Sienna POV
If he pulled the trigger, I’d be dead before I even had time to react.
I knew I should be afraid, but I had come this far and couldn’t fall apart at the last second.
A muffled sound escaped my throat, barely intelligible, but I still shook my head.
Luca didn’t rush me.
He only watched.
I searched his eyes for the smallest trace of hesitation and found nothing.
The Luca of five years ago would never have done this.
But the man in front of me was no longer the man I remembered.
I closed my eyes.
My body went tight with tension.
The next second, he pulled the trigger.
Click.
My eyes flew open.
No gunshot.
No pain.
Nothing happened at all.
I stood there frozen, forgetting even to breathe.
Several seconds passed before I realized I was still alive, while my heart hammered from that single instant of pure fear.
Luca drew the gun slowly out of my mouth and looked down at me.
Then he smiled.
“Look how scared you are.”
I stared at him as the blood drained from my face, and finally I understood.
There had never been a bullet in the chamber.
He had never intended to kill me.
He only wanted to see whether, in the moment I truly believed I was about to die, whether I would give up the person behind all this.
My reaction had just given him his answer.
“You did that on purpose.”
“What do you think?”
Luca slid the gun back to his waist, his expression as relaxed as if nothing had happened.
He even looked amused by my reaction.
He took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Since you want to make it up to me, why not start by paying back the hundred and twenty million dollars you owe me from five years ago.”
I looked at him and almost laughed.
“Where would I get that kind of money?”
”Which is why I’ve thought of a way for you.”
Luca strolled to the table, picked up a cigarette and rolled it between his fingers, his eyes never leaving my face.
“Some of my clubs are short on women.”
My body went still.
He seemed to find my reaction amusing.
The corner of his mouth lifted.
“You’re not bad looking, and you’ve got the figure for it. Put on a short skirt, sit in a private room, drink with the guests, talk with them. As for whatever else they want–” He paused deliberately, his gaze sliding from my face to my chest and back up.
“If you’re willing, I doubt anyone would refuse.”
My face began to burn.
“Luca.”
”What?” His tone was calm, almost innocent.
“Didn’t you say so yourself? To make it up to me, anything at all.”
I curled my fingers tight and said nothing.
He stepped closer, lowered his head, and dropped his voice.
“The guests there tip generously. A night with a guest can bring in a few thousand dollars. With the extravagant ones, more.”
His fingers lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him.
“At that rate, you might clear the hundred and twenty million in a few years.”
I knew he was humiliating me on purpose.
“Didn’t you just say anything at all?”
”I…”
Luca studied me for a few seconds, then laughed once.
“So you do have a line after all.”
He released my chin, turned and picked up the file on the table.
“Relax. I’m not interested in putting you in there. Not yet.”
I froze.
He opened the file, his tone returning to that cool, unarguable calm.
“Starting tomorrow, you go to Hawthorne Group.”
”Doing what?”
”My personal assistant.”
I looked at him, and the file Fox had given me flickered through my mind.
In recent years, the Hawthornes had worked hard to distance the family from the underworld, buying up hotels, casinos, shipping lines and real estate companies, burying the family’s darker businesses beneath legitimate companies.
The trade had only changed into a more respectable skin, and the man driving all of it was Luca Hawthorne.
“Nothing to say? You don’t want to go?”
”I accept.”
He seemed to have expected my answer.
He only gave me a flat look.
“Eight tomorrow morning. Report to Hawthorne Group.”
It wasn’t until I walked out of that room that I unclenched my fingers. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
I was still alive.
More than that, I had gotten a job that put me at Luca’s side, more convenient than what I had originally planned.
I would move closer to him inch by inch, until he trusted me again.
I glanced down at the red mark on my wrist, and my mouth curved despite myself.
At least now I was one step nearer my target.
The next day I stood at the foot of the Hawthorne Group headquarters.
I pushed through the revolving doors into the lobby in my heels.
Today I wore a black pencil skirt and a white shirt.
Five years ago, Luca had liked me to appear in front of him like that.
The elevator climbed and stopped on the sixty-sixth floor.
I drew a breath and pushed open the door to the president’s office.
Luca sat behind his desk.
He wore a dark gray suit that fit his broad shoulders and tall frame, his black hair combed straight back, exposing sharp brow bones and deep-set eyes.
A high nose bridge, a clean jawline, and dark eyes that showed nothing of what he felt.
If I didn’t know his other identity, the man in front of me would look exactly like a young, accomplished CEO.
Hard to imagine such a man held the entire Hawthorne family’s underworld power in his hands.
I walked to the desk and set my resume in front of him.
“Mr. Hawthorne. I’m Sienna Hart, your new assistant.”
I bent down deliberately, and the neckline slipped a little lower.
Luca finally looked up.
His gaze rested on me for two seconds, then dropped to my collar.
Just as I thought.
“Mr. Hawthorne, I’m very much looking forward to this job. I hear your standards for assistants are high, but I learn fast, and I’m especially good at taking care of people.”
The pen in Luca’s hand stopped.
He raised his eyes.
“Miss Hart, your resume says assistant, not nanny. Employee handbook, chapter three, section seven: during working hours, dress code, the neckline may not fall more than three fingers below the collarbone.”
A mafia boss’s company actually had an employee handbook.
I’d have thought the first rule on his territory would be ‘don’t betray the boss’.
His gaze swept over my hands braced on the desk.
“Also, personal space. Keep a distance of three feet from me.”