He doesn’t give me an answer, but continues to look at me, tilting his head to the left and letting his hair slide off the side of his face. His scowl makes the scars wrinkle on his cheek, nose, and forehead. They are long and jagged. Ominous. Something is knocking in the back of my mind, but the urge to run away overtakes it. The danger I saw before in those dark pools was…directed at me.
The hairs on the back of my neck stand. I move to the side and try to push past him, but he stops me by placing his very large hand on my chest. It makes my body tense.
“Don’t hurt me!” I use my weakling act—which has helped me get out of many hot situations. I make my body tremble while taking a step back until the cold metal of the fence touches my spine. Shit, I’m trapped! His face fills my vision again, looming large and threatening above me.
“I could have let my men do it, but this feels much better.” He sounds satisfied as shit in a very creepy way.
“Please. I’m scared…” my voice breaks. I keep the phony, trembling persona up—well, part of me is fucking scared. Mostly because I don’t know what he wants, but it’s nothing good, judging by the emptiness in his eyes. My heart is turning into a pounding mess. Dark memories attempt to crawl back and cloud my senses. But I can’t let that happen. Fuck that.
I raise my hands, palms up, to distract the wacko. “Take my wallet if you want but…” I don’t finish my pitiful pleading as I let out the real me instead, delivering a hard kick to his shin andtryingto give a shove to his unmoving chest. Is he made of marble? All I seem to do is majorly piss him off.
He grabs my wrist in one hand and fists my hair with the other, painfully pulling my head back. The sting! The survivor inside me doesn’t let me back down, though. I turn my face—surely leaving some torn strands in his fist—push his forearm near my lips, and as I claw the fabric of his sleeve down, I sink my teeth into the bare skin. Blood fills my mouth, but I don’t let go, not even when he growls, “You just bit into something you can’t chew.”
You want to bet, you demented lunatic?
I loosen my jaw for a moment when he forces my arm behind my back. But feeling the burn in my shoulder only makes me chomp harder.
“Let go or I’ll pry your mouth open with my knife,” he snarls next to my ear. The threat floats heavily over my head, while the word knife echoes inside it.
When he twists my arm, the pain decides, and I open my mouth to let out a whimper. Cold anger. That’s all I see. His face has morphed into an ugly mask of undiluted hate directed right at me. I don’t know who this man is, and I don’t care. All I feel is that if I don’t run away, I’m going to be totally fucked. In a last attempt at escaping, I shift my weight, ready to knee him right in the balls, but before I can even lift my leg, he lets go of my hair, and his palm wraps around my neck. He squeezes.
“You are begging for it, Enzino.” His hiss turns my labored breathing into full-on panting.
It? What’sit? I gasp, sinking my nails into the back of his hand.
His grip tightens, stealing all the air away. I see determination in the depths of his eyes as he keeps looking at me, fighting for my life. Is he going to kill me? Are a pair of cement shoes gonna cover my beautiful leather boots? That angers me. I love my baby boots. What a strange thing to think while on the verge of passing out.
The answer comes rather quickly when he releases me after muttering afuck. I don’t have time to take a deep breath because I’m lifted right off my feet and hauled over his shoulder. My purse is pulled down by gravity, hitting the back of my head, and another gasp leaves my mouth. My fingers grab the back of his jacket as he starts walking. His arm around my legs is the only thing holding me against him. I’m so afraid to fall that I don’t try to move from the undignified position.
Maybe I can get the attention of someone inside the club. A guy carried away on someone’s shoulder has to catch a few curious stares. I can create a distraction. My plan dies right here after I hear a loud thud. Then we are leaving the smoking area and moving across the parking lot to the back of the building. Fuck! He’s kicked open the fence door.
I’m starting to feel dizzy as I hear him talking to someone…on the phone.
“I got the package.” Is he talking about me? Am I the package? “Did you take care of the security cameras in the smoking area? Good. Check if anyone saw us and take care of them.”
The rest of his words fade into static over the throbbing of my heartbeat in my ears and the whimpering fear inside my chest threatening to break free and make me lose my shit.
I try to lift my head, but it feels as heavy as a rock. My stomach is churning, and I’m about to give the Reese’s Pieces a different way out of my stomach when the world goes right-side-up again. I stumble as I attempt to find my balance, and as soon as I do, I elbow the wacko in the guts and start running.
Two steps and I’m forcibly pulled back from the strap of my purse, and in the next moment, my back is pinned against the side of a car. I punch and claw at his chest and face until a hard slap forces my head to the side, and I hit it hard on the car window. The ringing in my ears accompanies the pain echoing in my head, and I can’t stifle the whimper escaping my lips. The taste of blood—mine this time—fills my mouth. He got me fucking good.
“Who are you?” I breathe out, feeling incredibly lightheaded. My head is killing me, and I can’t seem to control the mobility of my eyelids. Something is yanked off my body. My purse. Then I’m shoved on a leather seat inside a car. “Where are…you takin…me?”
“Shut it before I rip your throat out and watch you bleed out,” he hisses.
Unfortunately, I believe him. I seriously need a good fucking from something other than life.
Luca
He lost consciousness. Figures.
I don’t need to pat him down; I can easily see his body through his tight clothes. I still check his high boots, removing them, then get the rope from the glove compartment and tie his hands.
The terrified victim performance outside the club almost had me fooled, but he rushed it and then fought like a fucking squirrel. It was pathetic. I raise my jacket sleeve and glance at the bite mark on my forearm. Aren’t Mafia princes supposed to know how to defend themselves? My eyes fall on the high-heeled boots on the car floor and the short skirt he’s wearing. Nothing about him screams mafioso. His lack of fighting skills just confirmed that. Better for me, even though I wouldn’t have been against a nice punch-up—I could have done more damage.
I look at the cut on his lip and the redness on his cheek as I lift his limp body into a sitting position to blindfold him. The collar of his sweater falls on one side, exposing part of those chest chains and a very visible hickey. They both make my teeth grit in disgust. Enzino scum.
I admit he has a magnetic presence, one that draws eyes to him. Easy to spot the skank. His body starts sliding sideways on the back seat, and I let it without a care. I close the car door and move to the front. I grab his purse and unload the contentson the passenger seat. A phone with no contacts saved. No messages either, just a bunch of calls from different numbers, not odd in our line of work to keep your cell clean. I’ll get Jeff on it; maybe he can find something useful. I study the rest of his stuff—two empty packs of M&Ms, one of Reese’s Pieces, more sticky wrappers of candies—he’s a tramp with the taste of a seven-year-old. Lipstick, eyeliner, the fancy wallet has a few hundred bills, a couple of credit cards, receipts from restaurants and cafes around New York, a picture of him with a smiling Fly—which reminds me once again why I can’t kill him—and a Gong Cha card. Whatever the fuck that is.