Ryder

 

The next morning, Ryder couldn’t rush to the office fast enough. Usually, whenever he was called home in the past, he’d procrastinate for as long as possible, to make sure that he was minimizing the time he spent with his brother and mother. But today, he was going to see Adriana again, and as a result, his heart was beating so fast it felt like it was going to jump cleanly out of his body.

 

He couldn’t wait to see her; to see if she looked any different from the day before, if their experience together had changed her. He knew they hadn’t fucked yet, hadn’t even kissed or done anything remotely sexual, but he still needed to know if she’d been changed at all. If she felt freer or happier or just better since she’d signed the contract—the way he felt ever since he saw her name written on that final page the night before.

 

Ryder smiled and nodded at the various employees already present in the compound before stepping into his father’s old office, feeling his chest get lighter as he noticed the back of Adriana’s head. She was already sitting at her desk. So at least her punctuality hasn’t been changed by our new arrangement, Ryder thought with a smile.

 

“Good morning—” he started to say as he shut the office door behind him, but then noticed the other person in the room. Giovanni. Sitting at the edge of Adriana’s desk, a mischievous grin spread across his face. Fucker, Ryder thought, feeling all the joy leave his body at once as he marched around to the front of Adriana’s desk to face them both.

 

“What exactly is going on here?” Ryder’s voice came out stern and hard before his gaze finally landed on Adriana’s face. She looked distressed, her eyebrows furrowed together as she bit down on her bottom lip, staring up at him with wide, worried eyes.

 

Giovanni’s face remained unchanged though. He looked as happy as a clam, balanced on the edge of Adriana’s desk, but his eyes shone with something else, some smug, satisfied sense of victory, like he’d just beaten his opponent. Ryder’s hands balled into fists as he stared down at his idiotic younger brother, who was clearly harassing the woman he’d wanted to fuck for over a year.

 

“We’re just talking, you know, hanging out,” Giovanni said with a shrug.

 

“Yeah, I can see that,” Ryder said sharply. On any other day, he might have held back or played nice with his little brother, but after his father’s death, he had little to no patience for this kind of bullshit. “We have work to do here. It’s not playtime, Giovanni.”

 

Giovanni shrugged again, looking unbothered by his brother’s harsh tone of voice. “All right, fair enough. I guess I’ll talk to you later, sweet thing,” he said to Adriana as he leaped off the edge of the desk, heading straight for the door.

 

Ryder felt a fire start to burn at the base of his throat, his rage building higher as he saw Adriana squirm uncomfortably in her seat. Giovanni needed to be taught a lesson, but how? Ryder didn’t want to come right out and say that Adriana was his property. He really couldn’t afford anyone knowing that they were together. It would complicate things too much, especially since he still wasn’t sure how comfortable Adriana felt about their little arrangement. But it was clear he had to teach Giovanni about boundaries. This type of behavior couldn’t be permitted to continue.

 

“Giovanni,” Ryder said without turning his head, stopping his brother right before he exited the room. “Come with me to my other office, all right? We need to discuss a few things.”

 

“Okay…” Giovanni said, a little uncertain, remaining in place while Ryder slowly backed away from Adriana’s desk. Adriana stared up at Ryder worriedly, probably concerned that Ryder was about to make a possessive claim on her or something like that, but Ryder finally turned and led his brother out of the room, going across the hall to his old office.

 

Ryder closed the door behind them, just to make sure that none of the servants or other employees bustling around could overhear. He had to be careful about this.

 

“What’s up, brother?” Giovanni asked, taking a seat on one side of Ryder’s dust-covered desk, which had gone unused for over a year.

 

Staring down at his brother’s squirrely, almost anxious little face, Ryder made a split-second decision. He wouldn’t discuss Adriana directly. For one thing, he simply couldn’t afford to let Giovanni know that he was planning on fucking her. First of all, he’d never hear the end of it, seeing as how Giovanni had “called dibs” on her months before, as if he was just waiting for their father to keel over so he could get a chance to fuck her.

 

But secondly, he didn’t need Giovanni spreading rumors to their mother. Mama Rainieri was many things, but forgiving was not one of them. She was totally convinced that Adriana had been screwing her husband before he died, and she’d be absolutely infuriated if she heard that Ryder was doing the same thing.

 

“I just wanted to talk to you about the funeral,” Ryder said after clearing his throat, keeping his tone as calm and polite as possible. He didn’t want to make Giovanni his enemy. He could be useful—seeing as how he knew the business about as well as Adriana did, all things considered.

 

“I think Mama’s planning that,” Giovanni replied, leaning back in his chair as he relaxed. He seemed to realize that he wasn’t about to get yelled at.

 

“Right, that’s another thing.” Ryder improvised the conversation as it went along. “I’m a little worried about her. Is she doing okay, you know, with Dad passing and all?”

 

Giovanni frowned a little. “You know, it’s hard to say. The old broad keeps herself so guarded all the time. She hasn’t cried or nothing that I’ve seen, but you know how she is. She’s probably falling apart in private, where nobody can use it against her.”

 

Ryder nodded slowly, feeling a little guilt begin to burn at the base of his stomach as he thought of his mother. He hadn’t even spoken to her since his dad died, not really, and that was after months upon months without contacting her. Sure, she was kind of a bitch, always bossing him around and telling him that he was a total disappointment compared to his little brother, but she was still his mother. She deserved better than the total neglect that she’d experienced from her eldest son over the past year.

 

“I’ll help with the funeral planning,” Ryder said. “I have the resources right now to devote to it.” Resources was code for Adriana, but he wasn’t about to say her name and open that can of worms with his brother.

 

“Are you really sure you should use those… resources?” Giovanni raised his eyebrows skeptically. “I mean, given our mother’s opinion on them?”

 

For a long moment, neither of them spoke, leaving Giovanni’s question hanging in the air. Tension crackled between them, neither of them willing to say Adriana’s name aloud or even admit that she was what they were really discussing.

 

Ryder bit his tongue without opening his mouth, considering his words carefully before finally speaking after another moment of protracted silence. “I think what Mama doesn’t know won’t hurt her, if you catch my drift.”

 

Giovanni clicked his tongue from behind his teeth, rolling his eyes up in the back of his head as he considered Ryder’s statement. “Fair enough. But you should talk to her yourself, you know. She’s still your mother.”

 

Ryder felt a flash of shame, followed by dull anger that Giovanni was judging him. What did he know about his relationship with their mother? It wasn’t like he could ever understand, anyway. He hadn’t grown up with the weight of his mother’s expectations pressing down on him at all times. It was okay if Giovanni failed. He was just the younger brother. He was never supposed to be a part of the dynasty anyway.

 

But Ryder held himself back, offering a tight smile instead of cursing his brother out the way he wanted to. “I understand. Well, get to work. We can’t afford to slack off, even if Dad isn’t in the ground yet,” he said with a laugh, gesturing for Giovanni to get out of the chair and follow him back out into the main room of the compound.

 

Before heading back to his dad’s old office, Ryder grabbed Giovanni by the shoulder and pulled him in to whisper into his ear. “Just… be careful around the office, all right? You don’t want to get a reputation like Dad had near the end of his life.”

 

He saw Giovanni flush a little, his eyes narrowing for a second before he recovered. “Got it,” Giovanni said before winking at his brother and walking away.

 

For now, at least, the two brothers would keep the peace between each other, neither of them mentioning the source of the tension between them. Ryder felt better, though, as a result of the conversation. His brother seemed to get the message that Adriana was off-limits, and anyway, now that he was the boss, Ryder had more control over his little brother than ever before. If anything, Giovanni was the one that should have been worried about his standing in the organization under the new leadership.

 

Still, as he watched his little brother walk away, Ryder felt a nagging voice at the back of his mind whisper, Watch out for that one.

 

Ryder pushed the voice to the farthest corner of his mind. He couldn’t afford to worry about his brother right now. He had bigger things on his plate, like taming the wild-hearted woman who’d signed herself away to him.