When he pulls out of my pussy, a rush of wetness follows, and without hesitation, he bends down and wipes me clean with his tie. His silk tie, which probably cost more than two or three months’ payment on my car, and he just uses it like it’s a paper towel or dish rag. But when he stands up, his neck smeared with blood and his eyes on fire, I suddenly know that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do to make me more comfortable, no tie he wouldn’t dirty, no part of his body that he wouldn’t bloody for me. And I know that it’s because he was telling the truth earlier.
He does love me.
I open my mouth to say something—I’m not sure what, I just know I need to tell him that I see it, I understand, and maybe I do actually forgive him—but I never get the chance. There’s a screech of tires and a series of deafening pops ricocheting off the concrete walls, and Matteo has pushed me to the ground, his body curled protectively over mine, before I realize what’s happening.
Someone’s shooting at us. And then Matteo’s shoulder seems to explode, a tearing sound followed by a spray of blood, and I scream, and there’s footsteps and more gunshots and more tires screeching and then a pair of scuffed black boots enter my field of vision. Matteo snarls something—his fury deep and terrifying, even with the tremor of pain threaded through his words—and his body is wrestled off mine.
I cry out in protest, in terror, as I see the bloody wound in Matteo’s shoulder, but more shouts, footsteps, and bullets drown out my cry, and something sharp and small punctures my upper arm with a familiar pinch—a needle. I’m being drugged.
I struggle as I’m lifted into someone’s arms, someone smelling like leather and gasoline. But the struggling doesn’t make a bit of difference. I’m carried away from Matteo and then the world goes black.
11
Jess
I know where I am the moment I open my eyes. Despite the pounding headache, despite the grogginess, despite the burning pain in my arm where the needle went in, my mind has no trouble identifying the cinderblock walls and dented metal desks that make up the motorcycle shop’s upstairs office.
The couch I lie on now is the same couch I did much of my college homework on as I listened to the boys blast Steppenwolf and ZZ Top in the garage. The blanket that’s been pulled over me is the same blanket Jimmy used to wrap up Mom’s antique grandfather clock when he moved it into my apartment. For a minute, I grant myself the tiniest sliver of forgiveness that I never realized who my uncle really was; the shop looks nothing like the dens of drinking, drugs, and sin that I associate with outlaw motorcycle clubs. It was a second home to me for a long time, with nothing more sinister about it than a vending machine that sometimes ate change.
Of course he would have kept the shop free of crime, my legal brain interjects. It’s his business front. It has to look one hundred percent legitimate.
I blink several times and breathe out a long breath, clearing out all my scattered thoughts and attempting to order the events of tonight in a coherent fashion.
I’m in Uncle Jimmy’s shop.
Which means it was Jimmy and his boys that brought me here.
Which means they were the ones shooting at me in the garage.
No—not just me. Matteo too.
Bile rises in my stomach as I remember Matteo getting shot in the shoulder as he shielded my body with his own. He could have been killed…he may still have been. Matteo would guard me and his unborn child with his life—I have no doubt of that—and given the firefight in the parking garage, I’m guessing Jimmy’s men were not shy about testing his convictions.
If Matteo is dead, I have no idea how I’ll cope. No more long nights in his bed or on his dining room table or in his shower. No more promises whispered in the dark. No more searing kisses that leave me weak in the knees.
My chest constricts painfully at the thought.
But there were other gunshots, returning fire, which meant that Matteo wasn’t alone in the garage. His men were there too.
An all-too-brief balloon of hope soars in me and then pops. I can’t cling to the naive hope that Matteo somehow made it safely away. But I also can’t stomach the possibility that he’s dead, my Matteo with his bookshelf of dog-eared paperbacks and wickedly sexy dimple. My Matteo, who sat on a cold bathroom floor for hours so I wouldn’t be alone, shivering in front of the toilet.
My Matteo, who loves me.
My Matteo, whom I love.
Yes, I can admit it to myself now, now that he’s been hurt or worse and I’m desperate and scared and alone. I couldn’t force myself to see it earlier, couldn’t allow myself to own it, because it’s melodramatic to proclaim love at eight weeks. Love after eight weeks is a Shonda Rhimes show thing, the kind of thing that happens for Kardashians and Taylor Swift. It doesn’t happen in real life, certainly not to educated, successful career women like myself.
But it’s real. It’s real whether it should be or not, and I say it out loud just to prove it to myself. “I love Matteo. I love him.”
The words fortify my resolve and clear my drugged mind. I love Matteo and if there’s any chance he’s still alive, then we will find each other. And if he’s not alive…
I spread my hand over my belly. On the outside, I look no bigger than I was on the night I conceived, but if I prod hard enough, I can feel a firm swell that wasn’t there before. I find that swell now with my fingers as I push into my belly, resolve steeling itself along with the love and the fear already lodged in my throat.
Matteo may be dead, but his baby isn’t. And it’s my duty to make sure the baby and I escape this alive and safe.
Even though it sends a shock wave of nausea and dizziness through me, I force myself to sit upright, fingers digging into the blankets as the light-headedness threatens to drag me into unconsciousness. But I hold on, and gradually the world stops spinning and my breathing returns to normal.
I need a plan, and I need it before Uncle Jimmy comes back.
I take quick stock of my situation. I’m not tied up, not gagged or still drugged, and so I’m guessing I’m not a captive in the traditional sense. Probably Uncle Jimmy is clinging to the idea that he needed to rescue me from Matteo, that I would rather be safe with my uncle than with the father of my child. That I’m not a flight risk.
I get up and try the door, which I remember locks from the outside, and sure enough, it’s locked now. So I’m kind of a captive then. A glance at the windows reminds me there’s no escape that way either—both windows are protected by iron bars on the outside, and anyway, it would be a two-story drop to the concrete below. I rack my brain, trying to remember every detail of the shop, all of the possible exits. There wouldn’t be any way out of the shop that couldn’t be seen…except for the bathroom window, I remember. Uncle Jimmy hadn’t bothered to bar it because there was a mountain of used tires piled against it on the outside.
I’d wait to worry about that when—or if—I got to the window.
I press my ear to the door leading out to the shop, listening for my uncle or any of the boys. I hear nothing, not even old rock music, which is so deeply unusual for the shop that it gives me a little shiver. The silence here is ominous…ready. Like the entire shop is hushed and lying in wait for the enemy to attack.
Then there are footsteps coming closer, and I leap back to the couch, ready to feign unconsciousness. But before I can get there, the door bangs open and it’s not my uncle or one of the boys in the doorway scowling at me, it’s my ex-boyfriend Nate in a rumpled suit.
As stressful as tonight has been, I almost want to burst into hysterical laughter. What could be worse than learning your boyfriend used you for your uterus and your uncle is the worst sort of criminal? A run-in with a cheating ex-boyfriend, of course! I think I’d almost rather take the bullets.
“Do you have any idea how much fucking trouble I’ve gone to today?” Nate asks as he walks in, and how did I forget how irritating his voice is? How high-pitched and whiny? Nothing like Matteo’s deep, commanding voice, nothing lik
e Matteo’s irresistible words.
“I guess I don’t have an idea,” I say, taking a step backwards.
“I had to cash in every favor I had in this city to make your uncle’s afternoon shootout go away. I’ve been on the phone with the chief of police, the DA and three city councilmen. All so he could go get you back. You’ve completely fucked up my day, Jess.”
“Why did you do it, then?” I demand. “You could have let him get arrested.”
Nate walks towards me. “Number one, I can’t take that risk. I’m too complicit in his crimes not to worry about a RICO charge coming at me. Number two, your uncle promised you to me. He needed a way to launder money better than the shop and he needed better connections to the city’s political leaders, two things he couldn’t pay for at the time. But he offered you, and I accepted.”
I take a step back and my heel hits the cinderblock wall. I’m trapped, and I don’t like the way Nate keeps coming closer to me. “Why did you accept? You cheated on me—you clearly don’t want me.”
Nate’s pretty-but-narrow face folds into an irritated frown. “It’s not about wanting, Jess. You’re mine. I can do what I want. That’s how Jimmy said it would work.”
“Are you even listening to yourself?” I ask, throwing up my hands, my anger temporarily suppressing my fear. “You sound ridiculous.”
“I don’t care how I sound,” he says, and I know he’s telling the truth. He believes what he’s saying—he believes he somehow has a claim on me just because my uncle said he does—and nothing is going to change his mind.
He reaches me, and I try to press myself into the cinderblock to avoid touching him, but it doesn’t work. He palms my breast roughly, and I wince and try to squirm away. If I ever wondered if there was a difference between Matteo’s brutal possession of my body and actual misogyny or assault, my answer is right here, right now.
The difference is that I want Matteo’s possession. He has my consent and my love.
Nate only has my disgust and refusal.
“Don’t touch me,” I say through gritted teeth.
Nate ignores this. “I can’t believe you got pregnant,” he says instead, his face hardening. “Tomorrow, we’re going to see a doctor I know about that.”
“No!” I hiss, my arms crossing over my torso in instinctive protection. “You can’t make me.”
“If you don’t,” Nate says coldly, “I know other ways to make a woman lose a baby. Don’t test me.”
It’s funny how many things a suit and a corporate setting could hide. For Matteo, it hid his primal nature, his true nature as a crime boss. For Nate, the suit hid a monster. Not the sexy kind of monster. No, Nate is the kind of monster that just threatened to beat me until I lost my baby. Nate is the kind of monster that helps men trade sex slaves. Nate is the kind of monster that doesn’t lose sleep at night, even when that night is split open with gunshots and the moans of meth addicts—guns and meth that he helped move into the city.
I want to knee him in the groin, I want to spit in his face. Every cell in my body begs me to fight. But it’s not just my own life at stake, and I have to be smart. Escape without injury has to be my primary goal, not making Nate suffer.
Yet. Because I will never forget this, and one way or another, I will make him pay.
“Okay,” I say, averting my eyes and pretending to be cowed even as my body practically vibrates with anger. “I’ll go to the doctor.”
“I know you will,” he says darkly. “Because you won’t like the consequences if you don’t.”
And then he reaches up my skirt, shoving his fingers down my panties. I recoil in revulsion, pressing my legs together and trying to move away. “Don’t,” I beg. “Don’t do this.”
“Shut the fuck up,” he barks, one hand already dropping to his zipper. “I’m goddamn tired of waiting for what’s already mine.”
I don’t have to look down to know that he’s fully erect. And I don’t need a crystal ball to tell me that he’d force me against my will.
I consider fighting back now, but my mind grasps at something else, and then I’m speaking before I can completely think it through. “I have to pee,” I lie, coating my words in urgency. “So bad. It’s the pregnancy.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“I might accidentally pee though. During, you know…” I gesture down to his groin.
He looks absolutely disgusted. “Fucking bitch,” he mutters under his breath, but he grabs my arm and yanks me out of the office toward the bathroom, his cock still half out of his pants. I want to grab it and break it off, but I remind myself to think of Matteo’s baby. Be safe. For Matteo.
The shop is empty when we walk down the stairs to the bathroom, but through the grimy front windows, I see a crowd of men outside. Waiting for the war to come to them.
Nate shoves me in the single-toilet bathroom. “Hurry up,” he snaps, slamming the door behind him, and I lock it as quietly as possible.
I allow myself one deep breath of relief.
Then I get to work. I turn on the sink, the rush of water covering my sounds. I’ve always been shy about bathroom sounds, so I know Nate won’t even notice.
The window is old and covered in years of dust and mildew, but it still opens. I stand on the toilet and force it open as quietly as possible, flinching every time it makes the slightest squeak. But I guess the squeaks are quiet enough given that Nate hasn’t started pounding on the door yet.
Soon, I’ve got it open enough to shimmy through, and I hoist myself up into the window frame, pushing and kicking at the tire-stack in front of it. It takes some serious muscle, and I’m covered with a slight sheen of sweat by the time I get enough tires to topple over for me to crawl out, but I finally succeed and worm my way out of the window. The moment my feet touch the ground, I drop into a crouch and get a quick scan of my surroundings. There’s no one out back behind the shop, and they would have been alerted to my presence by all the tires anyway, but there’s no sense in taking pointless risks.
I double check that I’m alone back here, plot my way off the property, and then I’m off at a sprint, grateful for all the punishing cardio I do in my dance classes, less grateful for my flat, strappy sandals cutting into my feet as I run. I move easily and quickly through the weed-strewn concrete lot behind the shop, crossing a deserted road and then running down the hill toward the highway. I’m painfully aware that Nate is probably beating down the door of the bathroom right now, that people will be looking for me any moment, and that a girl sprinting down the road in a short red dress will be easy to find.
I have to find a place to hide.
A place where they can’t get me.
Matteo’s house. Even if he isn’t there, his men might be. And if not, well then, I know where Matteo keeps his guns.
One thing is for sure—I can’t call the police right now. Nate mentioned speaking to the chief of police, and I can’t risk the chance that a crooked cop might get a hold of me.
Then it really hits me as I’m running. I don’t have my wallet or my phone—and even if I had my phone, there’d be no one to call. I can’t trust the police and Matteo might be dead, and oh my God, how the hell am I going to escape this? My uncle and Nate? They would hunt me down to the ends of the earth, I’m absolutely certain, and they won’t even have to go that far, because how am I going to make it to Matteo’s house without them finding me?
And that’s when I hear someone call my name.
12
Jess
“Jessica!”
I spin and see a man in a suit running towards me, and for a minute I panic and think it’s Nate, but then I see the bloodstain on the shoulder and the dark hair and my heart soars into my chest.
Matteo.
He’s alive.
And he’s found me.
He wraps me in a fierce embrace the moment he reaches me, his arms like a cage around me, not trapping me but protecting me. I bury my face against his chest and sob.
&nb
sp; “You’re alive,” he says in dazed wonder. “God, I thought you were dead or hurt, and I was so desperate to find you. I knew he must have taken you to the shop, and we were on the way there to get you back.”
I turn my head, and through my tearstained eyes, I can see several black cars stopped in the middle of the road. A deadly convoy.
“You were going to come get me?”
“I should have known that you wouldn’t need rescuing,” he murmurs, finding my chin with his finger and tilting my head up. His eyes are a luminous blue under the streetlights. “But we came. To protect the Moretti family’s most treasured possessions.”
His hand drops down to my belly at the same time he brushes a kiss across my forehead.
I slump against him and fist my hands in his suit jacket. “I thought you were dead.”
“The gunshot wound was clean—in and out. My men fought the bikers off quickly enough to get the bleeding under control. It hurts like a bitch, though.”
For some reason that makes me laugh a little. “Sounds like an understatement.”
“You have no idea. And it’s time for us to get in the car, princess. Jimmy and his men will be combing the neighborhood for you.”
I nod. I know he’s right, and it would be stupid to stand out here in the open any longer. Still though, it physically pains me to break our embrace to walk towards the car. I need to keep touching him, keep reassuring myself he’s alive and well. And as weak as it sounds, touching him makes me feel safe. He won’t let any harm come to me while he’s here—Nate can’t touch me while I’m protected in Matteo’s arms.
Matteo must feel a similar need, because as soon as we slide into the backseat of the car and he orders the man driving us to turn around and go to his house, he yanks me into his lap. His lips crash down onto mine, his mouth demanding that I open up to his invasion, which I do willingly, with an eager hunger. Our tongues slip together, his hands roam all over my back and arms and shoulders, and I remember why I feel so right in Matteo’s arms. It doesn’t matter how many bikers are after us, how much danger we’re in, nothing matters except him. Except us.
Made for Him: A Mafia Baby Romance Page 8
