He set her down abruptly and when she opened her eyes she was standing in the concrete skyscraper footprint she'd seen from the top of the gravel hill. She looked up, saw sky and fluttering snow and the towering shape of the Empire Crest.
“Okay?” he said, peering down at her, holding her shoulders in his massive grip.
She nodded, said, “They're coming, I heard them...”
He took her hand again and they ran through a roofless maze of concrete hedges, the only sound was their footsteps and her desperate ragged breathing.
Rocco stopped at a plywood board leaning against a concrete wall and she almost ran past but he snagged her with one hand and yanked her back, pulling the board aside at the same time. Behind the board was a doorway leading into dark. She felt a foreboding, but knowing those men were after her she was anxious to get into it, get hiding, lose herself in that dark.
She went in ahead of him and he closed them in. Slid that sheet of plywood closed across again and now she was alone in the deepest dark with him, their heaving breaths echoing wetly around them. There were sounds of his hands working, fabric on leather, leather on leather, something metal, then the space they were in was lit up by a powerful flashlight. His handsome face, lit harshly from below, stared at her. She watched his eyes dart over hers, watched the winking light in his dazzling blacks, saw the shadow above the curved bow of his lips move as he struggled to say something that seemed more than Daniella, quickly, move, run...
But he said nothing, and his eyes darted in the direction of his beam. Her gaze followed, looking down the tunnel they'd entered. It was a narrow rectangular passage, smooth and finished concrete all around. The floor held collected puddles of water in spots. It was clean though, no sign of rodents—nowhere for them to hide.
“What is this place?” she asked him.
He put a finger to those plump lips and softly shushed her, passed by her, whispered, “My escape route,” and headed down the tunnel.
He moved quickly but quietly and she followed in his footsteps, watching ahead of him as his light showed them the ground ahead. It was yards and yards of the same. They heard at one point the panicked running feet around them outside the walls. She imagined those men lost in that concrete maze, trying desperately to find her and kill her and her skin crawled and her fingers and toes went cold. She still couldn't believe this was happening. Life for her in the Nero family had always seemed so safe. Her father had never had someone try to kill him like this, had he? He always seemed so confident, so fearless.
Soon they came to a metal door set in the end of the concrete. She felt a fear rise up in her. A thought they’d now have to turn around, head back this tunnel and find themselves face to face with those men, staring down the barrels of their guns. She didn't want to die in a place like this. She didn't want to die at all. Rocco worked with the door and she heard it open, heard a mechanism inside it scissor around, metal on metal, then the door swung open, grating in its jamb. That fear was washed away by a friendly relief that brought a smile to her lips. Maybe she wouldn't die today after all.
Then in the instant she enjoyed that warm happiness she heard clearly the sounds of men in dress shoes, more than two, running down the concrete passage right behind them. Her belly fluttered and her butthole tightened painfully. Then Rocco had her by the lapel and he yanked her through to his side. He set the metal door closed quietly, moving assuredly while her brain was screaming, Shut it, shut it, they're coming! But he got it closed in time without making a sound and he spun a lever on their side. It was long as a crowbar and he lifted it up and around so it was one-hundred-eighty degrees from where it was and there was more sound of scissoring metal inside the door.
He turned to her and said, “You’re safe for now, Daniella. They can't come through here.” He held the flashlight down at their feet, and his face was lit from below again, showing off all those sharp angled masculine shapes of his face. God, he was handsome. She wondered what she looked like lit from below. She whimpered a meek Thank you and ran a lock of sweat-dampened hair over her ear, her eyes lowered. If he was to return from the dead why did it have to be like this?
There were faint voices now, held at bay by the thick metal door. Men talking, a clang on the metal as they probably tried to open the door. She looked around. They were in a sewer tunnel now, standing on a checker-plate grate floor suspended over effluent as it flowed about a half dozen feet beneath them. The walls were curved, the ceiling low where they stood but higher in the center. The checker-plate floor they were on was a plank-way that ran along the edge of the tunnel.
Then his hands were on her and she thought to fight him, wanted to push his hands away but she went with it. Let him handle her, grabbing at her waist, tugging at her. Then she realized he was trying to get into her pockets.
“Hey,” she said sharply. “What are you doing?”
“Phone,” he said.
“Fine, Rocco. Just hold on,” she said and turned to shield herself from his rough handling, slipped her small hand into her tight pocket and withdrew her iPhone. She handed it to him.
He took it, gripped it in both hands and snapped it in two, threw it into the flowing sewage below where it disappeared with a plunk and a splash.
She didn’t yell, didn’t say a thing at all, just stood peering over the metal railing in shock and disbelief. “Rocco...what the fuck?”
Rocco said nothing, turned and walked and she followed him, trying to keep up. They walked for a good long while and she wondered how far they’d have to go but when she got closer and got the nerve to ask, he stopped suddenly and she bumped into him.
“Here,” he said, and he guided her with his hand to a rusted metal ladder that climbed up a cylindrical passageway above them, a concrete hole above their heads.
“Up there?” she said.
He nodded, and she looked up above and said, “You first,” not afraid, but feeling funny about him climbing up behind her and seeing up her skirt.
“You'll be okay?” he said.
“I can climb,” she said, her snarkiness fading after all the adrenalin had been pumped out of her and she was feeling a little tired, a little afraid, and also very glad Rocco was here.
Rocco went ahead and she climbed right after him, glad now she’d gone last because he definitely would have seen right up her skirt. At the top he helped her and they stood in a darkened little utility room with one door. He went through first and she followed and they found themselves in a dark room much like the other, this one just as empty but it had three doors out. Rocco paused at the door in the middle, the other two heading off to the left or right of it. He replaced the magazine in his gun, pulled back the top and peered inside it warily, then cracked that door, his eyes looking out, the muzzle of the gun held close and pointing outward. She watched his black eyes dart around, a bright sliver of light from the opened door slashing across his face and down his chest. He put the gun in his pocket and he opened the door wider and said, “All clear.”
As she got closer he added, “But we have to hurry.”
She nodded quickly, moved to the open door and looked out, saw tiled floors and walls, heard the sound of many voices and Top 40 music from hidden speakers. She stepped out and they found themselves in a short hallway that led to the washrooms off of a food court.
Rocco got ahead of her and she said, Where are we? and he said, Subway. She followed him and they came out of the hall, found themselves in the arcade of a busy subway station, standing between an Orange Julius and an Asian Gourmet, the conflicting but delicious smells making her hungry and while she wondered if she had time to grab a smoothie he had her wrist again and was leading her through the tunnel to a bank of doors ahead, and beyond, wintry daylight.
Once outside, he led her stiffly and hurriedly off the busy city street, taking their first right and finding themselves on an old residential avenue and they walked hand in hand, Rocco's eyes darting around cautiously, making her nervous, and so
on they came to a quiet intersection and she saw the street they turned right onto was called Prince Martin Street and she realized this was where he’d said to go if he didn’t make it.
It wasn’t too long down this street with its well-kept houses built in the 1930s, back when Capone had run this city, that they came to 122B, and she saw the cream-colored garage door with a small American flag sticker in the corner. It wasn't that she'd doubted him, but somehow now with the exhaustion of escaping with her life she was flooded with the realization that he'd been honest. He'd tried to save her life. And if he didn't make it, he wanted her to be safe. That little American flag suddenly had amazing weight. Seeing it somehow signified that he didn't want to kill her, didn't want to kidnap her, this was not a trick, there were men here to kill her in this city—the man they sent couldn't do it. Instead he was the one who would save her. Would give his life to make sure she survived. A life she assumed was snuffed four years ago.
It was all too much and she suddenly went weak at the knees. She swooned, the day spinning around her, her vision narrow and dim and she fell. Before she hit the ground she was caught. Held in the arms of the single strongest man she knew. She felt safe. Even though this city might be crawling with guns looking to put bullets in her head and her heart, somehow in his arms under the bare ragged branches of an old oak tree on some hidden city street she felt very lucky.
6
Mansion
daniella
She felt drained and lifeless afterward, and Rocco picked her up and carried her to the side of 122B, to a wooden side door that led into the garage. He opened it, her still in his arms, and he stepped inside. Single occupant of the garage was a big black pickup truck and he opened the passenger door and set her inside it, easing her into the footwell. He said, “I need you to stay down. Hug this floor, okay, baby?”
She peered up at him through her hanging hair. He tapped the floor with his leather glove and she stayed low. He closed the door, careful to make sure she was clear. Then he was in, his heavy body shaking the truck on its suspension as he climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned the key (in the ignition where he’d said it would be), and the truck came to life—a roar turned to a diesel rattle. The garage door peeled up, shutters folding above their heads and the cabin of the truck was lit by snowy gray daylight.
They drove in silence through stop and go traffic. She listened to the jingling of the keys in the ignition, occasionally the loud clicking of his turn indicator. She stared into the floor mat, wishing she could see out, wishing she could see where he was taking her. She trusted him. Crazy as that sounded, she trusted him. This walking dead man, her callous betrayer, the breaker of hearts, was…trusted. It bewildered her.
It wasn’t long before he was slowing again, turning sharply and up a drive it sounded like. There was the sound of another garage door and then they were closed in the dark again. The truck was shaking, his heavy weight getting out, then her passenger door was opened. She was still frozen to the floor, irrationally afraid to come out. But she’d been painting in Sedona only a day ago and she thought the man she’d loved was probably dead.
“Daniella,” he said, and he held his hand out to help her. “You're safe now. We're safe here. I promise.” She looked in his eyes, saw an honesty there. They weren’t darting around, watching for danger, his hands were free from weapons. She put her hand out, touched his bare skin. His gloves were gone and she felt his warm but hard grasp. Felt how small her hand was in his. How fragile he made her. She got to her knees, stepped out, him holding her hand. The truck was in another garage. This one larger and almost empty. He took her by the hand and led her up stone steps to a wooden door and led her inside. It was warm. Dim and grey, but oh so much warmer than the cold and the snow and the death they'd just escaped from.
They were inside a Gothic stone mansion. Not that large, small and narrow, but solidly built with a stone wall ahead of them, drywall to the right and polished timber beams. The place was almost empty, abandoned looking. When Rocco tried to lead her deeper into the house she ripped her hand from his grip.
He turned, his face shocked with concern.
She stood toe to toe, staring into his eyes, getting lost in them. Her lips quivered and she felt like she would cry but she didn't want him to see that. Maybe she was too angry to cry. As her trembling lip threatened to turn to sobs she said, “You...I thought you were dead...”
“Daniella, I—”
“I want to be happy you're alive...my heart wants to enjoy it, but I know...”
“Baby—”
“I know you've been alive this whole time and you never even sent me a message...”
The tears came then and she couldn’t stop them. He was alive. She loved him and he was alive and he was here with her. He’d saved her life.
She sobbed, “I should fucking hate you...”
He gripped her suddenly and hard, pressed her back to the stone wall and held her eyes with his. She could see a raging sea in there. A storm. He was troubled. He was overwhelmed with his own emotions. His eyes quivered, they were wet, but Rocco was a man who never cried. His lips trembled as he fought for words. She stopped him. “Rocco,” she whispered, and her soft breath against his cheek warmed those eyes. His head tilted with remorse and affection, absorbing from her the pain he’d caused, seeing it in her and trying to take it from her.
“Did you ever? ...” she cried, her breaths chugging and the vision of his beautiful face warbling with her warm wet.
His hand came to her neck and his thumb caressed her jaw and she felt her heart threatening to burst.
“...Did you ever even think of me?”
He kissed her then, those beautiful lustful lips attacking hers and she went off inside, fireworks in her brain, her heart blasting cherry starburst love. She was swept away by his kiss. Their breaths scored through their noses, heavy, forceful, heaving with desire. His hand gripped the back of her neck and her head tilted to him, exposed herself to him.
He said, “I thought of you every minute, Daniella. I thought of a moment like this every single day. I never knew it would feel so good...”
“Rocco,” she whimpered, her hands clawing at the leather shoulders of his jacket. His kisses came again, wet and hot. He took her tongue and she gave it to him. That familiar feel, that strong Rocco tongue worked over her and she surrendered to him.
“I’m going to show you how much I missed you,” he said, his deep voice a lubricious force against her delicate ears.
“Ah,” she gasped, feeling his hips thrust against her, feeling that manhood of his press into her tummy. She climbed her legs up his hard denim thighs, her wool skirt riding up and catching at her hips. She scratched her fingers under his jacket, out of her mind with passion, desperate to feel that incredible body of his, wanting to feel his muscle as he fucked her with his huge cock.
“What's this?” she gasped, her hands getting under his leather, forming claws so she could drag them over his muscle and finding hard smooth canvas.
“Bullet proof vest,” he said, his voice a hungry groan. He ripped his shirt open and she heard metal clatter out and onto the polished tile floor. Bullets. He'd been shot by those men. They'd stuck to his vest.
“You were shot?” she panted, aching for him, her lower lip hanging wet and pouted.
“I'd take a hundred bullets for you,” he said, his mouth consuming hers again and he pressed her against the wall and she cried with passion into his kisses.
Her breaths trembled against him, sucking on his tongue, letting him take hers. Her hands went up and down those smooth bullet proof sides, wishing to feel his bare body. His mouth tasted just like it did four years ago. He’d been everything, and kissing him now it felt like it was yesterday. It felt so familiar. Her Rocco. Her love. She climbed higher up his hips as he kissed her—practiced moves, familiar things she did. She’d fucked him hundreds of times. They were practiced and efficient lovers. She knew he kept that big tool down
his right pant leg, knew it was hard now, felt it crossing up and on an angle instead of hanging down, the end of it under his hip pocket. She pressed her sex to it, felt its wide belly scoring her across her panties, felt herself instantly sweating inside, felt a wetness spreading between her legs, and she slipped her mound against his hard column, wishing it was bare and inside her. Her hands fumbled with his belt buckle and he kissed her while his hands went over hers, as eager as hers, getting that buckle undone but she gripped the belt now—gripped it with all her might and she yanked on it, yanked him close, her hungry pussy slipping up and down that big hard thing he had, her aching sex being ground by him through her panties, her skirt, his rough denim. “Ah,” she gasped again, pulling her mouth from his kiss and pressing her cheek to him. Her fingers ached, she held her fists on his belt so tight her forearms were shaking. She humped and rode that cock, grinding herself into it, feeling something being drawn from her. Years of abstinence, years without passion, suddenly it was a dam bursting, suddenly years of pent up desire were exploding through a raging crack spreading in her walls. She was gushing now, their dry grinding bringing wet smacking noises. She snarled and bared her teeth feeling something rising inside her, feeling herself being swept up til she could touch the ceiling, feeling herself rising high above her own body, her hips grinding and pumping, her lover driving his denim hardness against her soft soft sex, over her panties, and then she came and she cried out, cried his name and her grip let loose—her hands scratching and raking his neck as the pleasure took her higher and she thought she would go black.
“Fuck, Daniella,” he growled. “Oh fuck, you sexy, ah,” he grunted, and now his pants were coming down, scoring along those rock hard thighs and she felt the heat from between his legs, his cock out now, out in the air, that big thing somewhere loose between them. Felt it then, its hot touch through her hose against the inside of her thigh and if she didn’t have it inside her right now she would fucking scream.
Broken (Dying For Diamonds Book 1) Page 5
