by Renee Rose
My heart hammers at my chest. “Just like that,” I repeat at a murmur.
“I’ll even let you ride in the front seat instead of the trunk. It doesn’t have to be hard.”
“Can I drive?”
“No chance.”
“Kidding. I don’t know how to drive, anyway.” One of the perks of hitting driving age without a parent. I blink up at him. “I need more time, Paolo,” I plead. “Let me pay it over time. Tack on more interest. Please?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry, doll. End of tomorrow is your deadline. You didn’t come to me for a loan. You stole from me. Only reason I’m not putting the hurt on is because you’re so fucking adorable.”
I’m not sure why that makes me blush.
My reaction is ridiculous. Who cares if he thinks I’m adorable? My life is essentially over now.
And it’s his fault.
Except I know that’s not exactly true. It’s my own damn fault. And it was probably my dad’s damn fault for getting himself killed, too. I guess it runs in the family. Thank God Trevor seems to have missed out on the stupid gene.
My stomach grumbles.
“You hungry? What do you want for lunch?”
Well, if he’s asking… “Are you too Italian for take-out pizza?”
He grins. A real, genuine grin. Short-lived, but I saw it. “I’ll do pizza. What do you like on it?
“Sausage and jalapeño.” I lift my chin in challenge to my strange request and the grin reappears for a flash.
“I might be too Italian for that. Nah, I can deal. Sausage and jalapeño it is. I don’t need to tie you up and cover your mouth with tape when the delivery boy gets here, right?”
I shrug, affecting a sort of interested look. “Well, I’ve never had two doms at once, but I’m definitely interested in trying.”
Of all the things I’ve done to shock him—and yeah, I can admit it—I do use the crazy thing for effect, this is the one that he actually responds to. His brows slam down and he wraps one meaty palm around my throat. He doesn’t use it to squeeze, but he holds me in place. His forehead drops down to mine. “I don’t share, doll. Remember that.”
A shiver runs through me and my pussy clenches. “Noted.”
He releases my throat and runs his thumb down the goosebumps on my arm. “I washed your clothes. They’re on the bed.”
He washed my clothes. Is it just me or does this hitman seem awfully domesticated? Pancakes? Clothes washing? I’m having a hard time assimilating it all.
And that might be the understatement of the year.
I search through my bag and find the toothbrush, my hairbrush and my cosmetic bag. Did he think I’d want to put on makeup for him while he holds me prisoner and threatens my brother’s life?
Clearly.
And I think I will. I step into the shower even though I had a bath last night. I want to wash and condition my hair and rinse off the carpet dust.
Not that his carpet wasn’t perfectly new, fluffy and clean. It was. Is. Whatever.
I turn on the spray of water, enjoying the renewal of pain when the warm water hits my whipped ass and the rug burns.
Ahhhh, yes. The sensations that ground me.
Paolo
Caitlin stays in the bathroom a full forty-five minutes. She might have stayed there all day, but I call her when the pizza arrives.
She comes out looking adorable in her workout clothes, her hair wet, her lips that bright pink candy gloss.
“How is it? Did you try it?” She scrunches her hair as she walks toward me. Her wide mouth is stretched in a smile. I’m pretty sure she does this on purpose—acts like we’re the oldest friends—to manage her fears. Or to manage me. Not sure which.
Either way, I don’t mind it. I enjoy it, in fact.
I think she’s cute on wheels.
She comes over and scoops a piece of pizza out of the box with her hands and takes a bite. I offer her a plate but she’s not stopping to rest. The girl eats that whole slice standing up in my kitchen, without coming up for air.
Well, that’s what college students do.
She takes a second slice out of the box and tosses it on the plate, then walks back to her computer.
“Want me to delete your police record?” she asks with her mouth full.
I hesitate. Having a hacker at my disposal is damn appealing. What else could we hack? The FBI? I’d love to see what they’ve collected on the Family over the years.
But I shake my head. It’s not worth the risk. That’s what Nico’s been trying to tell us for the last five years. We can do things legally now. We have money.
“No, little hack. Work on getting me my money.”
“I am.” The slightly defensive tone to her voice amuses me. It’s more petulant than rude. Like she fully acknowledges I’m the boss of her. And that makes my dick hard.
She clicks on the keyboard, then adjusts her glasses on her nose and leans forward, like there’s something on her screen worth attending to.
Her fingers fly over the keys again and she’s at it for several more hours. Who knew hacking took so long? Maybe she really can’t get it done in two days. Or maybe she’s just stalling. Hard to say. I guess I’ll know soon enough.
I turn on the television and scroll through the channels, pausing on some kind of action movie with Bruce Willis.
“Oh my God, that’s R.E.D. I love this movie!” Caitlin surges to her feet, unplugs her computer and brings it to the couch, plopping down beside me. Right beside me, like she’s my girlfriend and we’re going to snuggle. I know it’s conscious, these quirks of hers. When I asked her if the crazy was an act, I saw the answer on her face. It definitely is. Some kind of defense mechanism.
So, like almost everything she’s thrown my way, I run with it and loop my arm over her shoulders to draw her even closer as we both divide our attention between her computer screen and the television.
Not surprisingly, she’s an excellent multi-tasker, working steadily on her computer while watching the movie.
She works all the way through the movie and halfway through the next before she gives a sigh and pushes her glasses up on her nose. “I’m in. You want the money in my account?”
“That’s right,” I say. Vlad, my bratva brother-in-law, knows how to move money around and make it untraceable. He’s the one we called in to trace our losses to Caitlin’s off-shore account and then finally to the payments made to Northwestern and some dummy scholarship fund.
She nods, all business now. She works for another forty-five minutes and then falls back.
“Is it done?”
“Yes. Well, no, not yet. It’s set up. I diverted all their transactions for the next day and a half to my account.” She lifts those cornflower blue eyes to my face. “Hopefully it will be enough.”
My heart starts beating faster, almost like it’s in tune with hers. She’s breathless, afraid.
I can’t tell her I’ll take anything less than what she owes me, but it’s getting harder and harder to keep the pressure on.
After the way she keeps offering that hot little body up to me, I almost feel like I’m in the deficit to her. I find myself wanting to figure out how I can give something back. Something besides pizza and an orgasm.
But I’m not going to let a woman turn me soft. She stole from my family, she’ll have to pay the price.
She looks away when I don’t answer, then stands up. “I need exercise,” she declares, like she’s on some kind of holiday and gets to follow her own itinerary.
I don’t know why I find it so damn appealing.
“You can work out in my gym,” I tell her. “Want to lift some weights?”
She gives me a wary look. “Um, okay. Sure.”
I stand and lead her to my home gym in the back of the house. The winter sun streams in through the windows. I go to shut the shades, but she exclaims, “Oh leave them open. I love the sun.”
“Of course you do,” I mutter. Because she’s as bright as
that ball of fire. The kind of sun that is way too much to look at, the kind that scorches.
I’m already certain she’s burning her imprint into me.
Not sure I want to let her go.
Caitlin
Lifting weights is not my idea of a workout. I need cardio—I like to move to rhythm, get my heart rate up to music.
But beggars can’t be choosers.
The trouble is, I don’t really know what to do with any of this equipment. I bend over and try to pick up a dumbbell.
“Hang on, doll—”
I nearly break my back lifting it. It comes off the floor a half inch and crashes back down.
“Right. Too heavy.” I swivel to eye Paolo’s broad shoulders with new appreciation. No wonder he’s so strong. He’s in here lifting weights as heavy as a Mack truck.
His lips curl. It’s not quite a smile, but close. He saunters over and takes the weights off the ends of the bar, leaving only the two end pieces on. “Try it this way,” he says.
“That’s just a bar.” Oh. And it’s still plenty heavy. I change my grip and do ten two-handed curls with it, then groan as I drop it back down. “I don’t think this is going to work, Paolo.”
His lips twitch again. “Mr. Tacone to you.”
I lean into one hip and curl my hair around my finger. “I know.”
The element of danger is always there with this guy, which is perhaps why I enjoy ribbing him—flirting for me—so much. I get a thrill straight to the soles of my feet every time I dare. And of course I dare every time.
His gaze on me is anything but dangerous now, though. Sure, there are traces of hunger in it, but there’s actually warmth in his eyes. Indulgence.
He likes me.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, I’m starting to feel less broken. More special. It’s a strange experience for someone who’s been considered cray-cray for so long. All this time I sort of thought I was trying to hide my crazy from the world.
He made me realize it might be the other way around. I’ve been trying to hide my sanity. Because being sane in this world is too perfectly painful.
I would have to own up to all the shit that happened to me after my dad’s death, and I don’t want to do that.
He lifts his chin toward the treadmill. “You could run on that.”
“Oh,” I say brightly. “Right.” I’ve actually never used a treadmill, but it must be easy enough. I step on and flip switches.
Paolo comes up and stands on it behind me. “Hang on, speedy.” His warmth is at my back, arms reach around me to adjust settings. I push my ass back into him, and with nothing but yoga pants on, his heat bleeds right through. I like the way it feels to have him near me.
Safe.
Of course, the opposite is true.
Which makes it all the more exciting.
And now I’m back to believing I’m genuinely nutso.
Paolo steps off the treadmill and starts it. “How’s that speed?”
I start walking briskly. “Perfect.” I’m already smiling.
He crosses his arms over his chest.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch me?”
“Yeah. I think I am.”
My smile grows bigger. “Because you think I’m cute?”
Ha—I did it! A genuine smile splits his face. “Yeah, doll. Exactly.”
I keep smiling.
“So, how did you become a hacker? I’m guessing they don’t exactly teach that in school?”
“No, I’m self-taught. My dad picked the occupation for me, actually. He decided it would benefit him greatly if he had a kid who could get through alarm systems or rob online banks. He stole a laptop for me when I was eleven and brought me to this guy’s sketchy apartment to learn how to access the dark web.”
Paolo’s body goes taut and I have to rewind what I said that made him tense up.
Oh. The guy’s sketchy apartment.
“Nothing bad happened there,” I reassure him, although I don’t know why I should. The bad shit happened to me after my dad died. After he was murdered by the Tacones.
So I tell it to him straight. “After my dad was murdered, life sucked. I needed a super power and hacking seemed like the answer. Foster parents can’t take away your personal belongings and that laptop was mine. I used the hell out of it. I devoted every free minute I had to learning how to get past firewalls and hacking passwords. I started taking money for small hack jobs by the time I was sixteen. It helped me feel like I was capable of filing for emancipation and living on my own.”
“It is a super power, doll. Believe me, I’m tempted to exploit the hell out of it, but I’m trying to stay clean. Ish. The Family’s gone legit.”
The Family’s gone legit. That comes as news to me, but considering the money I’ve seen pumping through those Bellissimo accounts, I guess they don’t need to resort to extortion and loan-sharking anymore. They have more money than they can spend.
“So why even study computer science? Don’t you already know everything you need to know?”
I give him a wry grin. “I was trying to go legit, too. Ish. Too bad you’re screwing that up.”
He folds his arms over his burly bear chest and shakes his head. “Don’t blame me for applying consequences to your misdeeds.”
It’s unfortunate that my kinky side finds his enforcement so panty-melting.
I stay on that treadmill, images of all the dommy things he did to me flooding my brain as I heat under his watchful stare. When I’m done, I hop off and trip over to him, giving him a peck on the cheek before he knows what I’m doing.
“When this is all over, do you think we’ll be friends? Lovers? Go out on a date?” I’m play-acting. Doing the overly-familiar crazy girl thing.
But I suddenly wish I hadn’t asked the questions because I realize the answer might hurt me.
Genuinely hurt me.
I’m used to losing guys after a couple dates. I’m used to driving them away with my quirks and kinks and crazy.
And this isn’t a guy I’m dating or even want to date in the future.
He’s a Tacone, for Christ’s sake. His family killed my father. He’s a hitman who’s threatening my life and the life of my brother.
But I find I do care about his answer. I care very much.
Especially when a strange look comes over his face. It’s the first time I’ve shocked him, and I’ve tried at least a dozen times before.
“Of course we won’t,” I answer for him. “Nevermind.” I speed away, out of the room and when he lets me go, I know that I correctly guessed the answer.
And I hate what that knowledge does to my chest. The uneasy nervous edge that pushes into where warmth had been before.
I go back to his living room and turn on the television like it’s my home, opening Netflix and putting on my new binge watch series, Jane the Virgin. I’m in season four.
I don’t move from the couch for the rest of the afternoon into the evening. Not even when he orders in a nice dinner from a steakhouse and opens a bottle of wine.
He doesn’t make me—he just brings the food to the couch and hands it to me.
I think I half want him to. To take the remote, turn the TV off and take charge of me. Make me sit across from him at the table and pretend this is a date.
But I guess he’s not interested in that.
In me.
Of course he’s not. He was just happy to get his dick wet while he makes sure I return the money I stole.
For me to read anything else into this is insane.
Which of course, I am.
Chapter 5
Paolo
“The money’s there? And you’re diverting it?” I’m on the phone with my brother-in-law Vlad to verify Caitlin’s report that the money transfer has begun. Vlad is the bratva asshole who kidnapped my sister last year in his own revenge-slash-extortion attempt against the Tacones.
Lucky for him, or for her, or maybe for all of us, our baby si
ster is a unicorn in her own right. Vlad fell in love and ended up donating a kidney to save her life and calling us to bring her home. And that’s the only reason he’s not a dead man.
“Yes. Our side should be masked, but hers will not be. The feds will eventually trace the loss to her, same as I did when she stole from the Bellissimo.”
I try to ignore the pang that gives my conscience. She made her own bed. This isn’t my problem.
I rub my face. “Is there anything you can do… to, ah, slow that process down?”
“Why?” Vlad asks.
I don’t answer.
“You like this girl? I saw the picture. She’s pretty, no?”
Not pretty. Off-the-charts hot. “Answer the fucking question, Vlad,” I snarl.
“Nyet. There is nothing. It’s too late.”
Fuck. “All right, thanks. Track the income for me and let me know when it reaches two hundred grand.”
“Da.”
“Grazie,” I say back. If he’s going to speak Russian, I’ll speak Italian.
I get off the phone and bump into my little hacker, brushing her teeth in the hallway, listening in.
“Finish up and get in bed,” I command, lifting my chin in the direction of my bedroom. As always, she’s docile and obedient. It doesn’t mean I let my guard down. I zip tie her hands and feet again at night.
She’s been quiet ever since she asked if we’d be friends, which is doing all kinds of crazy things to my chest.
Is she actually... hurt? Insecure?
Or was she just censoring herself—kicking herself for asking when she knows I’m trouble? That she should never even speak my name again after these forty-eight hours are up.
What disturbs me is my reaction to her unease. I’m itchy, like something’s wrong and I need to fix it.
Like I need to say something to soothe her hurt feelings, or ease her mind.
Except I don’t know what the fuck is going on in that brilliant, beautiful head of hers.