The Syndicate Heir Begs For My Love

Falcone for e

could dismantle an entire cartel with a single phone call. I was the daughter of hi

l at a syndicate dinner, I held my bre

ook he fixed on me was one of

r's surveillance. He ignored me for hours while his crew laughed and drank. He gave my most treasured

d the pines, I heard him tell his crew

s. I scored out the life I'd planned around

local college-somewhere

ss around my broken heart. A new life.

scovered

niversity. He spent thirty-six months at the e

he's f

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pte

nna

votion to Julian Falcone like a loa

Bratva stronghold with nothing but a nine-millimeter and walked out with the keys to the port. The hei

n of someone who knew she was invisib

d on a humid August ni

ead of the mahogany table. She lifted a crystal glass of Barolo, the

nounced, her voice carrying the absolute authority of a woman who had burie

left m

er the table, I dug my fingernails into my p

oss the tabl

ismissive half-laugh he reserved for h

yes-the eyes I'd spent a lifetime mapping-cut toward

re, undisgui

h tightened, and the a

lt like forcing do

elegant hand over Carmela's. Her laugh was a smooth, practi

she murmured. "Let's not shack

his plate with the rigid posture of a man carved from marble, rad

. I pulled my university applications from the mahogany desk drawer and stared at the line whe

er and drew a line through i

ernoon, my p

fternoon. I'll

a request. An order

with the toxic marriage of dread a

ching at every crunch of

o'clock,

." His voice was a low

ulian's armored black SUV pulled up with a low groan. He stepped out in a fitted charcoal sui

the perimeter gate. Jul

aking Sienna to a private dinner.

silk over steel. A tiny, pathetic f

The bass hit me before the doors fully opened

was a den of noise an

overflowed with his inner circle-capos, soldiers, associates. Empty

at at the center of the chaos. Her eyes swept

over the music. "You

re was no seat for me. N

. I turned to leave, d

moved

by table. He slammed it down beside his own. His fingers closed around my forearm, the hard ridges o

took m

acticed swipe of his thu

tching his voice low to fabricate the illusion of a

phone onto the sticky tab

urs, he ignored me wi

erritory expansions, an informant who needed to be hand

n chair, a prop in a room of me

e as a guest. I wasn't here as his future wife. I was a

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