Ruthless Tycoons: The Complete Series (Ruthless Billionaires Book 3)

by Theodora Taylor

Obviously, Stone’s pulled Naima out of her chair. I follow her sharp breaths across the kitchen, and I keep my recording gaze on her as long as I can, all the way up until I hear the open and closing slam of the front door.

  But I’m so completely intent on capturing every moment of Naima’s removal from her own house for Diamond recording back at the office, I don’t hear the opening and closing of the kitchen’s back door. Don’t notice the footsteps of the person coming toward me or smell his cologne.

  Not until it’s too late, and both my earpiece and the sunglasses have been abruptly ripped from my head.

  “Luca? Luca, why are you taking my sunglasses and my phone?” I say, not because I’m really wondering, but because I need Diamond to understand we’ve been made. “Please stop this right now, Luca Jacob Ferraro. I don’t want anyone else to get hurt. Life is a precious jewel, and you should go home before anyone else gets hurt!” I say, hoping to God Diamond gets that these words are really for her.

  The catch of the coded message is that as far as I know, Diamond doesn’t have a home. She’s never provided me with an actual address or even any reason to believe Diamond is her real name. As far as I know, she’s an offshore bank account that gets my pitiful paycheck transferred into it every other week. So “Life is a precious jewel… you should go home!” is the closest I can come to saying, “Diamond run and hide before they come for you, too,” without completely exposing her to Luca. Because the last thing this situation needs is another innocent person I care about getting dragged into it.

  A door whines open, and I can just imagine the sunglasses being handed off.

  I’ve been training for something like this for five years, and my body tenses with the impulse to immobilize Luca and run to safety. But he’s played this exactly right by taking Naima. I can’t do anything with her life at risk. Plus, there’s the baby to think of now…

  I rub a hand over my belly, vowing silently not for the first time since finding out it was inside of me that I won’t let anybody or anything hurt him.

  Then the door bangs shut, and then comes the sound of Luca’s expensive shoes striding across cheap flooring. The chair creaks and bangs. I imagine him picking it up and firmly setting it to right, before taking a seat.

  Maintaining a straight gaze while this happens feels like a Herculean feat. Muscle memory dies a hard, hard death, and mine is still hanging on, even though I’ve been blind at this point almost as long as I wasn’t. My eyes instinctively want to follow every sound he makes, the primordial form of bracing against a predator in the bush still firing within the synapses of my modern brain, long after it lost access to my sight center.

  And as I feel his gaze going over me like a laser beam from across the table, it’s all I can do to keep my eyes still. Face calm. Breath normal, not scared and panting like Naima, who defended me so confidently, because I was too ashamed to tell her about my post-baby shower hookup with Luca. Guilt sickens my stomach at the thought of how scared she must be right now.

  But somehow, I manage to keep my gaze trained in the direction of his seat.

  I can feel him staring back, but he doesn’t talk. And, eventually, I wonder if he’s waiting me out or trying to intimidate me.

  Refusing to play either game, I say, “One weekend a month. One holiday a year.”

  I make my initial offer, then I wait to see how he’ll respond.

  More silence. So long, I’m beginning to wonder if he’ll even respond, when he finally says, “I’ll take that. And everything else.”

  “Everything else?” I repeat, not understanding or liking his counter.

  There’s a calmness in his voice now, but it’s nowhere near Buddha-like. It’s cold and calculated and puts me in mind of a snake waiting to strike. “Is it mine?” he demands.

  My heart freezes at the question, but after a careful breath, I say, “I’ll need you to specifically define ‘everything els—'”

  “Is… it… mine?” he asks again, anger seeping into the solid ice of his voice.

  This time I don’t answer. Just sit there in mutinous silence.

  “You said it wasn’t mine, so now I’m going to need the words. I’m going to need to hear you say out loud, that this boy… this son I’ve just been informed you’re carrying is mine.”

  I don’t answer. Can’t answer. Can barely imagine myself being able to open my mouth.

  “You pleading the fifth?” he asks from across the table. His voice low and dangerous.

  I don’t… I don’t answer.

  And he sighs, before saying, “Naima’s an innocent woman. Like a sister to you. But I don’t care. Make no mistake, I will have her killed if you do not answer my question. And after that, I’ll give this ex of yours a bullet, just for making Stone beat him to find out the kid wasn’t his—”

  Oh God, it’s just as I suspected. There’s nothing left of Jake Ferra in him now. He really is Luca Ferraro. Violent and cruel and willing to do anything to get his way.

  “It’s yours,” I say, unable to bear the threats. Or the thought of anyone suffering like my mother did, because of me.

  A hand slams down, and the table shakes with the action. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  I can no longer control my breath. It shudders out of me, angry and for the first time in a very long while… truly scared.

  But somehow I manage to ask, one more time, “What does ‘everything else’ mean?”

  I hope you super enjoyed the first part of Amber’s and Luca’s epic story. Oh my gosh, what will happen next?!?! Keep scrolling exciting conclusion of their duet.

  Huge Hugs,

  Theodora Taylor

  P.S. – If you haven’t signed up for my newsletter, it’s the best way to get access to my giveaways, new releases, and sweet treats like FREE preview novellas for my upcoming romances. Don’t miss out. Sign up here: http://theodorataylor.com/sign-up/

  IV

  My Way

  25

  Mean To Me

  Amber

  “What does everything else mean?”

  Cold granite silence. Then…

  “Everything else means you’re coming with me.”

  My stomach drops. I’m not disabled—that’s what I always insist when I’m invited to speak at schools, classrooms, and programs for the blind. If anything, I tell them, the loss of my sight has made me more ambitious, more intelligent, and more confident than I would have otherwise been if it had remained. Stronger. My blindness has made me stronger than I could have ever hoped to be otherwise. It’s a very inspiring speech.

  But Luca has rendered me completely powerless in the blink of a sightless eye. My three years of law school, five years of martial arts training, and six years of occupational therapy all became useless at his negotiation table. Pointless talents that might as well have never been cultivated at all.

  He’s no longer the vengeful boy who couldn’t let go of what my father did to him. Now, he’s a ruthless don. And in the end, there’s no real negotiation between us. Only Luca’s display of absolute power.

  “You’re going to get up now and walk calmly out of this house to my car,” he informs me as this new reality sinks into my brain. And clever as I usually am, I just can’t come up with a rebuttal to his order. At least not one that won’t put my best friend’s life in danger.

  A few minutes after his pronouncement, I find myself in Luca’s backseat. Again. It could be a different car. I’m sure he’s racked up several by now. But I’ve got a sick scene of the crime feeling in the pit of my stomach as we drive off, some “yeah, you fucked up, girl” sixth sense tells me this is the same backseat where we had sex a little over five months ago.

  But I’d die before asking him to confirm that suspicion. “Where’s Naima?” I ask instead.

  No answer.

  “Why isn’t she here?”

  No answer.

  “What did you do with her?” I demand in my best courtroom voice.

  But that question ge
ts answered the same as the others. With a big ball of silence.

  He’s also not wearing cologne today, and I can’t even hear him breathing beside me, no matter how much I strain my ears. It’s like sitting next to a statue, emitting nothing but concrete silence as the driver—who didn’t bother to introduce himself this time—ferries us to someplace unknown. Stop and go city streets, intermixed with the short glides and slows of highways. Eventually, we come to a stop.

  “This is where you get off,” Luca tells me.

  Before I can respond the car door opens and a voice says, “Hey, Amber, it’s Rock. I’m going to help you out of the car now.”

  Either Rock’s good with the visually impaired or he read up. Like a perfectly trained boy scout, he places a hand at my elbow before clasping my palm to help me out of the backseat. Then he keeps his hand right below my elbow as he guides me forward.

  Though nothing’s been explained to me, I sense we’re in Manhattan based on the late morning quiet of the street I step onto with Rock, and the lack of accent, foreign or New York, from the doorman who lets us into the building with a cheery good morning.

  We walk into a lobby, hushed, cool, and crisp. It smells like a modern construction project to me, thoroughly insulated and without any of the musty damp grandma’s attic smell that most of the 20th-century buildings in New York carry.

  Rock guides me to an elevator that goes up and up and up for an impossible number of floors. So, either it’s slow, or I’m in a skyscraper. I get the feeling it’s the latter when the doors open on what turns out to be the apartment itself. My mobility cane plinks against marble floors. The real kind, I guess from the dense sound when my stick strikes it. Not the cheaper, plastic laced stuff that’s so popular these days.

  “There’s a set of winding stairs coming up,” Rock informs me a few steps into the apartment. “We won’t both fit, so you’ll need to hold on to the handlebar—”

  “Where’s Naima,” I demand, interrupting his helpful tip. “I want to be taken to her. Make sure she’s safe.”

  A dull electronic thrum interrupts Rock’s answer. Fabric rustles as he pulls his phone out, and then comes a heavy sigh. “I have to take this. She’s already up in her room. First door past the stairs on your right. I’ll let you go alone, but keep in mind, there’s only one way out of this apartment, and we’ve got a guard at both the bottom of the stairs and the elevator 24/7.”

  Way over my daily limit for threats, I walk away from his warning, and carefully navigate my way up the tricky stairs. But as soon as I reach the landing, all precaution disappears. I rush to the right, swinging my cane until I hit a door.

  Pushing down on the handle, I let myself into a room that already smells like Naima’s citrusy perfume.

  “Nai?” I say, hoping it’s not just a lingering scent.

  She rushes into my arms, crying. She’s only four years older than me, and the maturity gap has all but disappeared as we’ve gone from a social worker and visually impaired college mentee to best friends, ready to move in together in order to raise my baby.

  But right now our original roles have completely reversed. In fact, I feel like a helpless mother, holding her tight as my swollen stomach will allow as I assure her, “I’ll figure a way out of this, I promise you. I’m sorry. So, so sorry.”

  I tell her everything. About the unprotected sex with Luca and the “hey, you’re already pregnant, dummy” shocker when I went in for my fertility consult. Naima had been right about one thing she told Stone. That first visit had been out-of-pocket, so I’d ended up paying hundreds of dollars for a blood test that told me I was already pregnant with Luca’s baby.

  Basically, our momentary hookup had been a perfect storm of bad timing. After the miscarriage, I’d gone the condom and pill route with Pascoal and never had so much as a scare. But after our break up I’d immediately stopped taking the pill in preparation for fertility treatments. That was just a few weeks before Sylvie’s party, which gave any birth control still left in my system plenty of time to wear off before I accidentally hooked up with Luca in the backseat of his car.

  “I was so stupid, and I didn’t know how to tell you, so I just didn’t. But this is all my fault, and I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”

  Strangely, my confession is what stops Naima’s panicked tears.

  She takes a deep breath. “No, this isn’t your fault. Who wants to co-parent with a mafioso? I would have kept it secret, too. And now that I know the whole story, I’m glad that azaroso with the gun decided to take me prisoner too. If Luca’s going to straight kidnap you, I want to be here, trying to help you get out of this—not back in Jackson Heights worried to death about you and the baby.”

  This right here is why I love Naima. Why I consider her a sister, even though we’re both only children and not related by blood.

  “Plus, if we’re going to be kidnapped and imprisoned, this place isn’t bad at all,” Naima says, her voice taking on a new cheer. “Like three of the walls are all window, and the room looks like a five-star hotel! There’s only one bed, so we’ll have to share, but it’s huge! And there’s not too much extra furniture. A few chairs and one of those half-couches, half-loungers—I think they call them settees. Anyway, I can just move them against a wall so they won’t get in your way—”

  The door suddenly clicks open, and Naima cuts off with a scream. “Stone’s back!” she says, panicky as she wraps her arms around me.

  I shake my head, because Stone’s scent is a whole bunch of soap and “not really here,” without a trace of cologne. But the man who’s entered our room smells more like Luca. Expensive, refined.

  “No, that’s not Stone,” I explain to Naima.

  “No, it’s him. It’s definitely him. He’s back to kill me now that they’ve got you trapped here!”

  Before I can answer her, Rock says, “Hey, hey, don’t be scared. I’m not Stone. I swear I’m not Stone.”

  I feel Naima’s body loosen inside my arms. Then she pulls away from me.

  “You look just like him,” Naima says. She sounds both cautious and pitiful.

  “I know. Have since the day I was born. He’s my identical twin.”

  “Oh…” Naima says, her voice becoming even smaller. “Uh…sorry I screamed.”

  “No, I’m sorry, sorry he scared you,” Rock answers emphatically, his voice careful and gentle like he’s dealing with a cat too petrified to come down from a tree. “There wasn’t any need for that. Your name’s Naima, right?”

  “Right,” she says. And though she’s a thirty-six-year-old woman, she sounds more like a shy teenager now. “And you are…?”

  “Rock,” he says, “It’s really nice to meet you, Naima—though of course, I wish it could’ve been over something like dinner.”

  She giggles, and I just stand there, stunned. Because I swear, it sounds like I’m back in the Longacre Theatre, listening to Jane and Calogero meet cute in the first act of the A Bronx Tale musical with my assistive app.

  After exchanging introductions, Rock and Naima go over the details about packing her bags and mine and bringing them here. Like this is a previously planned vacation, not a total snatch and grab.

  “Is it okay if I make a list?” Naima asks shyly. “There are a few extra things I’ll be wanting, including a picture of my parents.”

  “Nai, c’mon,” I say. “We won’t be here that long. I’m going to figure a way out of this.”

  “Of course, I can make sure we get you that picture of your parents,” Rock answers as if I didn’t say anything. “Just tell me which one or I can have our guys bring over all of them. Whatever you want,” Rock answers. Somehow he sounds more like a concierge than a warden, totally at the bidding of my monstrous ex-husband.

  At least he does when he’s addressing Naima. There’s a lot less enthusiasm in his voice, when he informs me, “You should also make a list, Amber. Luca will be having dinner with you tonight and every night from now on, and he says he wants
you to cook.”

  My brow furrows. “He wants to have dinner with me? And he expects me to cook it?”

  “Yeah, he does,” Rock replies. Final answer, as if cooking for my kidnapper should’ve totally been on my list of expected outcomes.

  I stand there stunned, and Naima snaps out of her super early case of Stockholm Syndrome to say, “There’s no way Amber’s going to cook for that man. He’s holding her prisoner! Yeah, in a crazy nice penthouse, but still, that’s an outrageous ask.”

  However, as Naima protests, my mind works, and after a few moments of deliberation, I come to a decision with an evil inner smile.

  “Fine, I’ll cook, just show me to the kitchen.”

  26

  I Won’t Dance

  Luca

  “Sorry, but the video’s in the wind,” Stone tells me on my secure burner of the month a few hours after Joey drops me off at my Ferraro Disaster Management office, which sits right above the largest of our Jersey-side Hudson River warehouses.

  I curse softly because having video evidence of my enforcer pulling a social worker out of her home is the last thing I need.

  “Has it shown up anywhere online yet?” I ask as I push out of my chair and go to stand at one of the casement windows that line my work space’s outer wall. This warehouse set up ain’t exactly Holt’s corner real estate at the New York Cal-Mart offices. But hey, at least I don’t have to answer to shareholders. Also, I’ve got a pretty nice view of the other side of the Hudson, which helps to calm me down when I get news I don’t like.

  Not today though. A container ship with Chinese characters plastered all over it trundles along in the cold grey water. No logos though, so I’m guessing Chinese mafia. Maybe even those Silent Triad motherfucks who’ve been encroaching on more and more of our territories ever since setting up shop in Rhode Island a few years back. Probably just bad timing for staring out the window to calm the fuck down therapy, but the shit feels ominous. Like a sign, especially when the boat crosses right in front of my Tribeca apartment building in the distance.