Free BOW DOWN: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance (Barone Crime Family) by B. B. Hamel

with your father was fought in this place,” he said. “There’s something interesting about the two of us meeting here.”
    “Women were saved from this house. That’s more important to me.”
    He shrugged. He was wearing his usual suit, and I had to admit that he looked incredibly handsome.
    “I need to talk to you about your father.”
    “What about him?”
    “He came to me earlier.”
    “What did he want?”
    “He wanted me to help him defeat you.”
    I stared at him for a second and felt a bubble of anger begin to inflate in my chest. “That bastard.”
    “He didn’t put it quite that way,” he went on. “But he did want me to put pressure on the police chief to begin trying to prosecute you guys.”
    “That won’t work.”
    “I figured as much.” He smiled a cocky and knowing smile. “Why is that, anyway? Your father is throwing a lot of money at them.”
    “Belief can make men do a lot of things.”
    “So can money.”
    I shrugged. “Did you bring me here to rub my father in my face?”
    “No,” he said. “I didn’t. But you need to know what you’re getting into.”
    I felt my patience begin to wear thin. “I understand. You’re involved with my father. I don’t want to have anything to do with someone that he has bought and sold.”
    Wyatt’s expression darkened. “Nobody buys me.”
    “Then what are you doing with him?” I asked, anger flaring.
    “He’s useful.”
    “To you, he’s useful. To me, he’s a controlling monster that needs to be destroyed.”
    “We don’t think so differently, you know.”
    “If you brought me here to gloat about my father, I’m leaving. I have more important things to do.” I turned to go, fuming.
    “Louisa, wait.” He stepped toward me. “He’s useful because I can play him.”
    That made me pause. “Play him?”
    “He thinks I’m his. Because of that, I can get information from him about his people.”
    “You mean, you’ll spy?”
    “Something like that.”
    I cocked my head at him. “That’s not very loyal of you.”
    “I have no loyalty to your father. He gave me money, and I gave him favors. He and I are even.”
    I nodded, pursing my lips. I understood that he was saying, but it worried me. I needed to be able to trust him, but it would be difficult knowing that he was willing to do something like turn on his ally so easily. I wanted to work with Wyatt, hell, I wanted Wyatt in a lot of different ways. But I needed to trust him above anything else.
    “Why do you want to work with me?” I asked him.
    “Because I see something in you.”
    “What?”
    “Desire.” He stepped closer to me. “You want the same things I want.”
    “Yet I’m a spoiled mafia princess.”
    He smirked. “That’s right. You are. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”
    “You seem to think so.”
    “I can pass off as a rich snob,” he said. “The wealthy, they tolerate me, but they know what I really am. Every time I talk they see my hard past, my hard mentality. But you, you were born to be around these people.”
    “I don’t see how that’s important.”
    “You want to run this city? They run this city. We’ll need them.”
    I nodded slowly. “What are you going to do about my father?”
    “I’m going to talk to the police chief. I’m going to tell him to keep up the good work, and then I’m going to tell your father that I tried.”
    “Good.”
    He came closer and pulled me against him. “Were you worried?”
    “About what?”
    “That I was betraying you.”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “You don’t have to be worried about that.”
    “Yes, I do,” I said.
    He smirked and pushed my hair out of my face. His thumb traced a line down my lips. “So closed off. So many barriers.”
    “You need barriers to do what I do.”
    “Maybe. But I want to strip them away.”
    “You want to strip away something else.”
    He smiled. “True.”
    His kiss felt like it did the first time: intense and passionate. I gave myself to him