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said anything to me. You know the plan, don’t cha?”
    Caprice nodded. “I am the plan.”
    “Fuck!” Rocco shouted. Caprice jumped in her seat. She expected Rocco to be upset, but she had to do her part. Eventually he would have to understand.
    “It is what it is, babe,” Caprice replied. “Shouldn’t take too long. I just need to find out who his new supplier is, and then find out what he plans to do about us. From what I know about Aries, he wants to be on top and...”
    “And that means taking the Bonatelli family down. Last time I checked, you’re a Bonatelli.”
    “He doesn’t know that. When I meet him, he’ll know me as Caprice Burke. NYU student, part-time model, and way out of his league. I’ll have that boy wrapped around my finger in no time.”
    Rocco pulled the SUV into the Seaview Apartments and parked in the garage. He didn’t say anything to Caprice until they were safely inside his place.
    Caprice started flipping through dozens of take-out menus before deciding on pizza. Rocco never asked her to cook for him. She knew that his previous girlfriends had been typical Italian girls who had the recipes for sauce and pasta seared into their brains. She wanted to cook for Rocco. She even had Maria teach her how to make perfect cannelloni from scratch. She wanted to prove to Rocco that she was more than a pretty face. She wanted to show him that she could take care of him, but he wouldn’t let her. Caprice was certain that he thought she was too prissy to get her hands dirty in the kitchen or too selfish to do for him the same things that Maria did for Nico.
    “I’m assuming from your silence that you aren’t cool with the plan.”
    “Don’t really have a choice, do I?   Questioning the Boss is above my pay grade.”
    Caprice handed the pizza menu to Rocco. “Dinner’s on me.”
    “No, it’s not,” Rocco said. “I can pay for dinner. Do you have to chop my balls off every chance you get, or is that part of your charm?
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    “Whatever.”
    “You’re really pissed off about me working with my brother?”
    Rocco sat next to Caprice on his leather sofa. No matter how hard he tried, he could not wipe the look of contempt from his face.
    “Am I not supposed to be pissed off that you’re deliberately going to be with another man?   Am I not supposed to take that as a slap in the face?   Especially since that man is the same asshole I’ve been beefin ’ with for two years?”
    “But it’s the job,” Caprice argued. “I don’t want Aries.”
    “But you’ll fuck him if you have to.”
    Rocco’s words sucked the oxygen out of the room. Caprice felt sick to her stomach. She hadn’t given sleeping with Aries much thought. Until Rocco brought it up, she was confident that she’d be able to use her charm and intellect to get what she wanted out of the gang leader. She certainly didn’t want to spread her legs and let Aries have what belonged to Rocco. Deep down in her heart, she knew she would do whatever she had to do in order to protect the family name.
    “It’s not going to come down to that,” Caprice said. “I'll be in and out in a couple months. I don’t give it up that damn fast anyway. You know that.”
    “Yeah right,” was Rocco’s grave reply. “I remember what you said in the car about not waiting on me.”
    “What I’m about to do has nothing to do with you and me. I know you’re afraid of what my brother and father are going to say-”
    “Do,” Rocco interrupted. “We should be afraid of what your father and brother are going to do. I’ve been a part of this life since I was a kid. I’ve seen Domani and my dad ice men over a $100 gambling debt. What the fuck do you think he’s going to do to me when he finds out that I’ve been giving his daughter the pipe?”
    “He’ll be fine as long as he knows this is real and not some casual fuck in a seedy hotel in the Bronx. If Domani finds out,” she continued, “before I’m