by Coco Miller
After quickly unloading the tray of muffins, I turn around to stick it in the sink, when I’m suddenly scared stupid by the ghost of Umberto Bova in the doorway. How the hell did I not hear him come up?
He stands there like a damn statue watching me, not saying a single word as he toys with his keys as if he’s not sure what the hell to do with himself. Well, haha, that makes two of us, Umberto Fucking Bova. I’m kind of a prisoner trapped here, so calm your tits and don’t get pissed that I want to occupy myself by way of delicious home-cooked food.
“Don’t stand there staring like you didn’t know I was stuck here while you went around doing whatever dangerous gangster stuff you were out there doing. I’m stuck here without anything to keep me busy or anyone to give me company, except for the comfort of the food network. Thankfully your staff knows how to stock this kitchen properly. You’re out of milk, by the way. I’m sure you have someone appointed as your own personal organic milk fetcher who probably has to go to a dairy farm and milk the cow themselves just to be sure you get the very best available, so you might want to let them know.”
Umberto raises a brow. I raise mine right back. “Oh, I’m sorry. Am I supposed to be scared of you and your menacing brows or something? Sorry to disappoint you, Umberto Bova... ” I reach out and grab hold of a warm muffin, ripping a hefty bite away with my teeth as I start to feel myself become overwhelmed by everything coming out of my mouth. Best to stuff it, right? Wrong. I talk around the muffin because apparently word vomit is on the menu tonight. “...but I have been hurt by people much worse than you. You’d have to get on my parent's level if you want to really dig your proverbial heels in and try to damage my heart any further. Because I am pretty damn hurt already.”
I start to cry and toss the muffin near his head when he dodges it and grins at me.
“Glad I can entertain you,” I say.
He shakes his head and steps closer. And I wish I felt like I could hate him somehow, but I just don’t. I actually want him to come to me like I’m a magnet, and my whole body just pulls him in to connect.
Umberto brushes my hair away from my face, and if I were stupid, I’d swear he actually looked concerned, but smart girls know that bad boys like him who kidnap innocent people and lock them up don’t give two hot damns about being kind or someone else’s feelings. Still, his eyes make a liar out of both him and myself because they grow deeper and softer as he stares at me. And then he smiles, and he seems pretty darn amused rather than offended or pissed off that I basically just mouthed off to him for three minutes straight.
“What?” I bark at him.
He grins like the sly man that he is. “You did all of this?”
“Well, it damn sure wasn’t Emeril Lagasse.”
“Where did you learn to cook?”
“Do you really care?”
“Actually, I do. I take my food very seriously. I even own a few five-star restaurants to prove it.”
“Yeah,” I chuckle, “I’m sure that’s what those places are for.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asks in a serious manner, but the laughter in his eyes gives him away. He already knows what I’m implying. I answer him anyway just to humor him and myself.
“I know that Italian mobsters use restaurants to front your real-real business ventures.”
“Is that so.” He grins, picking up a cupcake. He licks the top ring of icing off, and I have never seen anything sexier in my entire life.
“Of course it is.” I swallow hard. “I know all about you guys.”
“How’s that? Do you make a habit of having one night stands with... men in the same profession as me?”
“I’ve watched enough Netflix docu-series and Scarface movies to know how it all works, boo. It doesn’t exactly take a genius to figure it all out.”
“Ah, but you are a bit of a smartypants, aren’t you? Ranked at the top of your class. Favorited by the dean and by your professors. Right, future Doctor Holt?”
I cock my head to the side. “How do you know that?”
“I know a lot about you.”
“I gathered that, Umberto,” I huff. “But how? What are you spying on me? Have you been watching me? Tell me, was any of this organic? Did any of it happen naturally? Did we meet by accident in that cafe? Or has this all just been some elaborate scheme of yours all along? God, you must feel so damn proud, huh? Tricking me like this? Getting your way? You must think I’m a damn fool, right? Ain't that right?”
Umberto softens, putting the cupcake down, and then props my chin on his fingertips. I want to pull away. I should pull away from him. It would be the smart thing to do. He has admitted to being dangerous. He has kidnapped me. He has kept me here against my will (I think), and now he’s telling me he knows things about me that I have never told him about myself, which only means something bad. He’s checked on me. He’s found out things. But how and more importantly – why?
I shiver a bit, and he looks me over, his heavy dark brows pinching in the middle of his forehead. He has a prominent vein that reveals itself when he looks worried, like a little lightning bolt flashing across the tanned skin of his forehead, playing peek-a-boo.
Against my better judgment, I reach up and brush my finger across it. He gasps a little, and it sends my heart into a tailspin. I don’t even know why. There is just something that lives between us that I can’t control. And by the looks of him, breathing heavier and coming closer to my mouth, it would seem like he feels the same exact way.
“I think you're a goddess,” he says softly. “I think you’re the most beautiful fucking thing I have ever laid my eyes on.”
I gasp. My stomach flip-flops, and it’s not because of the sudden influx of carbs. My heart flutters like the wings of a hummingbird, faster than it has ever beaten in my chest before. It feels like it’s going to fly away before I can even catch my breath.
“What are you saying? Why do you do this to me? How can you make me feel like this? I barely even know you?”
“Some things are just destiny, Victoria. Some things are beyond common sense explanations.”
His words pierce my heart. “Destiny,” I mumble. “That’s what she named me.”
Umberto grins all sexily. “She must’ve had a feeling about you. By the way, I had someone check on your friend too. She’s fine.”
“Good, that makes me feel a little better, but why are you keeping me here? Why are you doing this if you feel this way about me? Kidnapping me is not going to help you get on my good side.”
Umberto brushes his rough fingers along my flushed cheek, sending a firestorm into the pit of my stomach. “You have to trust me, Victoria.”
“That’s not easy to do.”
“I know, but you have to try. Just like I have to try to handle you being here. That is not easy for me, either.”
“Then let me go.”
“No,” he roars. “You’re mine and you’re staying right fucking here where I can protect you.”
“Don’t you think I should have a choice?”
His brows pinch together again, the lightning bolt vein revealing itself once more. He’s frustrated with my unwillingness to be here. Almost as if he’s biting back what he really wants to say.
“Umberto, please just tell me why I am here. The real reason.”
But before he can answer, he doubles-over, holding his hand across his stomach.
“Oh my God. Umberto! What’s wrong?”
“I was hurt earlier. It’s not a big deal, really.”
He hobbles off to the bathroom, and I stupidly follow. I watch as he strips out of his jacket and tosses it like it isn’t one of the most expensive pieces of fabric in the world, on the floor. Then he rips open his black button-down, and I gasp loudly at the scene underneath. Umberto is covered in blood across his ripped torso.
“What happened to you?!” I demand to know.
Umberto laughs at my question. Freaking laughs! I huff at him as I rush to his side to help him
out, but he puts out a hand to keep me away.
“I’m a big boy. I can do it myself, Victoria.”
“Yeah, well, I’m two years into becoming a doctor, so I’d wager that makes me more qualified than you, Mr. Strip club and Restaurant owner slash gangster.”
“How about not repeating that last part again,” he seethes.
“Why? Will you kill me if I do?”
“I’d never hurt a fly.” Okay, that sounded more than a little sarcastic coming from him.
“Just park your buns made of steel over on that expensive ass tub of yours and let me do my thing.”
He grins at me. “I do like it when you're bossy.”
“I am not bossy. I am just a woman who knows what the hell I am doing, and you’re obviously a fool because you went out and got yourself into a mess like this. What kind of fool gets... what is this? Were you cut by a knife? Damn it, Umberto, you should have gone to a hospital. What were you even thinking?”
“Worried about me dying, love?”
I huff at him. “I am worried about being left here locked up in this princess tower like your little pet, for one. And two, yes, I don’t want to see you die any more than I want to see anything else hurt.
“That’s some sweet shit, Victoria.” He practically rolls his sexy dark eyes at me. “I feel so honored.”
“Don’t get too high on that horse there. I have a soft spot for all living creatures. I don’t want to see you hurt any more than I want to see a dog or like a cockroach or a snake hurt. If you get what I’m saying.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he chuckles. “I’m picking up what you’re throwing down, pretty girl. You think I’m a snake. A vile little thing. Well, baby, guess what? Snakes can also be beneficial to the ecosystem. They get rid of undesirables.”
“Justify yourself however you like, just let me clean your wound before it gets infected while you do it.”
He shrugs. “Suit yourself, love.”
I get to work on him. I’ve read dozens of texts about what to do as part of my education, but I’ve never actually put those words into action. I feel completely unready for this type of thing. It is not that I am nervous about the actual work itself, I mean a child could clean and dress a wound like this, but I’m nervous to be so close to him.
This isn’t sexual. There’s no alcohol or lust involved. This is just me having to touch him with care and consideration. And then of course I’m also nervous that he was to watch me as I tend to him under this setting.
I have to not care about him and therein lies the problem. I do care about him. I am actually worried about the man who probably almost got me shot in the hotel. The man who has now kidnapped me. I should be glad that he is hurt. I should be glad that he is in pain. But I am not.
I do not find a single ounce of joy in his pain or in the thought of someone cutting him with a sharp object. Although, I do have to wonder what kind of situation he got himself involved in to warrant another person wanting to harm in such a demented manner.
Even as a woman held here against my will, I still do not wish to harm him. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I want him to be okay. I want to see him smile. Ugh, is this my ‘daddy issues’ showing? Shit. I am not going to even think about that. There aren't enough carbs or sugary sweets in all of New York to handle that kind of mind fuckery right now.
I sigh hard. And then I get to work.
A warm wet washcloth lets me clean the mess of blood off his chest pretty well, and like most injuries such as this, once the blood is gone, the actual wound isn’t so bad. He just got hit in an unfortunate place that makes it look way worse than it actually is.
As a kid, I got hit in the head once when I was climbing the wrong way up a slide. I foolishly didn’t do two things. One, I didn’t listen when my sitter told me not to do that. Two, I didn’t see a huge plank of wood that was right in my path, and my head headed straight for it with the force of what felt like a freaking freight train speeding through the night. My poor head busted open like a damn, sending a river of blood streaming down my face and across my pretty white dress.
I can laugh about it now, but it was a scene from a horror movie, to be honest. Mothers screamed and swept up their little ones in a mad rush to flee from the playground. My poor nanny went as white as a ghost before fainting at the sight of all the blood. I had to walk myself over to the bathroom and figure it all out.
Once I got my bleeding to stop, I cleaned the gash on my head and then used my headband and a lot of paper towels as a bandage. There wasn’t much I could do about my poor white dress that was more red than a crispy bright white. It was scary, but it was also a bit empowering.
All of these so-called adults could not handle what I could, and I was only ten. It was like pulling back the curtain on a show about grown-ups and seeing what trickery went on behind the scenes. It was a real eye-opener, that’s for sure. It also taught me that I wasn’t afraid to be brave, or take care of myself without help, no matter how terrifying the situation presented itself. It gave me grit. It gave me balls. But it also made me feel incredibly alone.
Maybe that’s why I am so drawn to Umberto. Sure, he chose this life for himself, but he still must be incredibly lonely living this way. On the outside, it all seems very posh and dreamlike, but imagine if you had to walk around constantly watching your back to make sure someone wasn’t trying to stab you with a knife or shoot you with a gun. How horrifying.
He’s a man with the whole weight of the world on his shoulders and no one to talk to about it with because who the hell could he possibly share such secrets with? Is that why he picked me? Does he think he can trust me with his darkest secrets?
It has to suck to not be able to talk about things. I know kind of how that feels. I have had to hide my history from almost every friend or wanna-be boyfriend I have ever had because I could never trust anyone was not using me for my money or social circle. Even as a kid. I never really had true friends. I had the people my mother wanted to network with in order to grow her empire. That worked out just lovely, by the way.
Not.
I have one friend with a fake name that is basically my friend by default, seeing as how we are scheduled and paid to be friendly to each other at the coffee shop. Not that Racheal isn’t a nice girl, but I’m just saying. I don’t trust people because of my past and my parents. Hell, I can’t even trust them.
And I don’t want to trust Umberto either, but I’m stuck here, and I feel like I’m going to have to make a move to try, or at least get to know him a little better if I have any chance of getting out of this somewhat unscathed. I truly believe if I tried to walk out of this gilded cage on my own that something would happen to me. I just don’t know if it would be by him or someone other than him out there.
I take a deep breath and reach for some alcohol.
“That shit is gonna sting,” he argues before I even get to dab it on the cotton swab. “Use something else.”
“It could get infected. I guarantee you that scraping infected dead skin and muscle out of your body will hurt a lot more than a little swab of this, Bova.”
“You think this is the first time I’ve ever had a knife taken to me? Look at me, really look.” He swings around and shows me faint scars buried under the dark ink on his chest and then his arms and hands.
“What the hell…what happened to you?”
“Life,” he snickers. “Fucking life. I’m a fighter. That’s all I know. I keep myself alive, and the only way to do that is to fight.”
“Who the hell taught you that?”
He shrugs. “Hey, pass me what’s in that drawer behind you.”
I tug open the dark wood of the vanity drawer to find a bottle of scotch. “This?” I lift out the bottle and wave it at him.
“Fuck yes. Give that me, please.”
“You really should not drink. Drinking only makes the healing process so much harder on your body.”
He twists the cap off and takes a long swig dire
ctly from the bottle. “Good to know, babe.” He goes back for a second and third swig. “Fuck, I needed something to just take the edge off.”
“That’s what you call taking the edge off, Umberto?”
“It’s a very steep edge,” he jokes. “You want some?” He offers me the bottle, but I shake my head. “What’s the matter? Think I’ll try to take advantage of you? Think I’m that bad of a guy?”
“Just a heads up, you already have taken advantage of me, but yeah I think it’s best if I just keep my wits about me in this situation.”
“Baby, who took advantage of who? If you were so worried about that, you would have never let me touch you in the first place. I told you that night, in the cafe, when you were all snuggled up close to me on the sofa, I’m a dangerous man, don’t fuck with me. What do you do? You flirt with me. You get in my car. You let me take you and eat that pussy and put my fingers in you until you came. It’s a little late for trying to keep some sense about all this, don’t you think?”
I scoff before quickly dousing him in a long squirt of alcohol and not the kind he likes drinking.
“Motherfucker!” He jumps, and I point at him.
“Do not disrespect me like that, Umberto. I don’t give a rat’s left nut sack who you think you are.”
He chuckles darkly. “Oh baby, I love a feisty girl. Give me your best, I promise it is nothing compared to what I have seen or suffered before you, but damn it, I love that you have the balls to try, love. ”
“Sit down and shut up. I have to dress your wound.”
“I have a much better idea, Victoria. I could undress you. We could have a lot of fun. Way more fun than this shit show, that’s for damn sure. I could eat that sweet pussy all night long. You love it when I do that. I can tell it hasn’t been done well before me. You have no idea how sweet and delicious you are.”
My pussy clenches with muscle memory of all of the absolute truth he just spat. His tongue is a magical thing.
“The only thing getting eaten tonight are the cupcakes in the kitchen. Stuff your mouth with one of those, lover boy.”
I toss band-aids at him and leave the bathroom before I do something stupid. Even more stupid than what got me here in the first place. I do not want to hook up with him. Not again.
