Elijah didn’t reply. What was there to say? Hell yeah, he was going to hunt them, but not now, not when they’d be expecting it. He was going to wait them out. Paolo didn’t have the patience for chess. He would make a move soon to get Siena back. He wasn’t the type of man to let his dream go. He wanted the power of the Arnotto family, and he saw Siena as his way to get it.

Alonzo was different. Hard to read. He had a reputation, a bad one. No one ever messed with Alonzo, and if he showed up on your doorstep, chances were good you weren’t going to live through his punishment. No one knew much about him or his family. Unlike Paolo, he wasn’t from any of the leopard families in the United States or South America. He didn’t say where he came from. He’d met Antonio by chance and for some reason, best known to him, had stayed.

Elijah always sized up his enemies, and one thing he was very good at was reading them, knowing them, learning everything about them, but Alonzo was an enigma. He’d have to get Drake to use his sources to find out about the man because he was definitely a wild card.

Elijah had learned in a hard school not to show anyone who mattered to him. He protected those he loved by acting completely emotionless around others. He wasn’t going to make the mistake of showing the rest of the world that Siena Arnotto had suddenly become as necessary to him as the air he breathed.

That strange thing was, he didn’t know how it had happened. It wasn’t something that had come on suddenly. He’d been acutely aware of her for years. So much so that he’d deliberately dated the complete opposite of her, but that hadn’t gotten her off his mind—or his radar. He fantasized about her. He dreamt about her. He had been obsessed with her.

He hadn’t let anyone in on that secret until he spoke to Jake about her, there in the office when he’d confessed he’d totally fucked up, because he wasn’t a man to put a woman in jeopardy. Any woman who became his would be living a shadow life. He’d be asking her to allow everyone to think she lived just as dirty as the world believed he did. She would be in danger and would have to walk a very fine line.

“Elijah?” Joshua pushed.

Elijah shrugged casually, his only answer to Joshua’s question, and sauntered back to the car where Siena waited with Drake. She had offered to go away with him right then, to protect him. No one had ever made such an offer, giving herself to him so he would be safe. He liked that. Something deep inside had shifted at her plea.