” Massimo cut me short with a warning tone.

“Whatever.” I picked up the champagne.

Massimo took it from my hand and set it down on his side of the table. “I want an introduction to your father. Then you can consider your debt paid.”

Wait, what? “What debt?” My father didn’t give a shit about me, but I stupidly still held on to the notion that he was my father. Massimo could fuck off if he thought I was going to introduce him to Leo.

“For insulting my family.”

Was he serious? I’d heard what he’s said to Shade up at the cabin. He’d made it sound like he was going to kill his own brother’s wife, if not his brother too.

Screw this.

Of all the bad shit I’d done in my life, this was charting for number one, and I was done. I made to stand.

“Not so fast, bella.” Massimo’s hand shot out and went around my arm like a vise grip as one of his guards took a step toward me.

André suddenly appeared and sat down next to Massimo. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, Vincenzo.”

“What?” he asked innocently. “Have a conversation with a beautiful signorina?”

André gave Massimo an icy glare. “Touch Domani’s woman again.”

Massimo chuckled. “I would think if she were his…” His gaze turned to me and everything in his expression turned sinister. “He would have better control over her.”

My stomach dropped and bile rose. “No man controls me.” Except maybe they did. Maybe I’d been controlled my whole life. First, by my father, and now by a bunch of alpha assholes. I was over it.

Massimo lifted an eyebrow in challenge at me as if to say he knew I was full of shit. Then his face smoothed out and he lowered his voice. “An introduction, bella.” Still holding on to me, he looked at André. “What can I help you with, Mr. Luna?”

André clasped his hands and rested them on the table. “I have thirty-seven former Marines working for me. Most Force Recon. All skilled snipers. But some have a certain skill set that’s above and beyond.” He leveled Massimo with a threatening glare. “An unquantifiable skill set.”

“Then perhaps my brother should not have let Mr. Domani go,” Massimo mused.

“He didn’t.” André paused. Then he added a weight to his next words that was so tangible, they were terrifying. “He couldn’t control him.”

Massimo opened his mouth to reply.

André cut him off. “You sure you want to go down this road?”

Massimo let go of my arm.

For the first time since sitting down, André looked at me. “Leave.”