me onto the ground…
If they get my coat off...
A blind punch at one of the men. It’s useless. I’m wearing mittens. He laughs and grabs my hand. No—the mitten itself. It comes off in a hard tug and tears sting the corners of my eyes.
A strong voice breaks through the clamor. “Find somewhere else to play.”
The guy with my mitten turns around, a sneer on his face. His confidence closes off like a shutter over a window. “Guys.” He tenses, voice rising. “Guys, guys.” My mitten flutters to the sidewalk. The man who held it is already gone, leaving his friends abandoned.
One of them is reaching into my pocket when the hand appears on his shoulder.
A big hand. A male one. The hand pulls him back like he’s nothing and the man’s face contorts, his head crumpling toward his shoulder. “Oh, fuck,” he breathes, and then he’s lurching away. He’s free because a man in black—tall and dark-haired and dark-eyed—ignores him as he steps neatly into the open space left behind.
This close, he is all intensity and movement. Practiced. Controlled.
It looks easy for him to bring back his fist and drive it into another man’s nose. To catch that man when he starts to fall and send a cracking blow into the side of his cheek.
He drops the man unceremoniously, the way you’d drop a dirty dishrag into the laundry, and kicks at the groaning body at his feet.
“Go on,” he snaps, like he’s talking to a feral dog. Less than a feral dog.
He kicks the guy again and he rolls over onto hands and knees. He’s halfway to his feet when my white knight plants a foot in the middle of his back and sends him spiraling onto the bare concrete. He must be off-balance from the blows, because his forehead meets the sidewalk with a dull thud. It has to hurt.
Adrenaline spirals down through my veins and lights up my fingertips. The air is so cold, so clear. I can feel the heat from the fire in the drum. I can taste it.
He saved me.
He saved me from whatever those men were going to do, and he hurt them. He hurt them because he could.
We watch the man get unsteadily to his feet and stumble toward the alley. More faces appear around the corner, eyes wide. A few people hurry out from the alley and go the opposite direction, fading into the gloom. They don’t want to be here if this man is around.
This man, in his beautiful black overcoat. He looks like a photo from a men’s fashion magazine, only sharper. Even in profile, the lines of his face make my chest ache.
His face...
It’s familiar somehow.
My mind is a mess, tangled up in the dread and relief of this near-miss, and I can’t place him until he turns to look at me with eyes like midnight. My heart stutters. I’m from a family known for its beauty, but I have never seen a person so agonizingly gorgeous.
Recognition makes my breath catch. Leo Morelli.
I’ve only seen him in glossy photographs in local magazines and online gossip blogs. On paper he’s handsome in a vague movie star way. In person he’s breathtaking.
I try to take a step back, but I’m against the wall.
There’s nowhere to run from the Beast of Bishop’s Landing.
3
Haley
Leo Morelli is a thousand times more intimidating in person than the men he just chased away.
My dad was right. He is focused. He’s unbearably focused. His eyes linger on my face, then slip lower. He returns his gaze to mine with a sneer.
It’s outrageously unfair that he’s so beautiful with that expression on his face.
“Look at you, with your pale blonde hair and porcelain skin and that willowy body.” My peacoat might as well be nothing under his knowing dark eyes. “I’d pick you out of a lineup in a second. A Constantine. I’m right, aren’t I?”
He steps closer. I press my back harder against the bricks, bracing for him to touch me. To kill me, even. That’s what Morellis do. They hurt people. They kill people. Cash was right. I never should have come here on my own. Leo blocks out the rest of the street. His face could be the last thing I see before I die.
No. I’m not going to die. I came here for a reason.
He cocks his head to the side, the movement graceful. Almost elegant. “What’s a pretty Constantine like you doing in a neighborhood like this? You’re not Elaine, so