by KD Robichaux
“Maxwell, park,” I bark through the haze of desire. I’m fucking high on this woman, and I can’t take another breath without it being inhaled from between her creamy thighs. I barely register the driver door being slammed shut before I’m right where I want to be, even though it’s not very accommodating due to my sheer size. But I maneuver her to where her back is now against a door, and I’m between her legs, the leather seat creaking under my deliberate movements. I reach beneath the skirt of her soft cotton dress, one that looks just like a long T-shirt but fits her curves like a second skin, and grasp hold of the scrap of stretchy fabric covering her pussy. With hardly any effort, I rip the panties off her, and she gasps, flinching slightly before her expression shows me just how turned on she is by my savagery.
“This, Bella.” Two fingers shove into her without preamble, but I’m not worried about causing her too much pain. I can smell how wet she is for me. “This is the only pussy I will ever allow near me for the rest of my fucking life.” She groans deep in her chest as I curl my fingers and drag the tips along her G-spot, feeling her cream coat them before dripping down my knuckles.
“Oh God,” she whispers.
“That woman was a decoy. There to help me stay incognito while I tried to find the fucker who dared to call my woman his wife.” I swirl my thumb around her clit, and she lets out a high-pitched whimper that sets my blood on fire. “The fucker I was there to fucking kill for ever putting you in danger.” I circle her clit again, harder this time, at the same time I curl my fingers, and she starts to pant against my lips. “She could’ve been anybody, completely faceless for all the attention I paid her. Before you showed me that photo, I wouldn’t have been able to point her out in a lineup. You are the only woman I care to keep in my mind’s eye. You are the only woman who will ever get to stake claim on me. Do you understand?”
I pump my fingers in and out of her, her honey spilling out at a steady pace now, her hips rocking against my hand instinctively.
“Do you understand?” I repeat on a growl when she doesn’t answer, pulling my fingers out just long enough to slap her swollen pussy, making her squeal.
“Yes! I understand,” she sobs out as I insert a third finger, her eyes widening at the sudden stretch.
“That’s my good girl,” I tell her, and just like that, with one more swirl of my thumb against her clit as my three fingers massage that secret spot inside her, her pussy clamps down and pulses, sucking at the digits, as my princess throws her head back against the car door’s window and screams out with her orgasm. “That’s it, piccolina,” I praise as her hips grind down on my fingers, prolonging her ecstasy. “That’s right. Fuck my hand, Bella.” She’s mesmerizing in her rapture, her face contorted in a mix of agony and desire.
So mesmerizing it doesn’t register in my mind that the pop I hear outside the car is a gunshot until Arabella’s door is suddenly jerked open and a gun is in my face.
22
DeLuca
My grip on her throat and my fingers still inside her pussy are the only things that keep my girl from falling out the door and onto the ground. She screams once again, this time in fear and shock instead of in pleasure, and ice fills my veins at the sound.
I glance at the ground behind the black-clothing-covered body, seeing Maxwell lying there, a pool of blood starting to grow beneath him, and my nostrils flare in barely contained rage.
And then the gunman leans down, looking into the car, an ugly grin on his fucking smug face. “Well, what have we here? Wife, you’re cheating on me?” Ferro puts his empty hand to his chest, his expression turning to mock hurt. “My heart, it breaks.” He lifts his black eyes to me, arching a brow. “I’d ask if you’re into necrophilia, seeing as you’re fingerfucking a woman you said was dead, but by the flush in her cheeks I’ve never seen there before in all our years of marriage, I’d say… DeLuca, you lied to me,” he says, the last words coming out with a pout.
“Now my feelings are doubly hurt. So why don’t you get out of the car so you can make me feel a whole lot better when I fucking kill you both,” he adds, his tone angrier now as he pulls the hammer back on his .45 and takes a few steps away from the door. The distance allows him to keep his eyes locked on mine when he stands up straight.
I finally slide my fingers out of Arabella’s pussy, and because I’m the bastard I am, I stare Ferro dead in the eyes as I lift them to my mouth and suck her juices off each one. His gaze narrowing, his lips twitching, and his hand’s slight shake are all the microexpressions I need to let me know my move made him even more murderous. But his suddenly shouted, “Out! Fucking now!” makes me chuckle inside that I was so easily able to throw him off when he clearly has the upper hand in this precarious position we’re in.
I help Arabella fix her dress, panic in her eyes as she discreetly looks up at me, her expression conveying just how terrified she is, and it pisses me right the fuck off. I stay hyperalert of Ferro’s every move, knowing I’ll have to wait for the opportune moment to make any kind of move. I have no weapons on me. Anything I would’ve had was in my car that’s now nothing but rubble. If there’s a way to get to Maxwell’s prone body on the ground mere feet away, maybe I could get his gun out of his hip holster—
“Not going to happen. So don’t bother trying anything stupid,” Ferro interrupts my thoughts as we stand up out of the backseat. “Now, if you will so kindly make your way over to my ride, we can get this party started.”
It’s then we see the SUV parked behind us, the same henchman who spotted me at the ball behind the wheel. I cast one last glance in Maxwell’s direction, but I know when I’ve been beaten. At least for now. So I don’t make an idiotic move; I don’t bolt toward my old friend’s body to try to get to his weapon. Instead, I do as this motherfucker says and head toward his vehicle, keeping my body between Ferro and Arabella the entire time.
I reach ahead of her and open the back door, murmuring for only her to hear, “I’ve got you, baby,” hoping she trusts me enough to let me take the lead and get us out of this situation. God, I don’t know what I’d do if she makes a wrong move and sets him off. He wanted her dead before, so I know he’d have no qualms with killing her now, even before doing whatever it is he plans to do with us.
I slide in after her, and Ferro shoves the door closed behind me, hopping in the front passenger seat and spinning around to keep the gun aimed on me.
The driver takes off, and Ferro grins. “You made my plan go a lot smoother, pulling over for a quickie and all. When I set your car on fire, I thought for sure I’d have to run you off the road once your driver came to get you.”
“What do you want, Ferro?” Arabella asks, her hands squeezing together between her knees.
“What do I want?” he asks calmly, and then his voice takes on a hysterical note, “What do I want? I wanted you dead! I paid for a fucking service, and the quality I got was subpar, to put it lightly. But it’s hard to find good help these days. So now I have to take matters into my own hands.”
“Why?” she exhales. “Why are you doing this? I did everything you ever asked of me. I was a good, obedient wife to you, Ferro.”
He punches the seat with his other hand, his eyes turning wild. “Lies! You’re a fucking liar! You had one job, Arabella. One. Fucking. Job. Give me a fucking heir. That was all you were put on this earth to do. That’s it, and you couldn’t even do that.”
She leans forward a bit. “That’s not my fault. You can’t control when you get pregnant. It’s all in God’s hands.”
“Again with the fucking lies, Arabella. You can control when you get pregnant, especially when you’re purposely preventing it. I know about the goddamn birth control pills!” he shouts, and my piccolina deflates into her seat. I was proud of her tone; she’d sounded so believable when she delivered her argument with a gun in her face. But now that it’s been made clear Ferro knows the truth of her deceit, she can’t appeal to whatever humanity might be inside the fucker in front of us. Sh
e can’t blame not giving him an heir on infertility.
“Awww, poor girl. You thought I wouldn’t find out?” he taunts, and I see her hands flex.
“What does it matter, Ferro? Just let us go. You’ve got what you wanted. I heard congratulations are in order,” she says calmly, and I have to wonder where this façade is coming from. She looked downright panicked in the car only minutes ago. Now, she’s having a conversation, with a barrel aimed at her head like he’s holding a bouquet of flowers instead.
“Because it’s the principle of it all. Our families will go to war because you couldn’t do your goddamn job,” he says angrily, his eyes sending daggers my way while his gun stays on Bella. “I will lose my seat in the hierarchy of the Cosa Nostra, in The Ruin, and I’ll be left with nothing. So why the fuck do you think I’d leave the two of you alone to ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after?”
“At least you got what you always craved. You finally have your heir on the way. Why don’t you just… leave, take your child and its mother with you?” she asks, and the wild look returns to his eyes as he turns them toward her.
“What the fuck do I need an heir for when I have nothing to leave to him? It was never about having a child of my own to raise and… love,” he sneers the word like it tastes bad. “It was about my legacy. The legacy of the Fetulli family. It’s up to me alone to carry on our name, but what the hell is there to carry on, now that you’ve ruined everything because you just. Couldn’t. Die!” He shakes the gun at her, gritting his teeth, before he lets out a long breath, a spark of unhidden insanity showing through when he cracks a smile and lets out a chuckle. He pulls the gun back and taps the end to his temple, seeming to have a conversation with himself inside his head.
I speak up to distract him. “Who was it? Who was the rat? It’s the one thing I can’t figure out in all this. How did you know to go into hiding? How did they know it was me at the ball?”
He grins, and I fight to keep my expression neutral. “Well, that’s a fun story. Where do I begin?” He thinks for a moment, then comes to a conclusion. “Ah, I know. When you informed me the job was done, I put eyes on Marcello, knowing he’d soon wonder where you were”—he waves the gun at Arabella—"since he’s always up your fucking ass, calling day in and day out. Not even a day later, the Father of the Year himself made a fuss, wanting to know where his bitch daughter was. And not long after he left, we discovered him getting into your car. Now… why in the world would he be hanging out with the very man who I hired to kill his daughter?” He pauses a moment, but it’s clearly a rhetorical question.
“I wasn’t positive why that would be. For a while there, I thought it was because you were going to lead him to her body, because I know he would’ve paid handsomely for that information. You would’ve gotten some extra cash without betraying me, and all would’ve been well and good. He made a stink the following day about his beloved child being dead, and when he didn’t come after me, I figured I was in the clear.”
The entire time he’s talking, the driver keeps a steady speed toward whatever destination we’re heading for. Wherever it is, it’s in the complete opposite direction of my home, far away from my own territory and any hope of me having backup.
“So, I sent Ofa to see the OB/GYN finally, since we’d kept her pregnancy a secret for weeks and she hadn’t been to the doctor yet. By then, news had spread of my wife’s untimely demise.” He chuckles darkly. “Imagine my lady’s surprise when the doctor said, and I quote, ‘So he got his heir after all. I’ll certainly miss Mrs. Fetulli padding my pockets.’”
His eyes flash with rage. “I guess she didn’t feel the need to keep your secrets any longer, since she thought you were dead. All it took was a gun to her temple for her to elaborate what she meant, after Ofa came home and told me the strange comment her new doctor made. She told me all about the birth control pills, and the only reason she isn’t dead and buried as we speak is because she’s under the protection of The Ruin. But that didn’t mean I didn’t threaten to make her go missing as well if she told anyone details about either the birth control pills or how far along Ofa is in her pregnancy.”
Well, that answered that question. But what about… “That has nothing to do with you going into hiding though.”
“When Arabella’s body remained missing, I knew something was up with you and Marcello. If it had been the way I originally thought it was, you would’ve already had his money for showing him where her body was. News would’ve broken that her remains had been discovered, but that never happened. I played my part, of course, the husband grieving over his dead wife, finding comfort in the arms of another woman. If it were to come out later that Ofa was pregnant, then that would’ve been the easy explanation.” He shrugs, nonchalant about the whole thing, not caring one bit that he’s talking about Arabella being dead.
I can only imagine what this heartless bastard’s words are doing to my piccolina, how it’s making her feel to know how little her husband had cared about her.
“So, I tried surprising you at work, knowing you would no longer answer my calls after our last conversation. And imagine my surprise when the good doctor had taken a leave of absence. The man who’s never missed a day of work in his life, according to his lovely receptionist, took two weeks off. And why? There was no movement. No details of you going anywhere, no flights or anything for your first vacation in the history of ever. Which meant you were having a nice, long staycation. And why, pray tell, would a handsome guy such as yourself want to coop up all by your lonesome in your own home?”
He gestures with the gun back and forth between Arabella and me. “Because you weren’t alone at all, now, were you?” He gives us the world’s fakest smile, putting his elbow on his armrest then resting his chin on the back of his hand still holding the gun.
He’s such a dramatic little fucker. I’ll wipe that smirk off his fucking mug if it’s the last thing I fucking do.
“No, you weren’t alone. You were fucking my goddamn wife!” he barks, his mercurial mood swinging once again to psychopathy.
Arabella sighs, and I do my best not to turn toward her with a look to shut her up. “Oh, Ferro. What does it matter if he was fucking me? You wanted me dead. I shouldn’t even exist to you anymore.”
His nostrils flare, his eyes seeming to blaze from within. “Because you belong to me. And no one. Touches. What’s goddamn. Mi—”
My fist connects with the middle of his face before he can finish that last word, and the interior of SUV is suddenly sprayed red with the blood that comes out of the fucker’s nose.
Then, complete chaos ensues.
As Ferro reaches both his hands up to cup his nose, yelling out in his shock and pain, it puts the metal handgun right where I want it, in his face and aimed to the side, away from Arabella. My Bella, not fucking his. And with a swift move he never sees coming, as his eyes are closed with his pain, I lift my leg, and the heel of my shoe becomes one with the steel weapon, which in turn slams directly into his fucking face once again.
There’s a sickening crack along with the sound of Bella’s sharp inhale, with the added bonus of his driver’s curses as Ferro screams, the gun falling from his now mangled hand. And just when I lean down to grab it from where it landed on the floor next to Bella’s feet, everyone in the SUV cries out as we all lurch forward. It takes me a moment to register we were rammed from behind, and I spin to look over my shoulder out the back window.
I squint, trying to see who it is in the SUV behind us, but I can’t tell as they rear end us once again, Bella starting to chant, “Oh God, oh God, oh God, what’s happening?”
But I have no time to answer or console her. With quick movements, I reach across her and snatch her seatbelt, buckling it before finally getting a grasp on the gun. I pull back the hammer, the clicking sound somehow loud in the chaos, and lean forward, putting the gun to the driver’s temple and meeting his eyes in the rearview mirror.
“Pull. The fuck. Over
,” I growl, my lips barely moving my teeth are gritted so hard.
With his boss a whining bitch damn near in the fetal position in the passenger seat, he wisely does as I ordered, slowing before pulling off the road. I don’t move as I hear the doors slam shut on the SUV that parked behind us, and when I catch sight of the big man moving swiftly up toward the driver door, his gun raised with only one hand instead of his preferred stance of two, I audibly breathe out a sigh of relief.
“Maxwell!” Bella cries, the same relief I’m feeling evident in the one word, as he jerks open the door and yanks the driver out by the back of his collar, his hands lifting in surrender.
Then she squeaks in surprise when her own door is pulled open, her body leaning toward mine as my gun swings toward the man who was in the passenger seat of the other vehicle. The older man raises his hands just like Ferro’s henchman did, but with one look at his face, I lower the weapon, and Bella cries out once again, this time in happy shock. “Daddy?”
“Come here, my baby,” he says, reaching across her to unbuckle her seatbelt before pulling her out of the seat and into a hug that doesn’t allow her feet to touch the ground.
Ferro is still a whimpering heap in the front seat, so I exit the vehicle through Bella’s open door, handing Maxwell the gun when he comes back, I assume from restraining the other fucker before throwing him in the back of Marcello’s SUV. I reach up and pull his suit jacket away from his body, taking a peek at the bullet wound I see in the space between his shoulder and chest.
“Aren’t you a little old to be playing opossum?” I ask him with a smirk, smacking him on the back before pulling him into a brotherly hug.
“I planned to play dead until the assholes took you two, and then I was going to follow after you in the car. But before I could get up and into the driver seat, her old man came hauling ass and screeching to a stop next to me. Scooped me up, and now here we are,” he explained, and we both look over to where her dad still has her in a tight embrace.