by Mae Doyle
A cool breeze blows across the yard. There are thick woods ahead of us, and even though it’s getting dark, I think that I see shadows darting through them.
With my luck, they’re probably bears. Wolves. Coyotes. I don’t know, all I know is that there’s no way that I’m going to get out of this alive. The one person that I could possibly trust to save me doesn’t know where I am.
Hell, after I slept with him, I made it clear to him that I didn’t want anything to do with him. I wish now that I hadn’t been so harsh. That I hadn’t tried so hard to drive him away.
If Enzo knew that I was in danger then I’m sure that he would try to save me. I don’t know why I believe that, but I do. The only problem?
After how we left things the other night, there’s absolutely no reason for him to come looking for me. There’s no reason for me to think that he would want to save me. There’s absolutely nothing standing between me and the death that I’m slowly walking towards.
Chapter 12
Enzo
We wasted so much fucking time dicking around at the warehouse that my hands are clammy. It’s getting darker out now, but as soon as I figured out that the asshole might have taken Lucia to his house, I started to feel a bit better.
A bit. Not a lot. I won’t feel all the way better until I put a bullet between that asshole’s eyes and then get to take Lucia home with me. You better believe that then, no matter what she says, I’m not going to let her out of my sight. She’s mine, and she better get used to the idea that I’m not leaving her.
Never again. Fucking hell, if she hadn’t been so strong-willed Sunday night then none of this would have happened. We could be on our way to wedded bliss, she could take my last name and not have to deal with the pressure of being a Torenti, and I’d be able to make sure that she was safe.
Instead, where am I?
Crouched in the woods behind Giorgio Romano’s fucking house.
According to our intel, this is where he likes to take people when he’s going to kill them. He’s a fucked-up bastard, that’s for sure, but he doesn’t like to spill blood in the house where it will be messy and tricky to clean up.
Nobody blinks when there’s blood in the woods.
Pops is crouched to my right. Arlo and Roque are a bit farther away, watching the side of the house to make sure that nobody exist. We called in some backup, and they’re parked down the street a little, eyes on the driveway.
Lucia is here, and there’s just no way that Giorgio is going to get out of this in one piece.
On the way over, Pops explained the beef between the two families.
Apparently the Torentis and the Romanos have always feuded, but things came to a head a while ago when Arlo managed to land some huge construction deal that the Romanos wanted. Ever since thing, things have been simmering.
This last straw with Giorgio losing so much money on bets was the final straw. He has it out for the whole Torenti family, and picking off Lucia is the best way to get his point across while slowly taking them out.
Me, too. I’m not a Torenti, not by blood anyway, but that doesn’t mean that I’m safe from this motherfucker. If anything, it puts me more in harm’s way. He may not realize that Pops will do anything for the guys who work for him, but I’m afraid I may look like an easy mark.
If Giorgio thinks that, then he has something else coming.
I shift position to keep my feet from going numb. I’d already taken my pistol out of my pants so that it didn’t dig into my back, and it’s hanging lightly from my hand.
We already know that there are some guys on the back porch. They’ve been there for a while, getting progressively drunker as they play cards, but still no sign of Giorgio or Lucia. I’m about to lean over to Pops and say something to him when the back door opens.
Two figures walk out, and even though it’s hard to see their faces, I can tell the first one is Lucia. She’s so much smaller than Giorgio and walking like she’s scared. My heart squeezes in my chest and I feel my adrenaline spike.
I’m going to kill him for putting a hand on her. I’m going to kill him for thinking that he deserves to be anywhere near her.
Giorgio’s giant. He towers over Lucia and stops to say something to the guys, but they’re far enough away that only the sound of his voice carries to us and I can’t tell what he’s saying. They all laugh, though, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
He’s bringing her out here to kill her. I know it, Pops knows it, and we all know what’s going to have to happen. He can walk her out to these woods, but he’s not going to be the one walking back to the house. I know that Arlo and Roque have eyes on him and what’s going on, and I just hope that they move fast enough to put bullets in the assholes on the porch when the shit gets real.
My muscles all tremble as I crouch, my eyes locked on Lucia. It’s obvious when he pokes her in the back with his pistol. She stumbles a little, but regains her balance quickly.
My girl is nothing if not a fighter, and I feel pride swell in my chest. I’m going to get her out of here, and then I’m going to take her home and have her for myself.
“Where are we going?” Her voice carries to us and I know that she’s trying to stall. I also know that there’s no way that it’s going to work with Giorgio. He didn’t get his reputation for being such an asshole by letting people walk away when he wants to kill them.
“Just keep walking. You’ll see soon enough.” Giorgio’s voice is low and rumbly, and while he talks, I glance at Pops. Pops sees me move out of the corner of his eye, and although he doesn’t look at me, he nods.
My suppressor is on my pistol, and I slide my hand along it, feeling the smooth, hard metal. Giorgio isn’t going to know what hit him, and in under an hour I plan to have my girl back home with me, in my bed.
Fuck. I feel my cock start to swell and throb as I think about her in my bed, calling out my name as I lick slowly up her thighs. She’s hot as hell, and being with her just once wasn’t enough. It’s never going to be enough, but after tonight, I’m not going to have to wait to have her again.
I’m going to make it so that I can take her whenever I want. Wherever I want. However I want.
Giorgio and Lucia reach the woods. They’re only about ten feet from us, but it’s dark out and Giorgio is focused completely on my girl, so he doesn’t see me when I stand up. There’s a clearing a bit deeper into the woods, and I have a very good feeling that that’s where he’s going to take her.
Sure enough, they keep walking, and Pops and I fall into place behind them. We’re both careful to step exactly where he has walked so that we don’t risk making any noise. Lucia’s keeping up a steady stream of chatter, and that helps to block any sound we might accidentally make.
The thought crosses my mind that she may know we’re behind her, and I smile to myself. My girl is smarter than she thinks, and even though she doesn’t believe that she belongs in the Torenti family, nothing could be more true.
Their blood runs through her veins. She’s perfect for me, the one woman I know who can hold me down and keep me supported.
Lucia reaches the clearing and turns to face Giorgio as I walk up behind him and press my gun to his temple. He stands completely still, and when he speaks, his voice is grave.
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” Even though he sounds calm, I can hear the bit of a tremble in it.
“Lucia’s fiancé,” I tell him, my eyes darting up to meet hers as she watches. It’s so dark in the woods, even though Giorgio has a flashlight trained at her feet, that I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She’s an enigma, my girl, but that doesn’t bother me. Soon enough, I will show her that she doesn’t have a choice but to be mine.
“Get on your knees,” I tell Giorgio, and Pops reaches out to take his gun as he complies. He drops down to the ground, but reaches over to his hip at the same time.
Another gun, maybe. A radio, more likely. “You’ll regret this, you motherfuckers,” he
warns, but before he can pull whatever it is off of his belt and shoot us or radio for help, I pull the trigger.
The bullet slams into him and he instantly drops like a stone on the ground. Pops turns to me, a grin on his face. “Get Lucia,” he tells me, then darts back through the woods to the house.
Arlo and Roque will already be there, finishing off the assholes who work with Giorgio. One of them is probably the taller man from the courthouse who got away, and I want to go with him to find him. I want to be the one to put a bullet in that guy’s brain, but Lucia is staring at me like she doesn’t know who I am.
“We have to go, hon,” I say, reaching out for her hand. She hesitates for a moment, and I wonder if I’m going to have to carry her out of here, but the she steps wide around Giorgio’s body and walks towards me.
“You came for me?” There’s surprise and relief mingling in her voice and my cock throbs in my pants.
“You’re my girl,” I tell her, grabbing her hand and linking our fingers together. “What did you think that I was going to do, let him kill you?”
She grins at me before squatting down to grab Giorgio’s flashlight from where it rolled away from his body. “What do we do with him?” She asks, training the light on his feet.
I shrug. The same thing that we do anytime we run into problems, but then I have to remind myself that Lucia’s not from this life. Even though I know about the clean-up crew, she’s not going to. She has no idea how these things are run.
As a woman, she generally wouldn’t. But as a full-blooded Torenti? I pause, trying to decide how much I can tell her. She’ll find out anyway, I reason, and explain the clean-up to her as we duck through the woods and skirt the house.
“They’ll be put in the foundation of a building?” She sounds horrified at first, and I turn to her. Fuck, is she going to freak out?
But just then, she starts laughing. “You’ll have to let me know where that bastard will be. I want to walk on his stupid fucking face every single day, if I can.”
That did it. I knew that we would should make it back to the car as quickly as possible and that if we made Pops wait he’d send Arlo and Roque out to look for us, but my girl is just too damn perfect for me. Without thinking about what I’m doing, I pull her arm so that she turns to me.
The surprise on her face is obvious as I press my lips hers mine. She melts into my arms, opening her mouth enough for me to sweep my tongue through it.
She’s fucking perfect. Any woman who can laugh like that at the asshole who attacked her and tried to kill her is perfect for me, and I feel a flash of hope that she has just realized it. This is going to be a hell of a lot easier if I don’t have to try to fight to convince her that she’s right for me.
But then she pulls back, dropping my hand, and turns to walk to the car. Even from this distance, I can see that the lights are on inside it as Pops and my cousins wait for us.
“Wait, Lucia,” I cry, taking her hand and pulling her back. This time, when she turns to look at me, she has tears dripping down her face. “What’s going on? What the hell was that, and why are you crying so hard now?”
She shakes her head and tries to pull her hand away from me, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to let her go.
Finally, she stomps her foot. “This is exactly what my dad didn’t want me to get involved in! Do you realize that that asshole almost killed me? If you hadn’t been here then I would have died and nobody would ever be able to find my body because I’d be in the foundation of a fucking building somewhere!”
Her change of attitude makes my head spin, but I try to stay calm. I know that women can be a little emotional, and she was almost murdered, so I want to be as level headed as possible, especially when she isn’t being calm.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that it is the Torentis who use building foundations. Others, like the Romanos, use pigs.
“But I was here,” I point out instead, and she scoffs.
“Great. So my first kidnapping went off without a hitch. You can’t tell me that there won’t be others who will try, can you? You can’t promise me that this was a one-time thing, right? I mean, fuck, who the hell do I know that I’ll ever be safe? I don’t, and you can’t make it better! Nobody can!”
She’s yelling now, and I’m sure that Pops can hear it from the car, but I have to calm her down before I put her in there with us. Dropping her hand, I grab her shoulders and give her a little shake. “Lucia, listen. You’re spiraling, and you’ve got to calm the fuck down before you lose it completely. This happened because he thought that he could pick you off. He thought that you would be an easy mark because you weren’t close with your family. That’s it. That’s why it happened, and that’s why it won’t happen again.”
“Why? Why the fuck do you think that it won’t happen again?” There’s venom in her voice and I suddenly understand just how formidable she probably is in the courtroom. There’s no way that any little shitstain stands a chance against her.
But I’m not some little shitstain. I’m going to marry this girl, and she has to learn that I can control her. Even if she doesn’t trust anyone else in her entire life, she needs to know that she can trust me and that I’ll always have her back.
Even when she’s being a pain in the ass.
“Because I won’t let it, and neither will the rest of your family. Because I’ll offer you all of the protection that you need once you marry me. Because I will kill every asshole in the world who threatens you if that’s what it takes to keep you safe.”
My heart pounds as her eyes search my face. I need my girl to believe me so that I can keep me safe.
She has to believe me.
But when she shakes her head, I feel my heart sink. She doesn’t say anything, but just turns and walks to the car.
Fucking great. If I can’t get her to believe me of her own free will, then what the fuck am I going to do with her?
Chapter 13
Lucia
I’m crammed in the backseat of a car between my uncle and the man that he wants me to marry and all I want to do is pull out my hair and scream.
Scream because I was fucking abducted in broad daylight from the courthouse. Scream because I left my heels at Giorgio’s house. Scream because I just saw the man I’m supposed to marry shoot someone in the head like it wasn’t a big deal.
Scream because I’m supposed to act like I don’t know that my cousins just murdered more people.
My heart is racing, and although people are talking around me, I can’t seem to focus on what they’re saying. I’m having a hard time listening to them. There’s a buzzing in my head that I can’t seem to shake, and all of the headlights from the cars we pass on the road only make it worse.
I feel like my head is about to explode.
Leaning forward, I grip the headrests of the front seats. “Please tell me that you’re taking me home now,” I say to Roque. He’s driving, but he doesn’t even glance over his shoulder at me.
“You’re coming to my house.” Enzo’s the one who answers me, and I have to force myself to keep from turning to look at him. His voice seeps into me and settles in my bones. I’m so fucking tired, and I can’t seem to shake the feeling that he’s a part of me, no matter if I want him to be or not.
“I’m not,” I tell him, turning to look at him. “Someone has to take care of Mack, and there’s no way that I’m coming to your place so that you can…what? Keep me captive?” I snort. “Fuck that and fuck you.”
He doesn’t respond for a moment and the car is eerily quiet.
Suddenly, Arlo starts to laugh. “Holy shit, cousin, if I’d have known that you were this much fun, I would have made sure that we got to hang out more. You’re fucking crazy, you know that? You just got kidnapped and almost killed and what? You want to go back to your house with your stupid dog and think that you’ll be safe?”
He turns around in his seat to look at me. “Do you really think that that’s the best idea? Tha
t you’ll be okay there? That you’ll be able to sleep there? Fuck that, you’re nuts.”
Before I can even open my mouth to respond, he whips back around in the car. Roque keeps driving, but I catch a glimpse of his smile in the rearview mirror.
“You’re coming to my house.” Enzo asserts, his voice as smooth as it was before. It’s like I never even denied him. He’s so confident that I’ll just come with him that part of me wants to do as he asks.
How fucked up is that?
“But,” I begin, but my uncle cuts me off.
“Lucia. You read the letter from your father. You don’t have to be happy about it, but I’m here now to take care of you. Enzo’s here to take care of you. He wanted you to marry so that you would be safe, and that’s exactly what’s going to happen, no matter if you like it or not. You’re going to have to get over this, do you understand?”
I turn to face my uncle, accidentally elbowing Enzo in the process. “Or what, uncle? How the fuck do you think that you can make me marry him? You can’t drug me. You can’t kill me. I’m your niece, for god’s sake, so what the hell do you think that you’re going to do?”
Uncle Marco opens his mouth, but Roque stops the car before he can answer. “We’re here,” he says, finally turning around to look at me.
Here? Where the fuck does Enzo live? I’ve never been to this neighborhood before, and I sure as hell don’t recognize any of the houses. Leaning over my uncle, I squint to look up at the house.
It looks like a normal house, not one where a murderer lives.
“Fine,” I say, surprising all of them and me as well. “Fine. You want me to stay here tonight, then I will. But you,” I say, talking to Arlo, “need to go get Mack and bring him here. I don’t sleep away from him, and I’m not starting tonight.”
“Great,” Arlo says, slamming his hand on the dash. “That’ll be our next stop. Need anything else, princess? Clothes? Makeup?”
