Chapter 4 - Scent of Roasted Coffee and Steel
The touch of her small hand inside his was so light it felt like the wing of a moth, yet it anchored Lorenzo Duca to the flagstones with the weight of an anchor.
He did not let go. He simply curled his fingers enough to enclose her hand completely, shielding her frail skin from the brisk autumn lake breeze that had begun to kick up through the rose gardens.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?” Lorenzo asked, his tone steady, almost conversational, as though they were discussing the weather in a drawing room rather than grand larceny on the floor of a garden.
“Mia,” she whispered, her gray-blue eyes blinking up at him. “Mia Rossi.”
“Well, Mia,” Lorenzo said, rising slowly from the gravel in a single, fluid motion that seemed effortless for a man of his size. As he straightened to his full six-foot-two height, he did not release her hand. Instead, he bent at the waist, slid his powerful left arm beneath her knees, and scooped her up off the ground, settling her weight securely onto his left hip.
Mia gasped, her small legs instinctively wrapping around his torso. She clutched her one-eyed beige rabbit to her chest with one arm while her other hand reached up to steady herself against his broad shoulder.
Pino stood up immediately, shaking his glossy coat with a sharp rattle of his iron studs, stepping into position at Lorenzo’s right heel, his eyes fixed on the path ahead.
Mia didn’t cry. The dizzying height of his shoulder seemed to stun her into silence. She looked down at the gravel that had felt so vast and terrifying only moments before, now small and distant beneath his black leather shoes. Then, she turned her face toward the man holding her.
She nestled her cheek into the crook of his neck, her soft light-brown curls brushing against the black collar of his shirt and the dark ink etched into his throat. She took a deep, shuddering breath, her small nose twitching as she caught the scent of him.
“You smell like coffee,” Mia said softly, her small voice carrying that pure, unfiltered frankness that children reserve for strangers who carry them. “Dark coffee. And… and like the metal spoons in the kitchen.”
Lorenzo halted mid-stride at the base of the marble steps.
The metal spoons. It was the scent of gun oil and cold steel from the sidearm resting three inches from her ribs, mingled with the double espresso he had downed twenty minutes ago in his downtown office.
A sensation entirely foreign to him rose in his chest—a strange, tight warmth that cracked through the armor he had worn like a second skin for two decades. The corners of his mouth twitched upward. For one brief, fleeting fraction of a second, the fearsome boss of Chicago almost smiled. It wasn’t the sardonic smirk he gave his rivals across negotiating tables, nor the cold grin he wore when an enemy realized the game was over. It was a real, human smile, buried so deeply in his past he had forgotten the muscles required to make it.
“Is that so?” Lorenzo murmured, adjusting her weight higher onto his hip so her head rested comfortably against his shoulder. “Could be worse, I suppose. Could smell like Renata’s vinegar.”
Mia let out a tiny, hiccuping giggle that died quickly in her throat as she remembered where they were going. Her little fingers bunched into the wool of his lapel, gripping the expensive fabric as if it were a life raft.
“Mommy is in the laundry basement,” Mia whispered, her eyes turning wide and fearful once more as they faced the grand double doors of the mansion. “The men with the black radios put metal rings on her hands. Renata said the police are coming with the big van.”
Lorenzo’s almost-smile vanished instantly.
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The warmth in his hazel eyes froze into polished, lethal granite. His jaw set with such force that the tendons beneath his stubble stood out like iron cables. Security had handcuffed a maid in his basement on the word of a housekeeper, without his explicit written authorization. Someone in his house had forgotten who held the keys to the kingdom.
“Nobody is calling any vans, Mia,” Lorenzo said, his voice flat, low, and laced with absolute, terrifying finality. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go introduce you to the rest of the house.”
