All In

Chapter 3

[DANTE]

The report on Bianca Rossi makes me want to burn the city down.

Rocco reads it aloud while I stand at the window, looking out over the Strip, trying to keep my hands still. The lights below are a river of cheap promises and I've owned them for so long they don't register anymore. The only thing I can see is her face when she walked through my door exhausted, wary, so goddamn brave she didn't even flinch.

Mother, Rosa Rossi, Rocco recites. End-stage kidney disease. Dialysis three times a week at the Pahrump clinic. Younger brother, Matteo, sixteen. Father walked out when Bianca was eleven; no contact since. They live in a two-bedroom off the highway. She's been working since she was fifteen. He turns a page. She's clean. No boyfriend. Never so much as a parking ticket. Sleeps four hours a night. Volunteers at the animal shelter on Tuesdays.

"Tuesdays," I repeat, like an i***t, like that detail matters. It does. It all matters. I want to know every minute of her life, every hour I have to make up for.

She pays her mother's medical bills out of pocket. She's two payments behind. The collection agency called last Thursday. Rocco's voice hardens. And Vincent Calder has been cornering her in the breakroom for months. Grabbing her arm. Threatening her shifts. She's filed nothing, but three other dealers confirmed it.

My hands curl into fists.

He touched her, I say quietly.

"Boss—"

Tonight, Rocco. I turn around and whatever he sees on my face makes him take a step back. I watched him put his hand on her wrist under the table like he owned it. Like she was a thing he could put his hands on whenever he felt like it.

Want me to break the hand?

Not yet. I smile and it isn't a nice smile. First, I meet her. Then I give her the world. Then, when she's safe, happy and wearing my ring. You will have a very long conversation with Vincent Calder about what happens to men who touch what belongs to me.

Rocco nods like I've just told him the weather. That's why I keep him around.

I dismiss him and pour two fingers of scotch I don't drink. I'm too wired. Too alive. My blood has been humming since the moment I saw her and it hasn't stopped I don't want it to. The city outside is glittering for the first time in years I want something that isn't for sale.

She's not for sale. That's the whole point. That's the whole goddamn point.

The knock comes a few minutes later soft, hesitant. My chest tightens.

Come in, dolcezza.

The door opens and there she is. Bianca Rossi, in her little black vest and her tired eyes, looking at me like I'm the executioner. Her hair is coming loose from its knot and there's a smudge on her collar. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

She hovers in the doorway like she's ready to run. I don't move. I let her look at me. Let her see the wolf.

"Mr. Moretti." Her voice is steadier than I expected. If I did something wrong tonight, I apologize. It was a long shift and I—"

You didn't do anything wrong.

She blinks. Then why am I here?

Close the door.

She hesitates, then does it. Good girl. The latch clicks we're alone and every instinct I have is screaming at me to cross the room and put my hands on her. I stay where I am. Barely.

Do you know how long I've been watching you? I ask.

Her chin comes up. A couple hours, from the pillar.

"Longer than that." I push off the desk and walk toward her, slow, deliberate. She backs up a step, then stops herself, refusing to be herded. I like that. I like it so much my teeth ache. I've been watching you for exactly as long as I've known you existed. Which is to say, since the moment I saw you tonight. In that time, I've learned a few things.

Her pulse is visible at the base of her throat, beating fast. Such as?

You work doubles. You send everything home. You're two payments behind on your mother's medical bills and there's a man downstairs who thinks he can put his hands on you. I stop a foot away, close enough to smell her soap and something sweet underneath, like vanilla gone soft at the edges. I don't like any of that.

Her eyes go wide. "How do you know—"

I know everything, dolcezza. It's my business to know. I reach out and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. My fingers graze her jaw and the contact is electric. Her breath catches. I know you're tired and scared. I know you think you're invisible. But you're not invisible to me. You could never be invisible to me.

I'm nobody, she whispers and I hear the crack in it, the years of being told she doesn't matter.

You're not nobody. I cup her face in one hand, thumb tracing her cheekbone, feather-light. You're mine. You just don't know it yet.

She slaps my hand away.

Or she tries. I catch her wrist gentle, always gentle, because I would sooner cut off my own arm than hurt her and I hold it between us like a promise.

I'm not for sale, Mr. Moretti. Her voice shakes, but her eyes don't drop. I don't care how much money you have. I'm not going to be your mistress, your fling or whatever it is you think you're going to get from me.

I'm not asking you to be my mistress. I dip my head and my lips brush the corner of her jaw and she shudders. The sound she makes small, involuntary, surprised goes straight through me. I'm telling you you're going to be my wife.

The air leaves the room.

You're insane, she breathes.

"Probably." I grin against her skin. But you'll love me anyway. I'll make sure of it.

I step back before I do something that scares her. The wanting is a live thing in my chest, clawing to get out, but she's skittish, exhausted and she's been grabbed at by enough men for one lifetime. I will not be another one of them.

So I open the door for her, like a gentleman, like I didn't just detonate a bomb in the middle of her life.

Go home, Bianca. Get some sleep. My eyes pin her in place. Tomorrow, everything changes.

She stares at me for a long moment fury, confusion and something else she can't name. Then she practically runs for the elevator.

I watch her go.

When the doors close, I pull out my phone and make three calls in quick succession.

The first clears her mother's medical debt. All of it, plus six months paid in advance.

The second buys the apartment complex where she lives, because the door locks are garbage and the wiring is a fire hazard. That is no longer acceptable for my future wife.

The third wakes up a very surprised man at the county clerk's office, because by morning, I want to know everything there is to know about Vincent Calder his debts, vices and weaknesses.

I want him to have a very bad night.

Bianca Rossi thinks this is a negotiation. She thinks she can walk away, hide behind her pride and her independence and that tiny gray cat.

She can't.

The second I saw her, the game was over.

The house always wins. And I just went all in.