Transgressions by Carolyn Faulkner (the reading list txt) 📕

how weak her personal security was. She'd known even then, though, that the men he'd sent to "collect" her, as he'd put it, had been told to treat her with kid gloves. Even so, she'd been bound, gagged, blindfolded and put in the trunk of their car.

Ally remembered that he hadn't been at all happy with that, and she knew by the look on his face as he'd removed the blindfold first, then went to work quickly and efficiently at her bonds, turning her loose in a matter of seconds. He ordered the men who had brought her there out of his office, and she wondered if either of them would survive the night. He looked positively murderous.

He still had her wrists in his big fingers, rubbing the circulation back into her hands, but unlike some men, he wasn't apologizing profusely as he did so and she would have been surprised if he had. He wasn't the type. He admitted an error and rectified the situation, but he didn't agonize over it.

"Can I get you something? Tea—" He stopped himself. "No, that was your mama, wasn't it—Earl Gray was her favorite?"

She couldn't believe she was smiling at him, considering the situation, but thinking of her mother did that to her, just before the inevitable tears set in. But she couldn't allow those to show and opened her mouth to reply but not before he began again.

"Coffee? Soda? I think I even have some champagne." He was rummaging around in the small fridge he kept behind that enormous, deliberately imposing, desk.

"Nothing, thank you."

He straightened and returned to stand in front of her, catching eyes that were still a bit misty from the memory of her mother. "Apparently, I wasn't clear enough with those two that, although they weren't to take no for an answer, you were to be treated with the utmost respect."

Ally cleared her throat. "I'm fine. And my men and I got our licks in, so they'll both be walking funny for a while."

She'd thought he might crack a smile at that, but no such luck. He wasn't anyone's idea of an easygoing man and tended much more towards darkness than most people would be comfortable with. But he'd never intimidated Ally. She used to count it as a personal victory when she could get him to laugh, and now it seemed downright impossible.

"You do realize that the fact that I was able to get you here at all by force means that your security isn't very secure?"

Ally nodded, crossing her arms over her chest and pursing her lips. She was well aware of the shortcomings in her organization. "I do. I'll see to that when I return."

"I could lend you some of my men, if you like." He leaned back against his desk and she felt his gaze settle on her like a gloved hand.

"No, thank you," she answered primly. Knowing the answer didn't stop her from asking, "Is that why I'm here? Because my security precautions aren't up to your standards?"

Enzo lowered his chin a bit to look at her from beneath hooded eyes. "You know perfectly well why you're here, Ally." He sounded like a father about to discipline his child for doing something the child knew full well was wrong.

"I'm sure I haven't the slightest idea-umph!"

She'd found herself rather roughly hauled up against him, one strong, muscled arm across her back, preventing any kind of escape with minimal effort on his part. She was half standing, half lying against him, and the angle at which he held her brought her nose within inches of his.

His breath smelled of nothing stronger than coffee, but then she knew that about him. He rarely drank anything, never touched a recreational drug—and barely a medicinal one, either, being a disgustingly healthy specimen of a man. And, he ran one of the tightest, most stand up crews in the area, especially for what many would term a crime boss, and they would not be in the least wrong about the label. But his men were held to a higher standard than anyone else's in the city—including hers. They were expected to do as they were told without question, to never sample the goods, be they drugs, prostitutes, booze, cigarettes or whatever other pies his talented fingers found themselves in—but most of all, to keep their mouths shut, whether they were in a precinct or a confessional.

In return, he paid three times better than anyone else in the business. Men—and some women—were lined up to work for him, despite what some considered to be unreasonable restrictions on their behavior.

But he held himself to the same standards, and, since he came up through the ranks at Ally's father's knee and in his incredibly successful organization, he could do the job of any one of his underlings, probably better. He knew all the ins and outs and all of the excuses, and he didn't tolerate any, ever.

Ally wasn't his underling. She shuddered at the thought. She'd had a crush on him since she could remember and had done her best to keep it to herself, mooning over him as a moody adolescent only when she was sure no one could see her do it and very carefully not revealing her feelings to anyone, even her best girlfriends. And now that she was, essentially, his equal—a mob boss in her own right, if not quite as illustrious as he was—she thought she had managed to extinguish that flame trying to beat him at his own game.

She had stepped on his toes by quietly expanding into the southwestern valley—just a couple of streets, mind you, nothing flashy, and a move that a lot of other dons would probably ignore. But even if it had only been a couple of houses in his territory, she knew he'd call her on it eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. Enzo knew everything that went on everywhere—in his own territory and probably everyone else's, including hers, and