Entangled with the Ruthless CEO

CHAPTER 3

TALIA's POV

“I’ll do it,” I said after a brief, heavy pause.

“Good… you’ve made a good choice. Now let’s go.” He shuffled me so my back was to him and my hand was in his arm, like we were a couple.

I could feel Elena's gaze shooting daggers at me from across the room, but thankfully I was masked. If you didn’t know me before, you couldn’t identify me based on the very few details the mask allowed.

Damian half-dragged me across the room until we were in front of the gala’s host.

“Damian.” The elderly woman looked quite shocked at seeing him before her attention shifted to look at me from head to toe, and she didn't really look impressed.

“Such a lovely pleasure to have you here with us. I thought you had already stated you would be busy tonight, so I wasn’t expecting you.”

“Well… I changed my mind after I realized a certain gorgeous woman would be in attendance,” he said with a smirk.

“And is this the woman?” The woman looked like she had seen better, and I wouldn’t blame her, because I was about to ask Damian the same question myself.

“Talia, meet Mrs Ravensworth.” He pushed me gently forward. “Talia is an outstanding woman who is also a good thief… I mean, she stole my heart at first sight,” he added after an awkward, heavy silence.

I met his gaze. I knew the game he was playing, but Mrs Ravensworth looked quite confused and irritated.

“You came in with Elena, right? You know she is my goddaughter. Why are you causing a scene for me?”

That explained the attitude she had been giving me.

“Do I look like I care about your scene or lack thereof? Have a good night, Isabella,” Damian said before spinning around and taking my hand in his.

The woman’s gasp was so loud that several people turned to look for what was wrong, and I couldn’t blame her. If a well-known, dangerous man half your age walked in and called you by your first name minutes after embarrassing your goddaughter, I would definitely gasp too.

“Where are we going?”

“My place. Where else?”

“I don’t care how dangerous or whatever you are. I’m not f*****g you, and I need to deliver this in the next two hours if I want to get paid—and I do want to get paid.”

It was like I was communicating with a wall. He kept moving until we were in front of a sleek black Bugatti that was definitely one of a kind, with unique designs all over it.

He opened the passenger side and gestured for me to go in.

“I need to get the necklace to my client—”

“You either get in this instant or you risk paying a long visit to one of the most dangerous jails in the world, and just so you know, I have more than enough tapes of all your recent gigs.”

The threat hung thickly in the air. He looked like he had all the time in the world, while I was sure I looked as miserable as I felt.

My client would reach out again the next day if I didn't deliver this night, and after three days, they would assume I had been arrested or maybe even dead.

“There is nothing sane or legal about this, Damian.”

“There’s nothing sane or legal about being a thief or a pro con artist, Talia.”

Point made. I swallowed my words and my pride as I settled into the very comfortable leather cushion of his car seat.

“Thank—”

The door slammed shut before I finished my words.

He walked over in front of the car, and I couldn’t help but hum in approval at how tall and athletic he looked, now that I could easily observe him without straining my neck.

His penthouse was more beautiful than most penthouses, and coming from me, that was a whole other level of standard.

As soon as we settled in, he took off his tux jacket, leaving only a crisp white shirt underneath. Then he unbuttoned it, rolling the sleeves up so his biceps were on full display, while his tanned chest was doing more than enough to my libido.

“The hard drive is nothing special to the physical eye, and I heard he has lots of hard drives that are all similar, but you need to know which one exactly to pick without anyone noticing anything is missing.”

He brought out a portable laptop and asked me to sit on the only chair in front of the table before coming to stand behind my back and leaning down over me to operate the laptop.

His masculine scent, his voice, the strength of his biceps, and everything about him had all my sense organs working overtime.

“So you’ll have to do this… then this… and you type this… and that’s how you confirm it. Do you understand?”

No, I didn't understand. In fact, I wasn’t looking at the screen the whole time; I was distracted by the veins in his hands as he moved them around.

Fuck. I was so f****d.

Talia, please focus. You can’t be crushing on a ruthless CEO who is also an undercover mob boss and has threatened your life and freedom, I chided myself over and over.

Okay. My tingling n*****s seemed to get the message, and it was all getting better, but then I took a deep breath at the same time he leaned in to zoom in on something on the laptop, and now I was breathing in his essence instead of a regular breath of fresh air.

“f**k,” I moaned out loud before I realized what I had just said.

“Did you just moan? Are you that weird, or just s*x-starved?”

“Or you’re doing too much with all this leaning over and shit.”

“You’re a professional. Such a thing shouldn’t bother you. Imagine me getting hard just because you’re near me.”

“Shut up,” I blurted out again, and thankfully, his phone chose that time to ring. While he excused himself to pick it up, I got up and walked toward his floor-length window. His place was so high up I could see the city lights in the surroundings.

“Talia, calm down. Calm down, please,” I repeated like it was a life-saving mantra.

The necklace was still heavy in my pocket, as well as my gun and other things hidden in different parts of my body.

My phone dinged just then.

“Killer’s Killer anonymous podcast is live.”

How was my dead father’s hidden podcast live if he was dead?