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by Lea Griffith

  Dante met his gaze evenly. “The Underground has nothing to do with what we’re discussing here today. And contrary to your assumption it has everything to do with my—what did you call them? My sexual needs.” He didn’t blink, and held Tobias’s stare with ease. Not many men had ever been able to do that. “This”—he gestured to everyone in the room—“is about revenge and redemption,” he finally stated.

  Tobias nodded then. “Two things I can understand with impunity.” He turned away and glanced back out the windows. He itched to return to Ruthie. Most of the time anticipation made the wait worth it. Today it was a fucking nuisance. He didn’t need the anticipation; he just needed her.

  From behind him he heard Dinapoli murmur to Dante, and then the man left as quietly as he’d entered. “I want him to stay as far away from Ruthie as is physically possible. Control him or I will,” Tobias warned Dante.

  “He’s not my man to command; he’s his own. But you have no worries about Solomon making a move on your woman—he’s searching for another. He is, however, willing to do whatever is necessary to make sure that Vessi Gallo and all associated with him go down very, very hard.”

  Tobias shrugged. As long as he stayed away from Ruthie, they would have no problems. His agenda meant nothing to Tobias. “You can assure the port berths are ours and the shipping lanes will be secured?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want Jeremiah off the hook for any future favors.”

  “What’s between Copeland and me is between Copeland and—”

  Tobias let loose his rage, turning and leaning over the conference table. “Off the fucking hook, Shaw.”

  Dante sighed. “Done.”

  Tobias glared at Jeremiah, who shrugged and continued to sit there cataloguing every movement and word. Jeremiah was a master tactician. Tobias was more the enforcer, though both men did their fair share of intimidating during business deals. Tobias’s one and only mistake had come when he’d tried to strong-arm Gallo into giving up some of his family’s port berths. Thank God Tobias had been the only one to suffer.

  “Something is going on here and I have the eerie feeling you’re going to come to us for more eventually, but know this, Dante—if that happens, if you come to us for more, you will have to divulge everything. That’s the price for any future help—information. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal.” Dante stood. “I’ll have the papers for the berth rights and lanes sent over to you in the morning. I believe your Honda deal should go through without a hitch this time, gentlemen. You’ll be even richer soon. It’s been a pleasure.”

  It didn’t surprise Tobias that Dante knew about their hopes for the Honda deal. He’d come in with an agenda and he, too, was a master tactician.

  Jeremiah stood then and shook the man’s hand. “We’ll get them back to you posthaste.”

  Dante nodded and started to leave, but Tobias called his name. The other man turned and raised a brow.

  “If this falls back on anyone, and by anyone I mean our family, I will hold you responsible. I won’t hesitate, Dante, please know that,” Tobias said in a deathly quiet voice.

  Dante nodded again. “Gallo won’t be alive much longer, if he isn’t dead already. You were the culmination of years of fuck-ups by the man, and my grandfather’s patience is only so thick.”

  “Whether he lives or dies, if he gets within ten feet of me in the future, his own end will be assured,” Tobias promised.

  Dante nodded and left as quietly as he’d come.

  “Do we have anybody who can research Shaw, Acciai, and Dinapoli further?” Tobias asked Jeremiah.

  “Not yet, but we will before the day is out,” Jeremiah assured him.

  They thought alike. Hell, with the exception of a few quirks and their looks, they could be the same person. It’s what made them so very good in business and such excellent friends and brothers. They’d seen the worst of each other and recognized their own faults in the other. Understanding went deep.

  “You need to prepare, Jeremiah. He’s involved in some deep shit and there could be repercussions. You’ll have to tell Daly what we’ve decided. I don’t envy you that, my man. She’s going to be pissed.”

  Jeremiah snorted. “Understatement. Hey, did you hear your father is going away for about twenty years?”

  Tobias nodded. He’d gotten the call from the State’s Attorney’s office yesterday, but in the firestorm of one Ruthie Copeland, he’d nearly forgotten. He should have called Daly the moment he heard. He’d remedy that right now.

  Jeremiah nodded at him and left, but not before tossing out, “Let’s do lunch and discuss this further. Twenty minutes?”

  Tobias nodded again and dialed his sister’s number. This would be tough for her to hear, but they were both better off without Heyward Edwards anywhere around. Jail was the perfect place for their nightmare.

  As the phone rang, his thoughts wandered back to Ruthie. He loved her so damn much. But the fear was still there. He’d have to control it, and maybe, just maybe, she’d save them both.

  “Tobias?” Daly’s voice sounded in his ear.

  Tobias sat down as thoughts of Ruthie were pushed back. “Day, I’ve got some news…”

  Chapter 13

  “How’s it looking, Stanton?” Ruthie asked hesitantly.

  “It’s finished, Miss Ruthie,” he replied with no small amount of awe.

  Shock ghosted through her and she turned in a circle, then laughed at her action. It wasn’t as if she could see it. There remained the smell of sawdust, but over that was the pungent aroma of lacquer polish for the hardwoods and paint. “How’d that happen?”

  Stanton laughed. “My guess is Tobias.”

  She smiled. “How do the windows look?”

  “Clean,” came his simple answer.

  She laughed now. “I need to call the art supply store and have them deliver my canvases and paints, and—”

  Stanton cleared his throat. “Umm, it’s been done.”

  She cocked her head, disbelief replacing her shock and making her warm in spite of the absence of the sun. “Seriously?”

  Another laugh, and then he grabbed her elbow and led her to the far left corner of the space. Ruthie thanked him and stepped away.

  “The floors are completely clear, but should I get your walking stick?” Stanton asked.

  She shook her head as she spread her arms, allowing her fingers to come to rest on the windows. From the waist up, the walls were large panes of glass. Some had needed to be replaced, and she’d had them do that with the other work. The amount of light in this space was inspiring and exactly what she needed when she worked.

  Her home studio in Vegas had had floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides. She’d loved that studio but had a feeling this warehouse was going to fill her heart and her canvases with beauty.

  Ruthie turned and felt her way to her easel. There were three separate easels, each approximately six feet apart and each holding a different-sized canvas. Ruthie preferred Belgian linen material for her canvases. The weave was tighter than others, and once the linen had been stretched and primed it was less likely to shrink or distort. Her portrait linen canvases were smoother and ideal for painting detail. The first two canvases were Belgian linen, already primed and wrapped around wooden stretchers. They were longer and definitively landscape size. The depths of the edges were normal, with a spline finish. This meant they had no staples or nails; rather, the canvas edges were wedged in place to the stretchers.

  She preferred Nordic pinewood stretchers because they were more resistant than other types to warping. Ruthie traced the stretcher of the canvas on the middle easel and located the brand, her favorite. Her heart beat hard as excitement whipped through her.

  The third easel held a portrait-sized canvas, and she ran her fingers lovingly along the deeper edges, loving the smooth feel of the linen beneath her fingertips.

  The easels formed a semicircle about six feet from the windows. She moved once again to the
corner and found her paint stand. Her fingers traced every dip and hollow of the wooden bench that sat at waist level. It, too, would be made of Nordic pine. At the end was a place to hang her wooden oval palettes. On the bar hung at least ten separate palettes. There were circular holes for every color of her paints, and above the holes were Braille descriptions. There were also deeper and wider holes at intervals for her cleaners. There were four separate holders for her brushes, all sized to hold the instruments of her trade made of fitch hair, kolinsky sable, and hog bristle. There were other holders for brush-cleaning solutions, rags, and tracing pencils. Again, everything was labeled perfectly.

  Tobias hadn’t asked her a damn thing about her studio, but he’d gotten everything just right. The Georgia sunlight would hit each of those canvases at every part of the day on this side of the warehouse.

  Her smile started in her heart and spread to her face.

  “Miss Ruthie, I’m going to head down to the car for a few minutes. You’ll be fine here?” Stanton asked, concern in his voice.

  She turned to the sound and said simply, “I’ll be perfect.”

  He chuckled, and for some reason she pictured him bowing. He was always so proper with her, the picture just seemed to fit.

  “I’ll check on you in about thirty minutes, then,” he said, and before she could protest he headed down the steps to the lower level.

  The silence fell then, and she could hear the light tap-tap-tap of the soft rain on the roof of the warehouse. It was soothing and after the morning she’d had, it was welcome.

  Ruthie was almost frightened at Tobias’s sudden change of heart. Wary, definitely, but the fear rose from the last time she’d tried to give him everything she was and he’d rejected it. Thoughts of what tonight held, along with the fears from three years ago, made her long for her paints. She could purge them on one of the canvases behind her.

  Instead she began touring her space. The entire building was over nine thousand square feet of space with three separate levels, of which Ruthie had claimed the top. There might be potential for the other two to become more in the future, possibly a gallery, maybe an art store, but for right now she had concentrated on the top floor.

  This floor was three thousand square feet, with glass windows on all sides. Originally it had held the offices for the manufacturing firm that had established it. When the business went belly up, they’d vacated, and the space, along with the adjoining property, had gone into foreclosure.

  Ruthie had all the interior walls knocked down, the floors redone, the windows cleaned, and the walls repainted. Shelves for her canvases and supplies hung on the right side of this floor. There were four enormous columns at specific intervals, and she’d been unable to have them removed because they held the structure in place. She traversed the space along the edge of the room, trailing her fingers along the glass and inhaling the scents.

  For the first time in three years she felt grounded. She was home.

  And she had yet another chance with Tobias. She stopped as the thoughts of last night and this morning played through her mind. Ruthie pressed her heated face to the cool glass and remembered.

  Every moan and every groan, every stroke of his fingers over her flesh, and joy cascaded through her soul. Tobias was intense and his domination of her was all but assured. The way he played her body told her he was a master of his craft.

  A sound to her left caught her attention and she cocked her head. “Stanton?”

  No answer. How long had she been lost in her memories? Unease skated along her spine, and she turned from the window as the sound of shoes over hardwood met her ears.

  “Who’s there?” she called.

  No way Stanton would have allowed someone up here without making her aware of it.

  “Tobias?”

  A harsh, obviously male, chuckle sounded, and she gauged the unknown man to be about twenty feet in front of her. “Not Tobias Edwards, puttana, someone much worse,” the man responded in a low tone.

  Everything inside Ruthie stilled. It was her worst nightmare come to life. She had no way of knowing who he was—or what his intentions might be. Where the hell was Stanton?

  “I had heard his whore was blind. No one told me she was bello.” His voice was horrible. Raspy and deep, she immediately pictured him as a large man, full in the middle, probably run to fat, with a deep chest, possibly short.

  He’d called her a whore, then beautiful. She wasn’t up on her Italian, but those two words were easy enough to decipher. She raised her chin in the air. He wouldn’t cow her. “Who are you?”

  He was on her then, using his girth to shove her against the windows, and her breath nearly ceased as a slice of cold metal met her cheek. He traced a line from her forehead to her chin and laughed. The point was light on her skin and it seemed, even though his breathing was labored, he was incredibly careful not to break her skin.

  The man was bat-shit crazy.

  “I am Vessi Gallo. Say my name, puttana, so that when you tell Edwards you don’t make any mistakes,” he demanded.

  The man had the pungent odor of sweat and desperation rolling from him in waves. Ruthie gagged, and he shoved her head back against the glass, exposing her throat. He pressed his face into her neck and she felt the obscene caress of his tongue over her pulse. “Say my fucking name,” he insisted once again.

  She swallowed hard and the bitter bite of his blade appeared at her throat. “Vessi Gallo,” she whispered. Her voice was nearly cut off by the angle of her head. One of his hands pushed up and back on her head while the other drew the blade up and down her skin.

  “Perfetto!” he enthused, still breathing harshly, only this time he pushed his pelvis against her lower body. “Your blood would look wonderful on my blade. I want to cut you deep, but I have a use for you today. After?”

  She felt him shrug negligently. Her insides had frozen because he was pressing the tip of the blade hard enough into her neck for her to feel the sting.

  His breathing calmed. It was eerie how out of control he’d been seconds ago and now he was calm. “Well, after, who knows? Perhaps we can play, bello. You can be my puttana.”

  She struggled to hear any sign of Stanton. There was nothing but silence now.

  The man released her and moved back mere inches. “I want you to give Edwards a message for me.”

  Ruthie said nothing. She hadn’t moved from the window, choosing to remain as still as possible. Would that she’d brought her walking stick, because the titanium length of it would have been a wonderful weapon right about now.

  “Did you hear me?” He screamed the question and was in her face that fast.

  She nodded and whimpered. She wasn’t used to fear, but it was acidic bile in her throat and slick sweat on her skin.

  “Are you stupid as well as blind?” he asked, then he spit on the floor at their side. As if she disgusted him.

  “I’m not stupid,” she said softly.

  “Good, then you will take the message to him for me. Are you ready, bello, for my message?”

  There was nothing else for her to do. She had no weapons. He was much bigger than she was and close to being out of control. Ruthie nodded.

  The feel of the blade at her neck had her stilling. The pain as he cut into her skin was excruciating. She felt flayed but realized it wasn’t deep; it just stung like a bitch. He started at her chin and drew a line down her neck to her collarbone.

  And he laughed the entire time he hurt her.

  “Tell him Vessi Gallo said hello,” the man whispered at her ear, and then he was gone.

  Ruthie waited against the windows for a long time. Finally, panic receded, leaving her shivering uncontrollably. She didn’t call out, afraid the man would return.

  So she slid into a tight ball on the floor, hand pressed to her bleeding neck, and she sobbed uncontrollably. How long she stayed that way she didn’t know, and it wasn’t until she heard her name being called that reality intruded on her safe zone.
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  “Ruthie! Oh, goddamn, baby, are you okay?”

  It was Tobias, his warmth reaching out for her as his arms enfolded her and pulled her up against his chest. The tears came again, great hiccupping sobs of relief and pain, and he moved with her, down the stairs and into a waiting car.

  “Stanton?” she mumbled at his neck.

  “Headed to the hospital. He’ll be fine.” He held her tight, almost impeding her breathing, but she didn’t mind. He was safety. He wasn’t Vessi Gallo. “Who did this, baby?”

  Ruthie lifted her head and her hands, and Tobias’s indrawn breath was enough to let her know he’d seen her throat. “Goddamn it! She’s cut, Hoenig! Head to Grady first,” Tobias commanded their security man. To Ruthie he asked, “Who did this?”

  “Gallo,” she whispered so low she barely heard herself.

  Tobias pressed some soft material to her throat and she sagged in his arms. “Who, Ruthie?”

  “Vessi Gallo!” she screamed, and then broke down again.

  The impact of what had happened to her was staggering in that moment. Someone had come for her to deliver a message to Tobias. The same man who’d caused him harm three years ago, and Ruthie had been unable to protect herself.

  Because she was blind.

  “I’m sorry, Ruthie. So sorry he got to you. So sorry you’re involved in this,” Tobias murmured, still holding her tightly and pressing the cloth to her neck.

  She burrowed into him, concentrating on the deep timber of his voice and letting it soothe her pain. She could deal with this as long as Tobias was at her side. The car slowed to a stop and Tobias was out like a shot, carrying her into a building. The stringent scent of antiseptic touched her nose and she wrinkled it.

  He’d brought her to the hospital. Within minutes her wound had been cleaned and a doctor was examining it.

  “It’s bled a good deal, but it doesn’t need anything but butterfly Steri-Strips to close the wound. It won’t even scar, Mr. Edwards.”