“I thought I smelled pizza,” Carter says in a relaxed voice.
“Put some damn clothes on,” I demand, holding the pizza by the crust so tightly that it begins to tear, threatening to drop cheese and sauce all over the floor.
“I have clothes on,” he says innocently.
I glance over to him, again seeing tan, but then I realize I may have jumped the gun. He’s not clothed, but he does have a tan towel wrapped around his trim waist. He must be fucking with my head or something.
I sigh. “Carter, a towel isn’t the same thing as clothes.”
“Close enough,” he says, walking toward me with an exaggerated swagger. His shoulders barely clear the doorway, they’re so wide.
I have the urge to shift away from him, but I stand still, not wanting to seem small and meager. A lot of dominance comes down to posturing, not size or strength. Boldness, braveness, and attitude matter far more than anything else. Unfortunately for me, Carter understands that as well.
“Don’t hog it all for yourself,” he says, pressing his shoulder into me and nearly bumping me to the floor.
“Watch it,” I say, stumbling to the side.
“Sorry,” he says, but there is no sympathy in his voice. He seems more amused by how easy it was to move me than sorry for nearly knocking me over. What a brute!
I chomp into my pizza, chewing aggressively, my teeth tearing through the thick bread and cheese like it was nothing. I glare at Carter, trying my best to hate him, but his massive frame is distracting. Coherent thoughts float right out of my head as I scan his muscular back, watching each muscle move individually as he tears a slice of pizza from the box.
“He forgot the cola, didn’t he?” Carter asks, turning to me.
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
“Well, he didn’t bring them in, did he?”
“No,” I reply, taking another bite of my pizza.
Carter scoffs at my curt replies, but it’s his fault. If he wasn’t such a tyrant, then I wouldn’t have to take on an attitude. I was a sweet as sugar before he started being rude to me.
As Carter moves away from the box of pizza on the bed, no doubt to file a complaint with his sweet old assistant, I jump back into my spot, grabbing another slice and dual-wielding pizza in both hands. I watch Carter take a large bite of his pizza, smugness written all over his clean-shaven face as he goes to the phone.
He picks up the handset and punches in a number. He holds it close to his ear, taking another bite of pizza as he waits for his assistant to pick up. He frowns after the second ring, and his frown deepens at the third.
“Maybe you should give him time to get down the stairs before you bother him again,” I suggest with a full mouth.
Carter puts down the phone and turns to me, his frown nearly splitting his handsome face into two pieces. “Something’s wrong,” he says. “George always has his phone with him.”
I shrug. “Maybe he turned it off.”
Carter rushes past me, dropping the crust of his pizza back into the box unceremoniously as he passes.
“Jeez, slow it down. It’s just a coke,” I say, stepping back as he passes me.
“It’s not just a coke,” he grumbles, yanking open the top drawer of the dresser and pulling a gun out of it.
My heart skips a beat. “What the hell are you doing?” I ask, worried that he’s lost his mind over a soda. Arranged marriages are stressful, I’ll give him that, but he’s acting like he’s about to kill someone.
“George is in trouble,” he grumbles, throwing open the bedroom door and charging out in nothing but a towel.
Chapter Seven
Carter
George always answers his phone. Always. If he doesn’t answer it, then he must be incapacitated, or it’s been taken from him. Either way, it spells trouble.
I’ve learned in my years on the dark side not to take warning signs lightly, no matter how small or subtle they may be. Overreacting to a threat is always better than underreacting and getting yourself killed. I have a new wife and a double-sized mafia to worry about now. I’m going to be on a hairpin trigger about suspicious occurrences.
But this is more than suspicious. It’s downright alarming. I’m always able to reach George, even if it’s four in the morning on a Sunday. He takes his job seriously, and this is highly uncharacteristic of him.
I race down the hallway, back toward the narrow spiral staircase that brought be up earlier. I have to hold the towel to my waist, clutching the tan fabric in a bunch at my hip to keep it from falling down. I’m not especially keen on getting my dick shot off if worst comes to worst, and I’d also rather not have anyone see me naked, though right now, that’s the least of my worries.
My gun goes down before me in the staircase, spinning down the spiraling cylinder until I’m at the ground floor where George would be if he was fetching soda from the refrigerator. I don’t hear anything, and that’s not a good sign. Normally, I would hear voices, movement, anything to tell me that George is in the kitchen.
Nothing.
Dead silence.
This is bad.
The tips of my fingers dig into the black plastic grip of my gun, and my pointer finger slides closer to the trigger. I’m prepared to shoot anyone who appears to be a threat, no matter who they are. George has been with me almost my entire life, and if anything has happened to him, there will be violence. There will be so much violence.
I step toward the kitchen, my feet making no sound on the stone floor. I count my breaths, letting them in and out slowly and making sure they’re silent. I might as well be a ghost with how quietly I can move around the house.
Without warning, I jump into the kitchen, brandishing
