a Benetti sent by Luca to mess with her.” Whoever was on the other line knew me. Or knew of me. Ciro spoke so casually, it was like…I was a part of their everyday normal conversations.
“What did this man look like?” Luca asked, bringing my attention back to him.
“Light brown hair, and hazel eyes,” I told him. “He looked average, but not really. I don’t know. I don’t think he was tall, but I can’t know for sure since I didn’t notice him until he sat down at my table.” I was looking at Luca, but I could hear Ciro recounting my description of the man to whoever was on the other end of the phone. My gut told me it was Phoenix Fiore, but I wasn’t about to ask.
“What did he say?” Luca asked.
I could feel my face warm with embarrassment. “He said he was curious about why you found me interesting,” I answered honestly. “He said it might be my beauty, but Benetti’s were used to beautiful women throwing themselves at you, so it couldn’t be that.” Luca’s jaw ticked, but that was the only outward reaction he gave to my recounts of what happened. “I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. He got angry, and then I got angry.”
“That’s it?” Luca prodded.
I let out a deep breath. “No,” I grimaced. “He…he said fucking you must be making me brave to talk to him the way I was.”
Luca’s voice dripped with ice. “He said what?”
My stomach dipped, but I wasn’t going to lie. “He said fucking you must be making me brave, but…”
“But, what?” he snapped.
“That…that even if I am…spreading my legs for you, I wasn’t shit without a wedding ring, so I’d better watch how I spoke to him.”
The next thing I knew, I was standing in the middle of the room watching Luca Benetti slamming his fist against the wall. My scream came out of nowhere, and instead of Ciro calming Luca down, he was before me, with his hands on my shoulders, rubbing up and down. “Remy?”
I pulled my gaze away from watching Luca destroy the drywall and fell into Ciro Mancini’s sunlit eyes. “Wh…what?”
He was looking at me how a cop would look at a hysterical witness. “Remy, I need you to listen to me,” he said sternly. “We need you to tell us exactly everything that was said. Word for word.” He shook his head. “You can’t leave anything out.”
My eyes flew back towards Luca. “Luca-”
Ciro shook me. “Remy!” I looked back up at him. “Luca’s fine. I need you to tell me what was said.”
I did as he asked, and I knew through Luca’s pacing he still heard every word I said. I told them everything from when the man sat down to when I stormed into The Ruby. And I didn’t leave anything out because I knew I was in way over my head with this.
Luca’s phone rang, and he pulled it out and answered immediately. “What did you find?” Ciro took his hands off me, and we both turned to face Luca. He didn’t give anything away as he listened attentively to whatever the caller was saying. When he hung up, he said, “Phoenix’s got the footage. He’s going to head over to Sal’s and use his equipment.”
“Frankie and Robbie?”
“Have been told to stay put,” Luca automatically answered. “Alessandro and Umberto are aware there’s need for extra vigilance.”
Extra vigilance?
“I’ll see you at Sal’s later,” Ciro replied. He went to leave but must have remembered his manners because he turned to me and said, “It’ll be okay, Remy. We’ll take care of everything. It was nice to finally meet you.”
Was he crazy?
There was nothing nice about any of this.
“Uh…” He gave me a shit eating grin and wink before heading out, leaving me alone in his office with Luca. Now that he’s made it clear he has no plans to kill me, I wondered exactly what he planned to do with me. Because none of this shit was making sense.
Jesus Christ.
“Luca, I-” He put his hand up to stop me as he walked towards me, and I complied. I had a horrible feeling I was just causing more problems and it’d be in my best interest to shut. The. Hell. Up.
“I can see from your attire, you were working today,” he said, throwing me for a super loop. He wanted to talk about my clothes? “So, I’m assuming you need to go back to work, or are