The Don Shared His Territory with His Childhood Sweetheart

"Horst, I think the alarm system at my safe house has been cut."

Erin didn't open her door. She toyed with the black-and-gold blade she'd just received, her voice timid and sweet.

"The lookouts on the perimeter aren't answering either. I'm scared to go up alone."

Horst slid his Beretta into its holster.

"I'll go up and check it out with you."

As his hand closed on the door handle, he finally glanced at me in the rearview mirror.

"Stay in the car. The defense system's on. Ten minutes, tops."

The climate control was on.

Before he pushed the door open, he took off his black trench coat and tossed it onto my lap.

"Don't open the window. Even a little gunpowder smell sets off your cough."

He was always like this.

He remembered every one of my habits. Yet he could leave me alone in an armored car in hostile territory without a second thought and walk off to clear the way for another woman.

Every time I fooled myself into thinking he was protecting me, Erin found a way to prove me wrong.

The scraps of affection Horst tossed my way were never mine alone.

Ten minutes passed. The searchlight on the top floor of the safe house never moved, and there was still no sign of Horst.

I lowered my eyes and went back to checking my one-way flight to New York on my phone.

I was still going over the flight clearance when the heavy driver's door swung open.

He didn't bother explaining. He just held out a cup of black coffee to me.

"Got it at the place downstairs. No milk, a little sugar."

He'd even slipped a sleeve around the cup, and the coffee was exactly how hot I liked it: 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

I stared at the dark-web e-ticket on my screen and didn't take it.

The coffee hung in the air between us.

Horst frowned and turned to study my face.

"What are you looking at? You're not even keeping watch."

I turned off the screen at once and took the cup.

"Nothing. Just the arms invoices from the East District."

Horst narrowed his eyes at the hand gripping my phone.

"You're lying."

He leaned halfway over the seat and held out his hand, palm up.

"Hand it over."

He knew my body language too well.

Whenever I was nervous, my thumb would rub at the hem of my shirt on its own.

When I didn't move, he leaned in to take it, but the passenger door flew open before he could.

Erin climbed back in, a few drops of fresh blood on her leather boots.

"Horst, the safe house's security hub is fried, and the backup power's out too."

She holstered her gun before turning to look at me in the back seat.

"Diana, could I stay at the main house tonight?"

Erin bumped Horst's shoulder like one of the guys, the way she always did after they won a fight.

Whenever she asked like that, Horst never said no.

This time, before I could answer, Horst entered the estate's access code for her.

"The north wing's empty. You don't need to ask her."

I tightened my grip on the coffee cup. Even as Donna, I couldn't decide who slept where.

He finally spared me a glance.

"Give Erin the room at the end of the second floor. She's a light sleeper and startles easily, so keep the guards away from that hallway tonight."

"Not that room. It's right next to the vault."

On the day he took over the main house, Horst installed an iris lock on that vault himself.

It held every weapon blueprint my father had left behind and the full roster of his men.

Back then, he'd given me the highest clearance and said no one else in the Ferrara family could set foot in there.

The moment I objected, Horst's face darkened.

When Erin saw that, she muttered, "Forget it. I'll crash in a basement somewhere tonight. Diana's never liked me touching the old Don's things. I get it."

The more reasonable she sounded, the more I looked like a jealous wife.

Stone-faced, Horst started the armored car.

"Erin is my second-in-command. She's not some outsider."

After a two-second pause, he met my eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Diana, don't make me lay down the law on a sweep day."