by Nicole Fox
“Samuel Romano!” he screams, and then bites down on his lip as though he can take it back.
But it’s too late. I withdraw the gun and pace to the other side of the room, wishing the little shit was here so I could do the same to him. All those times that little untrained shit tried to act the big man, and now he’s gone one step too far. Attacking one of the Family’s own? Even a made guy can’t pull a move like that and …
“Fuck,” I whisper, wondering. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I spin on the man. “How? Where? When?”
“He called up my boss and said he needed some fellas for a hit job. Didn’t say why or anything like that. Just said that we needed to kill you clean.”
“Well, you fucked that up. Did you meet with him in person?”
“Yeah,” the man says.
“Was anybody else there?”
“No, just him.”
“Okay.” I go back outside and around the house, checking the corpse. I search his body and find a cell phone, which I’m guessing means this bastard is the leader, since the other one doesn’t have a phone. I take the phone—the same make and model as my burner, which is another sign—and dial the skipper’s number. His response will tell me everything I need to know. It should be confusion, as in why the hell this random number is calling him; maybe he won’t answer. But if he does answer, and if his response …
I ignore that thought as the cell phone rings. My hands are shaking, which I stop with an effort, and then the phone just rings and rings. After about two minutes, I’m confident that the boss had nothing to do with this. I head back into the house to get my burner. I’ll call Lorenzo and, together, we’ll sort this mess out. He’ll have to discipline Samuel; there’s no way around that.
“Why are you calling me?” Lorenzo hisses. “Is it done? Are they … has the merchandise been disposed of, eh?”
I hold the phone to my ear for a long time, pausing mid-step, hardly able to believe what my ears are telling me.
“Well?” Lorenzo snaps. “What’s wrong with you? Is it done or not?”
I walk slowly into the house and drop onto the couch, my chest hammering like it might snap in two. I need to calm down, but this is something else entirely. This is my cousin, my boss, the man I’ve worked with for most of my life. And here he is, asking if I’m dead the same way he’d ask if a package has been delivered. The asshole. The fucking traitor.
“Gabriel?” Lorenzo mutters, after another long pause. “Did you kill them all?”
I open my mouth to speak—to tell him that, yes, I killed his goons—but I find that words won’t form. All that comes out is a breath that doesn’t sound like me at all. I hang up the cell phone and let my head fall back, take a deep breath, and then, as calmly as I can, return to the bleeding man.
“I’m a man of my word,” I say, “so I’m letting you live. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for you, you fuck. You almost killed a lady, a twenty-one-year-old lady who’s never even fired a shot.” I take out both his elbows and then untie him and carry him out to the yard, which is covered in a fine layer of snow now. I drop him onto the grass, staining it red with his blood, and then kick him in the gut.
He hunches over, gasping. “P-p-please.”
“Get the fuck out of my sight,” I growl, hauling him up and tossing him again.
This time he manages to stay standing, his arms limp at his side. I turn back to the house, dread in my gut. But something else, too: rage …
Rage like only a betrayed man can feel.
Chapter Nine
Colleen
I cover my ears and close my eyes, curl into a ball, and wish that the bed would collapse on me so that there would be more stuff between me and the bullets. They fire like crazy, all around me, shattering glass; outside, men shout, but it seems very far away. The bullets are the closest thing, thumping into the house and then thumping into my chest. I used to lie like this under my bed after Alma gave me a beating for some ridiculous transgression. If I didn’t wear my hair properly, or if I said something that she deemed immodest, she would hit me, and then I would crawl under the bed and hide as I am now. And as I lie here, it’s almost like the same thing is happening. Alma just hit me, only this time she hit me with bullets, and the bullets are still firing and I—
I try to force myself to take a long, deep breath; I need to calm down. But the fact remains that if one of those bullets kills Gabriel, I’m dead. Whoever these men are will march up the stairs and kill me, but they might not kill me first. Father and Alma have done their best to shield me from the worst of the life, but they can’t shield me completely. I know what happens to women when bloody, wild men get their hands on them. They’ll rape me first, and then kill me, and do it in a brutal way to make a point.
“Okay,” I whisper, thinking maybe I can just focus on my voice. “Get out from under here and find a weapon. You need to be ready if anybody other than Gabriel comes up here.”
But that’s easier said than done. Even when the frantic gunfire stops, I don’t dare crawl out. My body won’t let me. I will it to, struggling with everything I have to force myself to crawl out, but it just won’t; it’s like there’s a physical barrier blocking me. I roll onto my front and will my arms out in front of me, but they stay plastered to my ears as though glued.
“This is ridiculous,” I growl at myself. “Move, you stupid woman! Just move!”
But it seems that when the bullets start flying, my body does not want to obey me. I lie still, my breathing getting more and more out of control. The floor is clean, but not completely so; I breathe in particles of dust that make my throat scratchy. I might cough … but if I cough, then whoever’s downstairs will hear me. I almost miss the shooting, now that it’s stopped. At least then I knew that Gabriel was alive. But now … they might be down there, searching his body before they come up here to finish their business.
Two more gunshots: crack, crack. And then more silence. No, if I listen closely: men talking. I can’t make out the words. I don’t know if one of the voices is Gabriel. And even if one …
Footsteps, coming up the stairs. Heavy footsteps. The heavy footsteps of heavy men, who’ll soon crush me with their weight, crush me right into the bed and do whatever they want with me.
Gabriel! Tears start to flow, pattering onto the carpet. Gabriel!
The door creaks open and a man walks in; I catch a glimpse of his boots, covered in melting snow and blood, all mixed together.
He drops to one knee. I scream. I don’t mean to, but it just comes out. A long, shrieking wail that hurts my throat, the tendons on my neck standing taut.
“Colleen,” Gabriel says softly. “Just calm down. You’re in shock, all right? Come out here. Come on.” He offers me his hand. “Take it, eh? You’re in shock, that’s all.”
I quiet the scream and extend my hand, still unsure if this is real or not. It could be a trick, easily. Couldn’t it? But how? That’s Gabriel. Those are his intense eyes and that’s his sharp-featured face, and even if his pants and his shirt are now flecked with blood, it’s still him. I reach out slowly and touch his hand. He tightens his grip and helps me from under the bed, and then lifts me up and places me down on the bed, going to the door and closing it.
Turning back to me, he says, “Sit there for five. Breathe slow. Our bodies are shit at staying calm if we haven’t trained them to. Don’t worry. You’re safe.”
With Gabriel standing over me, I’m finally able to calm down. It takes a while for my breathing and my heartbeat and the certainty that I’m not going to be raped or killed to settle down, but eventually it does. About halfway through, he comes to me and places his hands on my shoulders, massaging softly. He does it caringly, in a way I would never have guessed he could. He kneads them and whispers soothing words to me, and then takes a step back.
“Okay,” he says. “So this is how it is …”
“Why would he do that?” I gasp, when he’s done explaining
.
“I don’t know,” Gabriel mutters. “Some play, but I’ve got no damn clue why. The plan might’ve been to kill me and ‘rescue’ you.” He curls his lip sourly. “That way he could spin some bullshit story about how I kidnapped you and he saved you, so maybe it’s something like that. Or maybe they were going to kill us both. I’ve got no damn clue.”
“So, what now?” I ask, finding the idea of this all being over both appealing and strangely devastating. I might be free of my kidnapper, which is a good thing, but I also might be free of Gabriel, which is definitely not. “Are you going to let me go?”
“Do you want me to let you go?” he asks. He falls to one knee and places his hand on my leg, squeezing tightly, and his stare searing into my eyes. “Is that what you want, Colleen?”
“Of course,” I mutter without conviction. “I’m a prisoner. What prisoner doesn’t want to be set free?”
He watches me closely. I sense that he knows I’m lying. It’s the subtle way he almost smiles, the corners of his lips twitching ever so slightly. “Whatever you say. But no, I’m not letting you go. You’re my hostage now. Not Lorenzo’s, not the Family’s. Mine. I might need to use you for leverage at some point.”
“And that’s why you’re keeping me around, is it?” I snap. “For leverage?”
“Yes,” he says matter-of-factly, but now it’s I who senses that he’s not telling me the whole truth. I smirk at him the same way he did at me. He sees it, acknowledges it silently, and then the wordless conversation ends when he stands up and turns away.
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
“I don’t take attempts on my life lightly,” he growls. “Every man who has ever tried to kill me has either ended up in the ground or wishing he was there. That bastard I let go’ll never use his arms properly again, or if he does, it won’t be for a long, long time. But he’s not the man who tried to kill me, not really. It’s the don; the don and his fucking pet.” He rolls his neck and then turns back to me. “I’m going to kill them,” he says. The scariest thing is that he sounds certain. He is not making a threat; he is stating a fact. “I’m going to kill both the bastards, and you’re going to come with me. It’s me and you now, Colleen.” He laughs grimly, and then takes my face in his hands. Looking at me with that penetrating intensity, he growls, “Do you understand?”
I lift my hand to his blood-flecked face, tracing the line of his jaw. This might be the most messed-up situation I’ve ever been in, but it’s also the most intimate and, in many ways, the realest. As I touch his face, we could almost be someplace else: our own home, our own bedroom. If it wasn’t for the blood and the scent of gun smoke, we might just be lovers.
“I understand,” I whisper, even if I shouldn’t. Even if I should run.
Chapter Ten
Colleen
I lie in the king-size bed in the penthouse suite, one of the fanciest hotels in Queens. When I asked Gabriel if it was smart to stay here, he told me to let him worry about that and that I should just relax. He also threatened to handcuff me to the bed if I tried anything, but there isn’t much I can try. Getting to the elevator means walking through the living room, where Gabriel is, and I don’t like my chances of scaling twenty floors down to the street below. So I’m stuck, just lying here and not doing much of anything except trying to get over my shock. I’m left with a cool, hard-to-identify ache, as though parts of my body are covered in local anesthetic.
I roll over and pick up my e-reader, trying to force myself to get back into the novel. But the words shimmer across the page like light on a pond; every time I think I’ve caught it, the water shifts and the light dances someplace else. I grind my teeth and try to focus again, but it’s useless. So instead I lie on my back and stare up at the ceiling. I’ve showered and changed, but I can still smell the gun smoke and the blood.
At some point I must fall asleep, because when I open my eyes the murky sunlight is gone and the world is dark. I switch on the lamp to find Gabriel in the corner, sitting on the chair with a whisky in his hand.
“Watching me sleep?” I ask, trying to sound annoyed but coming across as flirty. It’s difficult to come across as anything else with Gabriel. “Don’t you know how rude that is, Gabriel?”
“Rude.” He smiles, small. “Maybe I do. But you were making some pretty damn fine sounds in your sleep. Moaning.”
“Not everything is about sex.” I roll my eyes, and then roll my body away from him, lying on my side.
“Not everything,” he agrees. “But this is. You’re my prisoner now, Colleen. Which means I can do any damn thing I want with you.”
A shiver runs up my spine and around my body: a traitorous shiver. It seems that my entire life since meeting Gabriel has been a game of my body telling me one thing and my inner voice—Alma’s voice, too—telling me another. I bite down on my lip, almost on reflex, watching the way he grinds his teeth as his eyes move over my body. I’m wearing shorts and a tank top without a bra, which feels natural when it should make me feel exposed and used and offended. I find myself batting my eyelashes at him as though I’m trying to seduce him. Am I? Do I want this? The answer rests within my body, and every single piece of me is screaming out: Yes, yes, yes.
“I don’t understand.” I whisper the lie.
He drains his whisky and narrows his eyes at me. That same small, twitching smile passes across his face. “Don’t you?” he says, laughing. “Are you sure about that? Because looking at you, I think you understand just fine, Colleen, and I think you want it just as badly as I do.”
“Are you sure?” I counter. “What if you’re wrong? What are you going to do, force yourself on me?”
“I would never force myself on a woman,” he says, placing his glass on the floor and then slowly walking across the room. He stands at the end of the bed in his T-shirt and his shorts, his muscles on full display, bulging, his biceps so tight it looks like they could burst from his skin. “I still can’t get over just how damn sexy you are, Colleen. Fucking hell.”
“Really?” I whisper, finding it difficult to catch my breath. His cock is hard; I can see that clearly in the way his shorts pitch up. It’s exciting to be able to make a man so hard so quickly. I roll over, onto my back, and look between my legs down at him.
He half-grins, but mostly he is dead serious. “Yes,” he says. “You’re the sexiest woman I’ve ever laid my eyes on. And I want you. I want you fucking badly. And you want me, too.”
“How can you be so sure?” I’m panting now, my sex—no, not my sex, my pussy—my pussy is wet, aching, hot, more than willing: hungry for him. Screaming at me for him. My whole body turns into one singular sensation: a confluence of my pussy and my clit, a brand of urgency that completely captivates me. I open my legs even wider, the fabric of my shorts rubbing against me, every sensation heightened with Gabriel staring at me with such wild passion.
He shakes his head slowly. “I’m done playing these games, Colleen. Take off those fucking shorts and finger yourself for me. Now.”
I let out a gasp. My first instinct is outrage, but I want to obey him, as I’ve wanted to obey him since the moment he took me from that restaurant. I can choose to obey him, which seems like a contradiction, but right now—who cares about contradictions, anyway, when I have the hottest man in the world standing at the end of the bed?
I pull my shorts and my panties down at the same time, revealing my bare pussy. Nerves try to stab at me but then I clamp my hand down on my pussy, bring my finger to my hole and slide it in softly. I’m so wet, it aches, and I’d much prefer for Gabriel to be the one touching me. But the look on his face is all the motivation I need; his eyes are completely locked on my pussy, on my working fingers.
“Faster,” he commands.
As though my fingers are a machine, and Gabriel is the operator, I slide my finger in and out, quicker and quicker, the heat building to a bursting pressure deep inside of me. I gasp, moan, and then slide another finger inside of myself.
There is no guilt now, not like the other time I did this; I’m doing it for his pleasure. And it’s working. He takes down his shorts, freeing his unbelievably big cock. It springs up and stands tall and hard. He strokes it as he watches me, growling, and then he lets it go and leaps forward like a pouncing predator.
“Turn over. I need to see that fucking ass.”
Before I can do as he says, he grabs my hips and flips me. I let out a squeal and a giggle and then push my ass out on instinct, looking over my shoulder to watch as his face distorts in lust. He just stares at my ass for a moment, and then he brings his hands to my cheeks and squeezes down on them so hard that I let out a wail of pain. But it’s pleasure-tinged pain, something I did not know existed until I met Gabriel.
“Get on your hands and knees,” he says, in a tone that does not expect argument.
I climb up and stick my ass out, and then almost scream the walls down when he brings his tongue to my clit. His hands working on my ass, pressing it, squeezing it, he licks around my clit with aching closeness, but never quite touches. He tortures me with this, the tip of his tongue occasionally brushing my clit. I bite down to stop myself from crying out in pleasure and frustration. My legs are trembling, and it feels like an orgasm might just burst from me at any moment. I’m so wet I can hardly believe it, my entire body honed down to the tip of his toying tongue.