How had he known? How had she given herself away? Even she hadn’t known what she was going to do until she’d seen the abandoned knife left forgotten on a cutting board stained with seeds and red juice.
Tomatoes, she guessed absently.
But he stood against her back, one arm securely restraining her middle. The other had something hard wedged against the small of her back. She didn’t have to ask. Yet it wasn’t that that kept her from making a lunge for the knife.
It was the six men busy preparing food and not sparing them a single glance that snapped the cap back onto her resolve.
“Don’t hurt them,” she pleaded. “I’ll be good.”
His face turned into the side of hers. His nose grazed her cheek.
“I know you will.”
But he didn’t put the gun away.
He didn’t release her.
They took the backstairs to the private veranda overlooking the dining area. Her father usually reserved it for special occasions, parties, birthdays, and Friday night dinners.
It was empty when they arrived. The house lights were off, casting everything in an inky blue-black. The tables were draped in shadows, the upturned chairs on top their crowns.
But James took her around them to the gold painted railing and positioned her in front of him.
It was a busy night. Friday, judging from the menu above the bar. The place was full of families and couples enjoying an evening out. The smell of baked tomatoes, herbs, and tangy sauces filled the room and pooled towards the ceiling in a swirl of delicious scents. But none of it made her mouth water or her stomach rumble like it used to.
In that position, in that spot, she had a clear view of the alcove tucked between the front doors and the bar, furnished with a round table and a half circle of leather benches.
It was her father’s place where he and the clan occasionally did business. It was usually empty on Fridays, because Fridays were when he would be sitting on the veranda with her and Elise, enjoying time alone with his family.
It wasn’t empty now.
Her father had the full council seated around him over an empty table. His expression was grim but fierce. Dark rings hung beneath his eyes and there were gray streaks at his temples Cora knew hadn’t been there before. But the sight of him, seeing him, being that close and being kept from running to him was a new level of torture.
“They’re talking about you,” James murmured into her ear. “That’s been the topic of discussion since your disappearance. Your father has the entire city, every crime lord, drug lord, handler, peddler, dealer, cop, and rat looking for you. And you’re right here.”
“You son of a bitch!” Her breath caught around the venomous snarl.
“Quiet,” he whispered. “I’m talking.” He shifted his weight slightly, pulling back just enough so his every word wasn’t caressing the side of her face. “Do you see that waiter?”
There were a few on the floor, moving between the tables with their trays of food and drinks, but she spotted the one he was referring to; he was the only one close to the bar, and her father.
“He’s one of mine. He has a Glock 26 in his pocket. At his distance, the likelihood of him missing are impossible, so if you make one sound, if you alert your father to us in anyway...”
He didn’t have to finish.
The implication was as clear as the martini glasses the waiter was dutifully organizing on a tray.
Bruno, her father’s bodyguard was one table over, one lunge away from protecting Giovanni, but he would never suspect a waiter. He wouldn’t be able to do anything in time.
No one could.
“I’m not marrying you.” But it sounded false and hollow even to her own ears.
“I think you will.”
He reached into the inside pocket of his coat with the hand not gouging a gun barrel into her spinal column. He drew something out and brought it around for her to see.
It was a phone. The screen was paused on a video. She watched with growing anxiety and confusion as he hit play.
Cora studied the live feed, momentarily baffled before she recognized her father’s desk, the one in his home office. Then, as the wielder of the camera pulled back, the wall behind it, then the row of bookcases as the person turned towards the door.
“What is this?” She snatched the phone from him. “What is this?”
“I’ve asked one of my men to visit your parents at home,” he said evenly. “Your mother, actually.”
He reached over and nimbly swiped the screen to another view, one of her mother in the parlor bent over a letter she was writing furiously. There was a shoebox next to her elbow filled with neatly sealed envelopes. But she seemed oblivious to the fact that there was an intruder four doors away from her.
Cora’s heart all but ceased beating in her chest. Cold sweat chilled her clothes to her spine. She nearly lost her hold on the phone when the numbness spread down her arms. She had to bite her tongue to keep from screaming at her mother to leave the room, scream at her father to get home.
“Stop ... please,” was the best she could do around a tongue that had gone thick in her mouth. “Don’t hurt her.” She turned in the confines of James’s arms to peer imploringly up at him. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
He searched her face. “Marry me.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her mind numb with fear, but oddly sharp and alert. “Why? Why marry me when you can obviously get to my father without any help from me.”
“That’s my concern.”
“Tell me something,” she begged. “I deserve that.”
“Okay, your mom has about five seconds.”
Her gaze shot down to the phone. The man was just outside the parlor, tightening a silencer into place on a Springfield pistol. She could see Elise’s back, her dark head bent. Her stomach churned.
“I’m going to kill you.” Her voice trembled, nearly dislodging the tears blurring the image.
“You will, but not today.” He took his phone from her and slipped it back into his pocket. “What will it be, Cora?”
Everything quieted as if someone had snapped off a switch. The world hummed with an eerie sort of silence that seemed to hum beneath her skin with an electric current that curled her fingers into fists. The heat in her belly raged into a full-blown forest fire. But she remained perfectly still on the outside.
“I am being nothing if not generous with you.” Dark light shone deep in the pools of his eyes, pale flames that reflected the severity of his warning. “Marry me and I will see to it that your parents live. Refuse me and the consequences are on your shoulders.” He pulled back, releasing her from the circle of his arms and the weight of the gun against her side. The weapon itself was tucked into his pocket, but his hand remained securely closed around it. “I will see you walking down that aisle, sweetheart, or you will see me in the crowd as the caskets are lowered into the ground. What will it be? You have until we return to the ship to decide.”
He left her standing there, one scream away from her father, paralyzed from the neck down and yet utterly powerless. Any attention she drew would get him and her mother killed.
If she refused, it would get them killed.
If she agreed, it would get them killed.
The cyclone of helplessness made her want to fall to her knees and scream herself hoarse. But all she could do was stand there with the weight of the whole world crushing the life out of her, powerless to do a fucking thing.
But the numbness didn’t last.
In the time it took for it to send shockwaves down the lengths of her arms, a new fire had burst to life in the pit of her stomach. Her heart clapped in her chest, a violent tempo of rage so fierce, it roared between her ears. Its vibration rippled through her in brutal waves, masking her vision with a tinge of red that made her throat tighten.
With the haze of a sleepwalker, a surreal blur of being disjointed from her body, she sensed herself moving.
&
nbsp; The darkness of the veranda vanished to the confines of the stairs, then the humid stench of the kitchen, something ice cold touched her palm. Someone shouted after her, but she shoved her way into the icy night.
Every breath scraped leaving her throat raw.
Each pant plumed out in tufts of white.
It had begun to rain. The steady downpour obscured her vision, but not enough not to recognize the silhouette moving away from her through the parking lot, shoulders pulled up around his ears.
She knew his build anywhere, knew his movement, his grace.
She tore after him, the coppery taste of blood pooling at the back of her throat. Her fingers tightened around the object in her hand, gripping it tight as her feet closed the distance.
Then she was on him.
He caught her wrist in a movement she never saw coming. He spun with a quickness that made him a momentary blur before her arm was stopped in its downward plunge inches from his face.
The silver blade sparked in the light cascading down around them. Rain lanced off its curved edge and dull teeth. The presence of it surprised even her, more so than the fact that a butter knife wouldn’t have been her first choice for a murder weapon.
Yet there it was, suspended between them.
Cora came out of her shock first, her anger overpowering her reason as she struggled against his strength to drive the dagger home. Her efforts were met with barely any strain from him as he captured her with his free arm and slammed her up against the nearest car.
He pinned her there with his weight and the knee he wedged between her thighs. The force drove the air from her lungs, but she kept a tight grip on the knife.
“Stop.” The command was barely above a whisper, but it snapped between them as loud and vicious as the rain drenching them to the bone. Tiny drips rained from his lashes and ran in trails along the contours of his face.
“Never!” she snarled in response, panting with exertion. “I won’t let you hurt my parents.”
His eyes gleamed in the darkness, the eyes of a predator. “You can’t stop me.”
The truth of that statement punched her in the sternum.
It crushed her momentum and she could feel the fight escape her.
“I will.” Tears burned eyes she stubbornly kept fixed on his face. “I will fight you every step of the way. I will end you. You have no idea who I am.”
“But I do,” he argued in that same infuriatingly gentle tone. “I know exactly who you are and what you will do. You’re a fighter. But I’m better. I’ve planned longer and my hate is much stronger. You can run inside right now and call your parents and warn them about everything, and it will not save them. You won’t save them. By the time you reach the threshold, they’ll find a sniper bullet in your father’s skull and by morning, your mother will be found in pieces across the city. I’m protecting you from that. I’m letting you keep your parents.”
“If I marry you,” she choked out.
“Yes.” His warm breath whispered delicately across her wet cheeks. “Marry me.”
“But why?” Her voice shattered, betraying her with the tremor in her chin. “Why am I marrying you?”
“Because I want it.” His grip tightened a fraction along with his voice. “Because I own you. Because I said so.”
Her heart cracked between them, a vicious sound that seemed to be challenging the elements raging around them.
She dampened her trembling lips despite the rain. “I hate you so much.”
Something in his features softened.
His hold gentled.
Every rigid line of his body crushing hers relaxed.
She could have professed her undying love for him for the way he seemed to calm.
He touched her face with the feather light caress of a lover. “That’s the only thing saving you, sweetheart.” He didn’t tell her saving her from what when he stepped back. “Get in the car before you get sick.”
What other answer was there? Aside from dooming her parents, what else could she possibly say to him? Refusal was clearly not an option.
But acceptance ... she could use acceptance.
She could control the situation from within the beast.
She could ensure her parent’s safety.
She could stop him. An enemy was only a threat if they weren’t kept close.
Filled with new resolve, she raised her chin. “Okay, I’ll marry you, but on the condition that my parents will not be harmed.”
He considered this a long moment. “No, you will marry me. No conditions.”
“That’s not good enough.” She breathed in deeply the tangled scent of him and rain. “You hurt them and there will be nothing I will ever do for you again. I will fight you every step of the way. I will make your life hell.”
“What makes you think I care?”
His face was dangerously close. His breath was a warm whisper over her cold, trembling ones.
“Because I’m better willing,” she whispered, painfully conscious of her lip brushing his with every dirty promise. “I’ll be everything you’ve ever wanted. I’ll rock your world. I’ll be the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”
She emphasized by reaching between their wet bodies for the hot bulge gouging into the soft muscles of her stomach. She cupped him through the soft grain of his trousers and watched, thrilled when his eyes darkened and his lips parted with his sharp inhale.
“Wouldn’t it be better if I was willing?” she pressed on, keeping her voice low and husky. “If I was already wet and ready when you want me? Like I am now.”
He was breathing hard. Every ragged inhale, exhale pushed against her. It plumed into the air between them. It flared his nostrils, reminding her of a beast preparing to strike.
She knew pushing any further was a risk, one she may not recover from, but she hadn’t lied.
She was wet.
She could feel the slick pool of her own arousal, slippery between her thighs warmed with the heat of the fire in her belly. It yearned for the very thing she was promising him.
That made her a very special kind of disturbed to want to fuck a man she hated, a man who wanted to destroy her whole world and held no apology for it. No decent person wanted the enemy, not the way she wanted him. The way she always seemed to want him, with an aggressive madness propelled by her own lack of control.
She was sick.
Warped.
Ridiculous.
But that changed nothing.
“Promise,” she whispered, fingers gliding the length of him. “Let me have this and I’m yours. All yours.”
“Mine.” He breathed, lips tense, teeth gritted.
“Yours.”
“You will do what I say without question.”
He didn’t even poise it as a question, but she nodded.
“Just don’t hurt my parents.”
His lashes lowered. He could have been staring down the front of her dress, but she knew he wasn’t. He wasn’t seeing her at all. He was teetering between his own thoughts and the descending graze of her palm working lower to cup his balls.
She was having a hard time focusing herself. The feel of him coming alive beneath her touch was a distraction she couldn’t afford. Not at that moment. She wasn’t even supposed to be enjoying herself. Yet there was something intoxicating about seducing a man like Captain James Crow. Something incredibly dirty. Wielding that kind of power was a rush, a sexual pat to her ego she had never experienced in her life.
“James.”
He was taking too long to decide.
His chin lifted and she was caught in the dark pits where his pupils had expanded, nearly swallowing the silver.
“I promise to let you decide.” His finger lifted when she opened her mouth. “That is all you’re getting.”
But it told her nothing. It gave her no assurance. She didn’t even know what that meant. The statement felt like a double-edged sword with a secondary blade hidden away that she couldn’t see.<
br />
“Enough.” His fingers curled into her chin. “You promised me obedience. You promised to do what I say without question.” He skimmed her lips with a teasing graze of his thumb. “I’ve given you far more than your father deserves. Take it, Cora. I won’t be this patient again.”
He kissed her, a whispering skim of his mouth over hers. It could have been mistaken for gentle, romantic even, if it hadn’t felt like he was sealing their agreement, an agreement she still couldn’t wrap her head around.
But he’d deepened the kiss. He’d pushed past her teeth with his tongue. The cool taste of him filled her mouth.
Filled her senses.
It claimed full dominance over her with just a sweep.
No longer was she the one seducing the demon. He’d been toying with her, luring her into believing her capable of taming him. All that time, he’d been lying in wait for the moment her guard was down.
She never held any power at all. Only what he allowed her.
He pulled back. “Get in the car. You’re shivering.”
“Wait.” She caught his arm before he could release her completely. “Call your men off.”
Impatience flickered behind his eyes. “Cora.”
“Please!” Her fingers tightened in the sleeve of his coat. “Please, James.”
With a deep inhale that lifted his chest, James obliged. He pulled his phone from his pocket and hit a single button. His gray eyes bore into hers as he lifted it to his ear and uttered one word—done. The phone was tucked away.
“They’re safe. For now. But if you feel the urge to change your mind or welch on our agreement ... don’t. You won’t like what happens.”
Heart thumping, Cora nodded. “I won’t. So long as my parents are safe, I’ll do whatever you want.”
With a final search of her face, he pushed away.
The loss of his heat had her fumbling to clutch the top of her coat as if that might stop the wind and rain from finding ways to climb inside.
“Come.”
The softly spoken command was followed by the unfurling of his fingers extending to her, urging her.
Ordering her.
Testing her.
Blood Script Page 14
