“If you so much as think about it,” I said, casually sitting down and crossing my legs, “I will cut off your dick and shove it down his throat,” I said, pointing for emphasis. “Then cut off his and stick it up your ass.”

To drive home how willing I was to do it, I reached down into the bodice of my dress and pulled out my knife from where it was sitting between my breasts, the metal warm from my skin.

I flicked it open.

“Want to know how a little thing like me got to be a capo in the Lombardi crime family?” I asked, slowly getting to my feet and stalking closer to the leader of the group. Who suddenly looked close to making the train car smell even more like piss than it already did. “Or are you going to be good little boys, sit your asses down, and study your goddamn feet?”

Unsurprisingly, they went with the latter option.

I wasn’t naive; I knew it was the family name, not necessarily me, that made them decide to behave. But a win was a win, and I would take it.

Besides, I knew the threat wasn’t an empty one.

I’d done arguably more unhinged things in the name of my family and reputation. Or my own personal safety.

Even if I was glad to make it out of the subway without getting blood all over Soren’s nice jacket.

“Of course,” I said, reading the signs as I made my way up the steps and onto the street.

Only I would take the train right into the worst neighborhood in Brooklyn just to get away from Soren and my overwhelming urge to say screw it to my job—and common decency laws—and demand he fuck me right up against the wall at the platform.

Not in the mood for another trip underground, I flagged down a cab that took me all the way back to where we started from, dropping me off outside my apartment building.

Where I promptly reached for my phone and shot off the text I promised I would.

“Thank you. Get some rest,” was his almost immediate response.

I made a beeline for my comfy chair where I yanked off the stupid heels, pulled the blanket up over my bare legs, and reached for one of my books.

But not one of the murdery ones.

Nope.

This was a night that called for one of the spicy ones.

And so what if the hero who was telling the heroine she was a good girl and to drink her water suddenly morphed into Soren in my mind?

It was no more absurd than falling asleep in his damn jacket.

And having vivid, sweaty dreams about him that were so real that I woke up damn near close to orgasming.

Great.

So much for keeping those lines unblurred.

CHAPTER NINE

Soren