72

Alexei
My opponent continued to surprise, as worthy as I suspected. She hid her thoughts well, schooled her expression to that prim and proper facade, the dutiful Mafia daughter, one-day wife. In my experience, women tangled up in our kind of life either cloaked themselves in false bravado, flashy and brash, or let a stoic false front keep others away from her family’s business.
Gianna fell hard into that second type. If I failed, she’d return to the Bastard. He’d sell her off to Ceci as his beard or the coke head Cristallo in St. Louis. She’d play her part; the suffering, seen but rarely heard woman behind the new underboss of the Bastard’s expanding empire.
She’d want for nothing, at least materially. They’d live in a big house, his initials gilded on the cast iron gate that kept her safe. For a while, that life might be enough for her but not for long. The looming wall around that mansion would creep in, grow taller, keep her trapped. It had destroyed her mother, after all.
She wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Not if I could help it. Taking her from the Bastard, curb-stomping his life’s ambition would only taste sweeter by freeing Gianna from the life he wanted to force her into. With every moment I spent with her, she proved how much of a waste it’d be to let her wither away on the vine of the Bastard’s choosing.
Her hand in mine radiated an unexpected coolness. Her expression matched. The sea breeze had picked up during our dinner. My suit coat wouldn’t help much in a Moscow winter, but kept the slight chill of a Mediterranean summer at bay. Gianna’s sundress ended at her knees, the short sleeves left most of her arms uncovered.
“Here,” I said before slipping my coat off my shoulders, “you’re fingers are like ice.”
She glared at the coat as it hung from my hands until those calculating eyes appraised me. I held the coat open but she only leaned back.
“Do you really think chivalry will get you anywhere with me?” A thin smile sharpened her features, like a hawk about to strike. Breathtaking, but dangerous for their prey. “You can’t win points with the woman you abducted by throwing your coat in the mud to spare my slippers.”
I hadn’t considered the game when I’d made the choice. Her skin felt cold so I’d offered my coat. How she’d react hadn’t even crossed my mind. I’d need to be more careful and more calculating as I recovered.
“Points or no for me, you’re still cold,” I said then held the coat wider, “and you don’t have a to be.”
Her resistant frown flattened but she stood still a moment longer, shoulders drooped as she spun around. I wrapped my coat around her, leaning in close. My fingers slipped inside the coat and snatched my phone. She froze at the moment but relaxed when I retreated, phone in hand.
“You must burn like a sauna,” she complained, but snuggled into my coat, pulling the shoulders closer around her.
“Time for the tour,” I said, pulling my eyes from her. My oversized coat worked on her. “Should we go top down or bottom up?”
“I’m more interested in the safety features.” Her eyes fluttered open and a slight smile came to her face. “Why don’t we start with the life rafts?”
“If safety and security are your first concerns, we should start at the top,” I replied and pointed to the stairs to the next deck. “You have to know what’s out there before you set a course, and what better place to look.”
She wanted to see the life rafts. Like I’d fall for that. She knew better but rolled her eyes and huffed before approaching the stairway at the starboard edge of the balcony. My jacket fell lower than her skirt. Flashes of shapely calves teased me as I ascended after her.
“One more deck,” I said, a guiding hand on the small of her back to the steep, almost ladder like stairs to the lookout above the bridge.
Her frown returned but her eyes turned playful. She pouted and squared her shoulders, aided by my suit coat.
“You just want to look up my skirt.” One arm slipped out of my jacket, pointing an accusatory finger. “You go first.”
Now, I paused, watched her. She held my gaze, kept her face as flat as she could. Seconds passed but her mask remained. Good for her. Even if planned to run once I climbed the ladder, it only offered her seconds of a head start. She remained below after I reached the lookout, and took the rungs in hand to join me.
My hand again guided her to the railings, and I left it against the small of her back when we reached the edge. She froze at first but leaned against it. Her expression remained unreadable. I hadn’t expected her to be this receptive. She might have been playing me.
“When we’re at sea, I love to come up here,” I said, waving an arm out to the fading light of the sun on the western horizon. “You can watch the sea to the horizon, as far as possible and any who dare approach.”
“Sounds lonely. Do you spend a lot of time on your little boat here?” she asked, but her needles couldn’t pierce my skin so easily.
“Nonsense, I have Pavel and Oleg,” I replied, only realizing I’d said too much when her lips twisted in a triumphant smirk for a brief moment before flattening. “And the other crew, of course.”
“And me, for now,” she giggled but it sounded forced. After a deep breath, another smirk appeared, playful but no less forced than her laugh.
She was toying with me, playing the part of a woman receptive to my tentative attention. For all the intelligence I had gathered on her suitors, she’d almost been a blank slate. Without knowing more, only guesses and assumptions guided me, but something nagged at me about her.
Her friend’s words that I wasn’t a starter model floated through my head. If Gianna needed a starter model, a guy suited for a beginner, she didn’t have much experience with men. With no social media of her own, my team had scoured Katie’s and anyone else tangential to Gianna. They found little evidence of past boyfriends. But she wasn’t acting inexperienced.
“I think you like to pretend to be a pirate,” Gianna said, leaning over the edge, eyes on the coastline only a hundred meters or so from the yacht. “You stand up here, spyglass in hand searching for loot to plunder, women to steal.”
“You’re the first woman I’ve ever stolen,” I replied, hands up at my sides. “Why don’t we head down to the next level.”
She didn’t object and stepped toward the ladder at the back first. She even made a face when she started down, teasing for beating me and keeping me from looking up her skirt as she descended. Depending on how far she wanted to take her act, I’d see that and more soon enough.
“I don’t want to interrupt the captain on the bridge,” I said. The less she saw of the yacht’s controls the better. “So we might as well continue down.”
Even at the less steep stairs to the balcony we’d eaten dinner on, she stepped in front and held her head high in a teasing triumph. Whatever act she’d put on looked good on her. At some point, I’d see more than a glimpse under her facade, gaze at her true self.
“Back to where we started. This is a small boat, isn’t it?” Gianna teased as she spun around to face me, another poke at the bear that wouldn’t wake my temper.
Time to see how far she’d take her little act, find out what she expected to gain from it.