But it was his eyes that made her stand, that forced her back against the wall.
They might have been brown, but the flecks of amber glowing from their depths made them look almost green. She had a flash of the black panthers she had loved at the zoo when she was little. Their unflinching gaze had been predatory, the raw power in their prowl both frightening and awe-inspiring. They had drawn her like a magnet.
Now, she had that same sensation. Like she was helpless in the face of him, forced to wait until he devoured her. She felt like she couldn’t breathe. Like this man, whoever he was, had sucked all the oxygen out of the room with his mere presence.
He didn’t stop until he was right in front of her, and her breath came fast and heavy as he stared her down, eyes locked on hers.
Finally, he spoke. “Is there a problem?”
His voice was deep and sure, with the diction she recognized from her wealthy classmates at boarding school. The question threw her for a loop (who was she kidding? he threw her for a loop), and it took few seconds to summon the anger that had been her companion during her hunger strike.
“You bet your ass there is.” She pushed her chin into the air. “Your men drugged me, kidnapped me, and kept me prisoner. I’d say that’s a big fucking problem.”
“My men didn’t do any of that,” he said.
She didn’t know what she had expected, but it wasn’t that. “Then who did?”
“I did.” He leaned down, his face mere inches from hers, and she caught a whiff of something musky and elemental laced with soap. She had a sudden flash of herself naked, wrapped in his suit jacket, infused with his scent. She was trying to shake the image from her mind when he continued. “And that’s because nothing happens here without my approval. Nothing. Do you understand?”
He held her captive with his eyes, and she hoped he couldn’t see the rapid rise and fall of her chest. Or that at least he would think it was fear. Because now that they were face to face, fear was a lot more palatable than the lust fighting for position in her body. And there was no denying the desire coursing through her veins. She felt it from the surface of her skin, only inches from the crisp wool of his suit, to the longing that beat like a drum at the center of her body.
She wanted to slap herself for nodding.
“Good,” he continued. “Because while you’re here, you will abide by the same rules as everyone else. Which means you will obey my every order without question. That includes eating. And if you don’t, I might have to bring your brother in to keep you company.”
His mention of David was like a slap to her face. “David…”
“Will be fine,” he finished. “And so will you, as long as you do as you’re told.”
“What’s the point of eating if you’re going to kill me anyway?” she finally asked.
He didn’t flinch. “As long as you’re quiet and cooperative, you’ll be set free as soon as I get what I want.”
So she’d been right. Ransom. “Why should I trust anything you say?”
He stood a little straighter, pulling back enough that she felt like she could breathe again. “Whether you trust me or not is of no concern to me, Angelica.” She was still recovering from his use of her name when he turned around and headed for the door. “But you do have my word.”
She was reeling from her contact with him, questions swarming her mind. He was almost out the door by the time she fought through the noise in her brain to find the one thing she was desperate to know.
“Who are you?”
He stopped walking but didn’t turn around. “I’m Nico Vitale,” he said. “And I can either be your greatest ally or your worst enemy. It’s up to you.”
7
Nico pulled on gray sweats and left his building before the sun came up. He jogged toward the river, keeping the pace light until he hit the Parkway.
He’d slept fitfully, his altercation with Carlo Rossi’s daughter running loops in in his mind. He didn’t know what he’d expected. He’d seen pictures of her in the planning stages of the kidnapping, but the photographs hadn’t done her justice. She was beautiful, with golden hair that fell in waves to her waist and green eyes he’d almost gotten lost in. But it was more than that, more even than the soft swell of her curves, a contrast to all the women in the city who honed themselves to lean, hard planes that offered little in the way of comfort.
It had been in her eyes; something familiar and lonely. It had connected to a hidden part of his psyche, and in the moment he’d stood in front of her, all he’d wanted was to banish it from her forever.
He pushed himself to pick up the pace, a kind of punishment for his lack of discipline. His hormones were obviously out of control. The girl was a very important pawn in a very important game of chess; his only hope of getting the security tape that would incriminate Carlo Rossi in the death of his parents. He could sleep with any girl in the city.
But not her.
His senses felt oddly sharp in spite of his lack of sleep, and he continued past the point where he normally turned back toward his apartment, hoping to banish the distraction. It worked to some degree, and he turned his thoughts to the more practical aspects of holding Carlo Rossi’s daughter hostage.
That she wasn’t eating was a problem. He was already in violation of the Syndicate’s code—the kidnapping and murder of family members was prohibited unless a very specific set of benchmarks had been met. They hadn’t been, although it wouldn’t have been necessary at all if Carlo hadn’t first violated the code. Still, Nico was walking a fine line, and the survival of his organization depended on his ability to stay on the right side of it.
Kidnapping Angelica was risky. Letting her starve would be suicide.
He turned up West 90th Street and headed for the apartment, his limbs warm and loose. The run had gotten his blood pumping, and he was annoyed to find his thoughts drift back to the girl. This is what happened when you were used to getting what you want. The first time you saw something you couldn’t have, it became an obsession. Not because you really wanted it, but because you knew you couldn’t have it.
Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be kind to her. It wasn’t her fault her father was a bastard.
She had to eat.
8
She inventoried her purse for the hundredth time, peering at herself in the pocket mirror she rarely used but had been carrying around since Lauren gave it to her two Christmases ago. Her hair was disgusting, and her face had taken on the pale, translucent look of the very ill.
Or the perpetually imprisoned.
Her thoughts drifted back to Nico Vitale for the hundredth time in the two days since he’d invaded her room with his edict to eat. Her proximity to him had awakened some kind of primal need inside her, something that made her either crazy or ridiculous or both.
“You really need to get laid when this is all over, Angelica,” she muttered under her breath, closing the mirror.
Her lack of sex life was the only possible explanation for her attraction to the man responsible for her kidnapping. She wasn’t some dysfunctional ingenue with daddy issues. Okay, maybe she had some daddy issues, but Nico Vitale was anything but fatherly, and she’d worked through her feelings about her father, both alone and with the help of the therapist she’d seen on campus sophomore year.
No, what she’d felt when Nico’s body had been close enough to touch was primal, physical. Probably had to do with pheromones or something. Lust was like that. Or that’s what she’d heard anyway. She hadn’t had much experience with it outside of a couple drunken frat parties when she’d first come to college. Then she’d just been happy to be free of the constraints of her catholic boarding school, and for awhile, she lived it up with the best of them.
By her second year of college it had gotten old. Watered down beer didn’t flip her switch the way it used to, and she’d started to feel sad and pathetic fending off the advances of her fellow students until she could reasonably make a break for the dorms. She hadn�
�t had a boyfriend since junior year, and while there was a time when she’d been frequently asked out, eventually everyone stopped asking. It was a small town. Word had probably gotten around that she was frigid.
Or maybe they just thought she was bitch.
She didn’t really care. Things were easier when she only had to take care of herself, and sometimes that felt like more than a full time job. Her weakened sexual appetite didn’t worry her. She always assumed it would reawaken when the right guy came along. Except now she suspected that her libido was on drugs, because the right guy was definitely not Nico Vitale. She knew this both because he was the man responsible for her current predicament and because she’d finally realized why the name sounded so familiar.
Nico Vitale was head of the Vitale crime family, one of the most notorious underground criminal organizations on the eastern seaboard.
She didn’t know much about the mob, but she’d heard the Vitale family mentioned on the news. According to reports, Nico Vitale headed up a ring of organized crime that made money on everything from bookmaking to human trafficking, all of it shielded by a massive—and legitimate—international company called MediaComm. But the Feds never had enough to charge anyone, and people in the city had gotten blasé about the occasional arrest—and about the fact that they never seemed to lead to a conviction.
You have my word, my ass, she thought.
She wondered how much honor a mobster could have, and if she could really take him at his word that he wouldn’t hurt David. Nico had certainly felt dangerous when he’d been standing in front of her, although if she was honest with herself, that hadn’t all been on him. Her physical response to him was enough to get her in trouble all by itself.
But at least now she knew for sure this was a ransom kidnapping. Obviously the Vitale family augmented their other illegal activities by kidnapping the brats of wealthy parents.
Herself included. How cliche.
She heard the key turn in the lock but didn’t bother getting up off the floor. She’d stopped standing on ceremony with Luca some days ago. They had their routine down. His assertion that she should eat. Her refusal. The shake of his head when he told her Nico wouldn’t be happy. The tightening of his jaw when she told him she couldn’t care less if Nico was ever happy again.
It was a good routine. Solid. She could do it in her sleep.
The door swung open and Luca stepped into the room, this time empty-handed.
“No more offerings to the goddess?” she asked.
He sighed. “It’s too late for that.”
She stuffed down a thrum of alarm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He removed the gun from his belt. “It means you’re coming with me.”
She got to her feet, her earlier bravado gone. “What’s going on?”
He sighed. “I can’t tell you anything. You know that.”
“Are you...” She swallowed hard and steadied her voice. “Are you going to kill me?”
His expression softened. “No one’s going to kill you.”
She tried not to hear the unspoken words; Not right now, at least.
She crossed her arms. “I want to know where you’re taking me.”
He stepped farther into the room, and she realized that he was taller than she’d originally thought. At least as tall as Nico, although Luca had the kind of compact muscle that was more distance runner than heavyweight boxer.
“I”m trying to be nice here,” he said, “but I can use the drugs—and the pillowcase over your head—if you’d prefer it.”
Regret shaded his voice, and she understood that he didn’t want to use those things, but he would do it if she forced his hand.
“And if I come on my own, you won’t put the pillowcase over my head?” She was as afraid of the darkness as she was of drug-addled oblivion.
“I’ll still have to cover your eyes eventually,” he admitted. “But not until we leave the building. And I’ll forget the drugs if you come on your own and promise not to do anything stupid.”
She wasn’t crazy about the pillowcase under any scenario, but at least this way she might get a clue about where she was being held. “Okay.”
“You’ll be good?” He asked the question like he almost didn’t believe it. “You promise?”
She sighed. “I promise.”
She didn’t think twice about the lie. She wouldn’t hesitate to make a break for it if an opportunity to escape presented itself. It’s not like these guys had any honor.
“Good.” He looked down at the gun in his hand. “This is only a precaution. We’re going to make our way through the building, and I’m going to put the bag over your head before I put you in the car out back.”
“The car?” Hope blossomed inside her. “Does this mean my father has paid the ransom?”
“The ransom...” Luca looked confused in the moment before a wall of impassiveness dropped down over his features. “Not yet. But trust me. Nothing bad will happen to you tonight.”
She raised my eyebrows. “Trust you?”
“I’ve kept you safe so far, haven’t I?” he asked. And then, more softly, “Kept Dante out of here?”
The name sent a bolt of dread through her body. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
9
She tried to look around the hallway without being too obvious, but there was nothing to see; just the same beige walls, different closed doors.
Luca opened a door at the end of the hall, and they ascended a narrow staircase. She could feel the gun pressed into her side, but just barely. She wasn’t afraid. For some strange reason, she trusted Luca. He wouldn’t hurt her as long as she held up her end of their bargain. And she would hold up her end of their bargain until she had a reasonable chance of escape with enough time to warn David to make himself scarce.
They exited the staircase into another hall, this one paneled in gleaming mahogany, and her feet sunk into thick taupe carpet. For the first time in days, she could hear the noise of other people moving around.
Luca stopped walking and looked down at her. “I’m going out on a limb here. Be good.”
She nodded, a little overcome by the knowledge that there were other people in the vicinity. Not because she thought any of them would help her escape—whoever was in this building obviously worked for Nico, and you didn’t cross a man like Nico Vitale—but because the sheer proximity of other human beings meant she wasn’t alone for the first time in days.
Light shone from one end of the hall, and she guessed that was the front of the building. Luca headed the other way.
She tried not to wonder why he was doing this for her. Wasn’t he worried that she would see something—or someone—she shouldn’t? And if not, was it because they planned to kill her after all?
She did her best to glance into the rooms with half-open doors while Luca moved her along, but what she saw didn’t exactly clear things up.
The first room they passed was large and brightly lit, filled with tables topped with what looked like hi-tech computer equipment. The work stations were manned by men and women in suits and skirts. It could have been any office building anywhere in the world, and the sound of fingers tapping on keyboards lingered even after they passed the room.
They were approaching another door when she heard the sound of a woman’s voice, professional and very British.
“That’s correct. The donation should be listed as anonymous on your tax forms.”
They passed the room, and Angelica got a glimpse of a straight backed-woman, hair pulled into a taut bun at the back of her neck. She was sitting at a carved desk, head bent to cradle the phone as she spoke.
“Mr. Vitale simply wants your word that all of the money will go to provide for the children,” she said as they continued down the hall.
A donation? To children? What kind of mobster donated money to a kid’s charity? Or was it some kind of bribe? Hush money for an under-the-table favor. And why was an infamous New York mob guy
working out of what could have been a swanky office? She was still puzzling over the questions when they came to a set of double doors. They were both closed, but she could hear thumping coming from within the room, and occasionally, a grunt or yell.
Her gaze cut to Luca, hoping for some kind of explanation, but he kept his gaze focused on the door at the end of the hall. When they reached it, he stopped.
“I have to cover your eyes now.” He reached for something, and for a few seconds she was free, one of his hands on the gun, the other reaching for his pocket and the dark pillowcase he would put over her head.
She felt a surge of adrenaline. She could bolt for the door. It was right in front of her. But if Luca was taking her that way, someone was probably out there waiting for them. And while the house—or whatever it was—seemed civilized enough up here, she had no doubt she would be stopped before she made it down the long hall to whatever exit had to be at the front of the building.
She tried not to feel defeated when Luca took hold of her arm again. She couldn’t afford to be stupid. She would make a break for it when she was sure she could get out alive.
“Sorry about this,” Luca said, lifting the pillowcase over her head and pulling it down until the edges brushed her shoulders. “It won’t be for long.”
Everything went dark, and she fought a wave of panic. “Are you... are you sure it’s going to be okay?”
She felt the gentle pressure of his hand on her shoulder. “No harm will come to you tonight. I promise.”
She nodded, too relieved by the promise to focus on his use of the word “tonight” and all the uncertainty it implied for her future.
She heard the door open in front of her, then felt the touch of fresh air on the bare skin of her arms. For the first time since they’d taken her, she was going outside. She wanted to weep with the joy of it, and also with the unfairness of having her head covered so she couldn’t look up at the sky.
Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One Page 3
