Taken by the Boss: The Ruzzo Family

by Belle Winters

  I watched as Julie and my ma walked off arm in arm and had an afterthought. “Ma?” I called out.

  She turned to look at me with an annoyed expression. “What? I thought I got her for today.” My mother pouted.

  I rolled my eyes. “I just wanted to ask you to watch her for me. She got sick this morning, and she’s being all girly about throw-up.” I told my mom.

  She cringed. “Throw-up? Really, Marco? Did I not teach you better vocabulary?” my mom asked and then looked to Julie for a beat before returning her attention to me with a bright smile. “But don’t worry about it. I’ll have a look at her and see what kind of bug she’s got. She’ll be good as new when you get back.” She promised.

  I nodded my thanks and found the guys. “She gave me a location – you got people for cleanup?” I asked Dante.

  He nodded. “Yea, let’s roll.”

  With that, we left. We had Jetti meet us there to see if he knew any of the fucks and to probably get some blood samples to find out who these assholes were.

  Julie had given me some good directions and a damn good description of the place. We were able to find it immediately. It was an abandoned warehouse in the slums. This was the piece of land that we left for the scum to make a buck. We didn’t really want to deal with these types, so we left them to their own devices. Too dirty for me. Not enough loyalty. Too fucking greedy.

  Angelou and Dante were the first to enter. I was right behind them, but I heard their reactions before I could see anything.

  “Holy shit.”

  “Fuck.”

  My palms began to sweat because whatever it was they were seeing it was what my girl and my sister lived. I was only two steps into the room when I almost tripped over a body. I looked down, and there was a fucker sprawled out by my feet with a bullet hole right between the eyes. This must’ve been what caused their reaction.

  As I entered further into the room, the dead body count rose. When Sofia told me of what happened, I assumed that she exaggerated. It was too much action happening, and she was frazzled. As it turns out… she wasn’t. I had to stop looking around the room. The place practically screamed havoc. To know my girl fucked shit up like this… alone… against a room full of armed men was a fucking lot concerning. The precision of the shots was also something that I took note of. Staring at this room, I’d think that she was a fucking killing machine. That she did this shit on a regular.

  Looking around at what Julie had been forced to do and for Sofia to witness made me sick. I stood off to the side as the guys took inventory and we waited for the rest to arrive. Jetti was the first to arrive. I heard his low whistle as he took in the scene.

  “Some work you did here, boss.” He commented.

  Dante let out a humorless chuckle. “That’s not our work.”

  I looked over to Jetti in time to see him raise his eyebrow in question. “Then why the fuck are we here?” he asked confused.

  I sighed. “My girl.”

  Even more confusion. “What about her?” he asked. “I thought her and your sister were taken.”

  I nodded and gestured to the room. “And this is how they got free. Last night was a clusterfuck, and I was too damn preoccupied to reach you.”

  His eyes practically bugged out of his head as he took in the room. “The fuck?” he looked down to the closest body. “is she a fucking assassin? ‘Cause I got to say her shot is spot on.”

  Didn’t I fucking know it? “I noticed,” I commented dryly.

  He nodded. “What do you need?” he asked.

  “To know just who the fuck these assholes were,” I told him.

  I didn’t have to say anything else. He nodded. “On it.”

  It wasn’t long before Jetti got everything he needed and was on his way to get us some information. The cleanup crew arrived, and we were there for a while as they did their thing. By the time we left, I was fucking exhausted, but I knew my night had just begun. Julie had a hell of a lot explaining to do, and I already knew whatever the fuck she had to say was going to stress me out even further.

  I went back to pick up Julie, and once again we left alone. I was caught up in my thoughts thinking about everything that transpired the past few days when it occurred to me when we were halfway home that she was also uncharacteristically quiet. I let her remain lost in her own thoughts as well. When we got to my place, we both immediately went to the bedroom and changed into sleep clothes. That was pretty unusual for the both of us, but I guess we both had the sentiment that we weren’t going to be having sex tonight. I waited until she crawled up into the bed, against the headboard before I joined her.

  I waited for a beat and then met her eyes. “We need to talk.” I began.

  She sighed long and hard but nodded. “I know.” She said softly.

  “I don’t need you to rehash last night. I got a version of it, and I saw… I don’t need to relive it again, and I don’t think you do either.” I swallowed and stared her down. “But there’s obviously something that you need to tell me.”

  She put her head down. “Yes. There is something I should tell you.” She slowly lifted her head and looked at me with pleading eyes. “But please hear me out all the way, and just…” she swallowed hard. “Please promise not to judge me.”

  Shit. Now I was fucking nervous, nothing good could ever begin with that type of introduction. “alright.”

  She nodded and began wringing her damn hands again. “There’s something wrong with me.” She blurted out.

  I frowned. “What?”

  She shrugged. “Some type of disorder. Honestly, I’m not 100% sure. I got tired of the doctor's appointments and the speculations. I refused to take any medication…” she shrugged. “So I never got a definitive answer.”

  I frowned. “I'm not following. What kind of disorder?” I asked.

  She bit her lip for a minute before speaking again. “I had my first episode when I was really young. My parents took me to the doctor, and they couldn’t properly diagnose me because of the multiple things it could be. It happened a few more times and doctor’s guessed numerous things, but the one that seemed most appropriate was IED.” She explained.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what that is.”

  “It’s intermittent explosive disorder. You can look it up, but it basically means that I have an anger issue. I can take a situation and get overexcited. By overexcited, it means excessively or irrationally angry that causes me to be violent. In my case, my violence is… over the top.”

  Ok, so she got angry. That much I knew, the violence not so much. I thought she was a hot head from some of her episodes, but they were nothing like what she’d done in that warehouse. “Ok baby, you want to elaborate?”

  She groaned. “I can feel it. It’s weird. When I’m getting to that point where my anger is getting out of control, its like I begin to blackout. But when it happens, it’s not an actual blackout. I’m fully aware of what’s happening, and it’s not like I forget or anything but it’s like another person takes over. A complete loss of control. This is why I said it was hard to diagnose because some doctors thought I might be bipolar but it just didn’t really fit. Then there was the manic episode diagnoses.” She took a deep breath. “when I start to see the black drifting around the edges, I learned how to pull myself back.” She shook her head. “I fight it. God, I feel like I’m constantly fighting it, but I figured out how when I didn’t want to go back to the hospitals. I found things to do with myself to help me dole out the anger without actually attacking or hurting a person. Fighting and boxing classes, shooting lessons and the ranges. Wherever I could get out some aggression.” She cringed. “So… yesterday…”

  She looked at me and waited for me to give her an out, but I didn’t. She needed to talk. “Fine. So yesterday, I couldn’t stop it. I started to get antsy the first time I spoke to you, and I couldn’t make it go away. Then I found out Taylor was dead – or I thought she was – and then they bought in Sofia. I knew for sure
they were going to kill us. And I knew you were going to try to trade yourself for us and then they’d just kill us all. It was too much, and I was so angry.” She cursed under her breath. “I was so fucking mad.” She shook her head. “I couldn’t stop it, but I wouldn’t if I was able because I had to save Sof. I had to get revenge for you and my sister. I just… lost it.” She looked down at her fingers. “I feel bad because I did that.” She met my eyes. “But I’m not sorry. I’ll never be sorry for that.” She looked away. “I just don’t believe I killed people.” She finally whispered.

  Fuck. “Julie.” She looked up to me with tears swimming in her eyes.

  “I know I’m fucked up and I should’ve told you… but I didn’t want you to look at me like I’m… I don’t know handicap. I didn’t want you to leave me because of this.” She said pleadingly.

  My poor girl. “Julie – “ I began but was cut off.

  “I’m afraid of the dark, Gio.” She said her bottom lip quivering. “There’s something about when I go into that space that scares me. I don’t like feeling like I’m not me. Like I’m an outsider watching as my body and mind does things I don’t normally agree with.” She confessed as the first tear fell.

  Shit. My girl.

  “Julie – “ again cut off.

  She got on her knees as she continued to cry and looked at me with pained eyes. “Please don’t…” she choked out. “I love you.” She whispered.

  I sighed and reached out for her, grabbing onto her wrists. I tugged on them urging her to come closer. When she was close enough for me to grab her I did just that and pulled her onto my lap. She immediately threw her arms around my neck. She leaned into me and began sobbing. “I won't hurt anyone… ag… again.” She said between sniffles. She wiped her nose on my shirt and continued crying. “Please don’t leave me.”

  I frowned, what the fuck? I gripped her hair tilting her head back so that she would look at me. “What are you talking about?”

  Her eyes were pleading with me. “Everyone hates me once they know.” She cleared her throat. “Everyone… even my family.” She gulped.

  I shook my head. “I don’t give a fuck about everyone. I don’t hate you, baby, I love you, and I’m not leaving you. Calm down.” I reassured her as I rubbed her back.

  She hiccupped as she looked up at me confused. “You're not?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No baby, I'm not. Now calm down ok. Let's get ready for bed.”

  She nodded but didn’t move. She pulled in a deep breath and began to wring her fingers together. “I uh… have something to talk to you about.”

  I kissed her forehead to help ease her nerves. “What is it?” I asked.

  “Your mom had this theory…” she paused and frowned. “By the way, did you tell her that I was sick while I was gone and that’s why I wasn’t around?” she asked.

  I nodded. “I did. I didn’t want to scare her or make her nervous.”

  She nodded. “Anyway, her thinking that id been sick for so long and my looking perfectly healthy she got this whole big idea.”

  My eyebrow arched. “You planning on getting to the point babe?” I asked.

  She frowned at me. “Fine, she started talking about babies...” my other eyebrow flew up.

  “And?”

  “She made me take a test!” she yelled out causing me to laugh.

  “That doesn’t sound so bad…”

  She growled at me. “It was positive!” she threw her arms up in exasperation. “You did this.” She said pointing a finger at me.

  I was starting to second guess the part where she claimed that she wasn’t bipolar. Her moods were giving me whiplash. I backtracked. “You're pregnant?”

  “Yes, you moron. Didn’t you hear me the first time?”

  I tossed her back on the bed and climbed on top of her. “Good.”

  She swatted my chest. “Good? What do you mean good?”

  I leaned down and nipped her lip. “Because maybe this will calm your ass down.”

  She growled, and I laughed. “It's not funny, Gio. I'm not on birth control.”

  I shook my head and sat up on my heels. “I knew that. You’ve told me before. I didn’t care then, and I don’t care now. I knew we were unprotected.” I crossed my arms as a thought came to me. “Are you pissed about this? Do you not want to have my kid?” the thought that she could say no made my skin crawl.

  Her face softened. “It's not that… I'm afraid.” She pushed herself to a sitting position and pulled her legs in and put her chin on her knee. “Don’t you think its too soon, too fast. I don’t want it to be a few months later and ready to pop, and you realize that you made a mistake.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t like the way you look at yourself.” I grabbed her chin forcing her to look at me. “You're mine baby. That’s not going to happen. You annoy me, you make me fucking crazy sometimes, you push my buttons, and you make me want to knock you upside your head sometimes, but I'm fucking crazy about you. I love you baby, and because I do, I'm stuck having to put up with you psycho ass.”

  She blushed and tried to fight her smile, but it was there. “You have such a way with words. That was almost sweet.”

  I tackled her back onto the bed. “You fucking ate that shit up.”

  “I didn’t.” she argued and stuck her tongue out at me.

  I took that as an invitation and captured it in my mouth. She moaned, and I released her. “You were fucking blushing babe. You were.” She opened her mouth to argue some more, and I didn’t give her a chance. I kissed her hard and used my knees to spread her legs. “As much as I enjoy arguing with you, I would much rather do other things right now.” I kissed her neck. “Now tell me baby, are you up for me to put my cock in your tight pussy?” I asked.

  I felt her body shiver from my words, and she nodded. “God yes.”

  I grinned and didn’t waste any more time having her.

  Epilogue

  Giovanni

  I've been sitting in this hard as fuck chair in the dark for the past hour. This mother fucker better hurry up and get here because it's only serving to piss me off more that I'm sitting here waiting for him.

  Finally, I heard someone putting keys in the lock and shortly after the door opened. My eyes had trained for the dark from sitting here so long, and I was able to make out his movements. He dropped his keys on the table and removed his jacket. He walked to the kitchen and went into the fridge withdrawing a beer. He came back into the living room and cut on the TV. The lights from the TV cast a glow in the room, and had he been more aware of his surroundings he would’ve made me out already, but he was still completely oblivious.

  Tired of playing the waiting game, I cleared my throat. Startled, he jumped in his seat and got up to cut on the light. As soon as the room exploded with light, his eyes fell on me. His face quickly lost all of its color as he watched me.

  Eventually, he spoke. “What… what are you doing here?” he looked around the room. “How did you get in here?”

  I opened my arms. “Well, that hurts. Here I thought we were old friends… hows life been for you Victor?” I smiled. “Long time, no see.”

  He visibly gulped as he watched me in confusion. “I'm alright.” He stammered.

  I nodded my head. “That’s good, that’s good.” I stood to my feet and stretched. I pulled out my Glock and motioned to his couch. “Take a seat, get comfortable.” When he remained rooted to his spot, I motioned to the couch again. “Let's have a talk.”

  He tripped over himself, rushing to get to his seat. I leaned back against the wall and crossed my legs. It was five months later, but I had finally got his location last week. I never forgot about his and Becca's role in what happened to Julie. We were still trying to find out who the Carlos guy was that lured Sofia out, but we have nothing. He was a fucking ghost. Only Sofia had seen him, and he wasn’t in the warehouse with them. The phone number he had was on a burner, and there was no way to find out who the fuck he was from
that. Sofia had said she'd seen the guy sometimes on her way home after school, but she hasn’t seen him since the incident. I was going to snap the fucker's neck. Not only did he put her in danger, but he broke her fucking heart. Learning that he pursued her just so that she could be taken didn’t exactly do anything for her ego.

  “So, Victor… how do you know Ricci?” I asked.

  He tugged on the collar of his shirt. “I don’t know… whos Ricci?”

  I sighed. “Don’t tell me you think I'm that stupid.” I tsk’d him and shook my head. “Taylor and Julie are both fine. I know what you did… now tell me what I want to know.”

  He grabbed onto the back of his neck. “I didn’t know him. It was Becca.” He dropped his head. “She came and found me. I was at the Kitty when I first saw her. I was just there, you know for a good time and I was surprised to see her there. I thought she was working with you.” He shrugged. “Anyway, she gave me a lap dance, and I was drunk. She kept going on and on about you and Julie, I honestly didn’t care or pay attention. I was able to feel her up, and she was too caught up in her story about you to say anything. I asked her if she wanted to hook up later, I’d pay her. She shrugged, so we swapped information.” He shrugged. “I met up with her once. Then the next time I called her, she said she was seeing someone. That Ricci guy. I didn’t really care because she wasn’t a good fuck. But she was alright with her mouth. She called me one day out of the blue. Offered me some cash and said when I got the opportunity, I would have to drug Taylor and that was it. They said that someone wanted Julie and I just had to keep her there until they got there.”

  “How much money?” I asked.

  He frowned. “What?”