She strained in silence on the toilet. Couldn’t pee. Struggled, but the best she could produce was just little squirts. Even doing that made her head tingle and she began to see stars. She didn’t have to pee? …What was wrong with her? She strained til she thought she might turn inside out. The tingling had become incessant. She couldn’t produce. It was time to go the hospital because whatever was happening it was serious.
Canceling the meeting would be showing a weakness. Unless she could devise a plan that would break up the meeting that was out of her hands. Something that would end this summit. Pull the fire alarm. Call the cops. Officer, I’d like to report a meeting amongst the city’s most dastardly men, dividing up the vices and plotting deaths of rivals. You’ll come? Great, fortieth floor, Empire Crest. Bye.
Fuck! She squeezed again and heard only displeasing drops.
She would have to go the hospital, there was no other choice. But those men out there, they didn't respect medical emergencies. Didn't care about their bodies; filling themselves full of carbs and gluten and pickled meat and sugar and booze and smoke. If this turned out to be a bladder stone or anything not imminently fatal she would never recover in their eyes.
She focused hard, stared a hole into the black metal stall door. Pushed away the invisible blade point pressing into her. She could be strong.
Someone had carved graffiti into the thin layer of paint. Bright metal shining underneath, spelling out a sentence in clumsy and uneven block lettering. She pushed again, heard an unsatisfying sprinkle. This was too fine a bathroom in too fine a building to be defaced by some pimply skateboarder railing against the system. She leaned and read. It looked like the sentence was carved with the point of a knife. The hair at the nape of her neck clenched and raised.
don’t scream daniella
She sat straight with her eyes wide, her heart had stopped its beat. On the other side of the stall, to her left, there was the sound of the heavy bathroom door being opened. The echo of big boots taking three steps in the small tiled space, a slight squeak against the polished surface. The door creaked as it swung, then the doom of its heavy closing.
There were no other women at this meeting. No one coming in to use these glorious facilities. One of the Dons? …Coming to work out something in private? Don't scream, Daniella. Who would do that? …Come talk when her panties were around her ankles? Don’t scream, Daniella.
Her mouth opened, gave its own creak from a tense dry jaw. A croak worked out of her throat, wanting to give birth to a scream but heeding the menacing scrawl on the metal in front of her eyes.
“V-Vito?” she managed.
Nothing. No reply. No relief. Now her heart was pounding. Coming on strong, making up for the beats it missed. Her hearing went away. Her head stuffed with cotton. Rose from the seat, her hands down between her legs, scratching her panties up her bare legs, stopping at her knees where they twisted.
“Vito,” she said again, this time with a touch of venom. Letting Vito know he better stop messing around. Nothing. The footsteps approached with booming dread. It wasn’t Vito.
Her own feet recoiled from the tile, one after the other, high heels precariously scraping on the curved edge of the toilet seat, ankles wobbling. Her rump squat down, her hands out on either side of her, fingers tented against the metal to steady herself as she balanced on the toilet. A grunt escaped her, hunching forward, long hair hanging down as she peered into the space between the bottom of the stall door and the floor. The pain returned, a stab in her guts, down low, but it was deadened by her fear.
She saw them now—mens’ boots planted on the gleaming tile outside her stall door. Black, leather, heavy-soled, huge feet. At the top of the door, the four tips of a leather-gloved and thick-fingered hand curled, gripped the edge tightly. Don’t scream, Daniella.
Yeah, right. You’d like that. She wouldn’t die quietly. She would scream—scream while she clawed this man to shreds.
Her sharp inhale clutched in her chest as the door exploded in on her. The man on the other side thrusting his weight against it, bending the lock and tearing the sheath affixed to the frame right off its screws. The scream was lost, swallowed in her terrified lungs as a lug of metal and sheared screw heads scattered over her, pinging off hard surfaces, landing in her shirt and in her hair. The man had burst his way in, clutching the door while he barged through, stopping it from banging against the far side. His momentum carried him, his body looming over her. She yelped, flinching and clutching the lapels of her jacket.
The man scowled, and she met his eyes. Rocco. The most frightening man she ever knew. She’d loved him once. Loved him more than anything. That was before he broke her heart.
His long black hair was gone, his beard was gone, but those black eyes shot through her like they did when she could never picture a day without him. They made her lift right off the toilet, like her toes barely touched the seat.
“Rocco,” she gasped. Pain and hurt and hope in her voice.
His hand gripped her throat suddenly and with such force it jostled her brain, showed stars in her vision. In two pumps of her heart, her neck swelled and she was sure she would black out. He had the biggest hands she’d seen on a man and now he was going to kill her with them. Snuff her out like she knew he’d snuffed out many before. Extinguish her, extinguish all their happy memories of what was—the passion and love that once sang between them.
Her hands tore at his wrists. Her nails dug into him, and she pleaded for her life with her eyes. She thought this man had loved her at one time, now she knew it was all a lie.
“I’m here to kill you.”
His voice was like steel dragged over gravel.
Her pouted and pressed lips mouthed his name, silently formed Rocco, her trembling eyes fixed on his. His grip relaxed.
He said, “Someone paid me to kill you. I have to get you out of here. Promise me you won’t scream.”
A nod was attempted.
“Daniella? …” he said, firmly pointing a big leather finger in her face.
She nodded quicker.
Blood and relief flooded through her as his hand let her throat free. His grip was like iron and she grabbed at her own neck to ease his harsh touch.
“One of those men wants you dead.”
“I think they all want me dead,” she coughed.
“Daniella, look at me. One of them paid half a million dollars for me to strangle you right under their noses.”
Her hands protected her neck. “Strangle me?”
“Up close and personal. Tell the others that he could get any one of them, any time, even when they thought they were at their safest. We have to go. We have to get you out of here.”
“Four years later… Four years later you come for me…”
“Daniella. Baby, this is your life, this—”
“Don’t fucking baby me. Baby? …” She thrust both her balled fists against the thick leather collar of his jacket. “You lost that right, Rocco. You threw it away.”
“Stop, stop,” he said, grabbing her wrists. “We don’t have time, please, Daniella...I have to get you somewhere safe.”
“I’ll just fucking walk out on my own, okay? You’re the one who’s my killer...”
“Daniella, stop. I know you hate me. I hate me for what happened. You have to do what’s best right now—please, you don’t know how serious this is...”
Her eyes burned through his like lasers. She glowered at him, giving him every bit of pain she felt magnified ten times over with anger. Her jaw firmly set, her eyes wide, her brow low—she told him everything he needed to know with her fiery black gaze.
“Please, Daniella,” he said. His face softened, turned from hard to compassionate right before her. His dark eyes quivering, darting between hers. “Please,” he sighed, his hands holding her neck, his thumbs caressing her jaw. “I love you.” Then he kissed her, and while a swell of emotion washed through her, lifted her high on its tidal wave, rolling her eyes back and lifting her heart, t
ilting her neck and reeling with the feel of his soft lips against hers—she wanted to fucking kill him.
rocco
Daniella’s expression cut him in two. He told her he loved her and she looked like he’d said he hated her. Her trembling eyes, her brow furrowed, her mouth held agape, still wet from his kiss—all poised in damning indignation. Judged in her gaze, crushed by the truth of what he had done to her... How he must have ended her.
His lips had pressed hers, their union transporting him to a far away time when they’d both been happy. A time when he’d kissed her every day, smiling stolen things, just for them, done in secret where no one could see. Her lips were as perfect as they were four years ago. Curled, soft squirming perfection that flexed and pulsed under his own—working with his from rote practice, memory-driven function. They were scared, passionless things now.
Touching her had stormed his heart, pounded blood through every bit of him, like he’d been dead and brought back to life. Quickening pulse driving him, wanting that kiss turn turned into a steamroller, a leviathan of his unstoppable passion, he ached to pin her against the wall and bury his cock inside her... Hear her cries of ecstasy pant across his ear. But those days were gone, crushed under his own decisive boot.
“Daniella, you can hate me all you want. I won’t stop you. But someone wants you dead and I will die before I let that happen. I’m here to save your life. You can come holding my hand, or thrown over my shoulder with tape on your mouth. I’ve only got two options for you. Please…decide...” He gripped her shoulders, held her so she couldn’t look away, told her with his earnest eyes that he loved her.
She faltered. Plump lips quivered, eyes stared with hate but tempered with disquiet. Those lips struggled with something to say.
“Daniella,” he said, and he lifted her down so her feet touched the floor. He took his gloves off and she stood under him, looking up. Her panties were scored across her thighs, twisted and askew. He bent to her, his hand touched the bare skin of her legs and they both stopped breathing. His thumbs hooked under the silky fabric and he lifted them, pulled them up her legs and under her skirt. The point of her chin pressed his chest, between the open lapels of his leather coat. Her hands came up to touch him and he had to close his eyes. Her feet went to their toes as he pulled the V of the panties into place, his thumbs swooping along the waistband to settle them over her soft flesh. Every bit of him wanting to linger and explore.
“Rocco,” she said, anger fading now, the present predicament starting to worm its way into her.
“Sit, Daniella, please, we don’t have any more time.” His hands pressed her collar and she complied, her hands smoothing her skirt under her and she sat with her thighs together. He got down on one knee at her feet. “They want you dead. I won’t let that happen. We’re going to get you out of here,” he said, eyes on hers while he held her ankles and straightened her legs. She wore black stiletto heels, her pretty feet wedged into thousand dollar leather. He slipped them off and put them on the floor. “Daniella, we have to move very fast. Once this hit is obviously not done whoever ordered it will change plans and I can’t predict—”
“Who hired you?”
“Don’t know, Daniella. No name, just money. Listen, we have to assume they will kill us on sight. Blame me for kidnapping or whatever, kill us both in the battle.”
“Rocco, why can’t I—”
“I can get you somewhere safe. I’m taking you there. Give us time to think,” he said as he went through the pocket of his coat, pulled out a pair of cheap ballerina flats he bought at a store underground, below the Empire Crest. “We’ll figure it out. I’ll never let someone harm you. You hear me?”
She nodded, wide-eyed, fear creeping in, which was good. She might not think much of him but he needed her compliant if he was going to get them out of there. He caressed a bare foot, his heart tightening at the feel of her skin under his touch. He’d missed her—craved her—for so long.
“Don’t worry, okay?” he said. He slipped the flat onto her bare foot, pulling the back of it to slip over her delicate heel.
“Perfect fit,” he said, trying to lighten her.
She looked at her foot, wiggled it around looking at the shoe. “It fits,” she agreed.
“I know everything about you,” he told her, putting his hand over her slender knee. He knew it was coming as soon as he said it and he averted his eyes as he saw her face resume its meanness.
“I fucking know nothing about you,” she hissed. “I thought I did.”
He shook his head and pursed his lips, grabbed her other ankle and slipped on the remaining shoe. “Let’s go,” he said, standing and holding a hand out for her to take it.
“What about my shoes?” she said, looking to the floor. He’d left the stilettos on their sides on the tile.
“Fine,” he said and he bent and picked them up and put them in the pockets of his coat.
“Thank you,” she said without kindness.
He slipped his hand behind him, pulled out the Glock and he checked chamber one more time, easing the slide back carefully and looking for a glint of brass. “Are you ready?” he asked her.
Her eyes were on the gun, watching his hands work its action. The enormity of what he’d been saying growing more real to her with each passing second.
“I’m ready,” she said, apprehension squeezing her voice. She was shorter, standing close to him, not in her heels. The height he was used to when they were together and they were naked. Such a strange and sudden reminder. It swelled him unexpectedly between his legs.
He led her to the door of the bathroom and he stopped her. Held his weapon at his chest and eased the door open so he could peer into the hall. Nothing had changed. He turned to her, said, “Daniella, we’re leaving, right? We’re going out this door and we’re walking to the right, we’re heading out of this suite and we’re going to the hall. We’re going to act like this is a normal day, this is a normal thing. You’re the Don and you’re leaving. They won’t do shit. However, should things get out of control fast, you’re going to run. Run as fast as you can. Right?”
“Yes. Where?”
“Okay, you’re going to run all the way to Prince Martin Street. You’ll see a garage door there, cream-colored, American flag sticker down at the bottom right corner. 122B is the unit number. There’s a truck in that garage. Keys are in it. Wait for me, but if I don’t show, you leave in it. Get it? Leave, like, I mean, leave Chicago. Leave and drive clear across the country. Watch who you trust. Stay hid—”
“I thought you were going to save me...”
“I will,” he said. His heart ached for her, and the worried crinkle in her brow called to him, her pained eyes pulled him, begged him to make them happy again.
“I swear I will, okay?” he said. He chanced it again. Pressed his lips to her forehead, kissed her on her soft hairline where she was warm and she smelled like something tropical. “One more thing, Daniella. We go out this door, we turn right...”
“Yeah...”
“Don’t look down, keep your eyes up...”
“Vito?”
He nodded.
“Rocco...fuck, you killed Vito?”
“He couldn’t protect you from the man they sent to kill you. He got what he deserved, Daniella. He knew the rules of the game.”
3
Zakynthos
daniella
There was no way she would trust this man. He was a liar. A con-man. Conned her heart right out of her chest. Stole it away and left her empty, unable to trust anyone. The damage Rocco had done had forever changed her life. Right now, she wasn’t that fun, carefree spirit when they’d been together. She wasn’t the young and innocent Daniella. One who loved and laughed with abandon. He’d torn everything about her in two. His heartlessness had made her colder; made her unsure. Her confidence, her trust? ...Destroyed.
When he disappeared he ruined her.
He stepped into the hall now, his gun in his fist,
his fist bulging out the side of his coat pocket. He waved her to follow. Looking at her like he cared. A stupid smug warm expression on his rugged face. Four years. Four years he left her wondering if he was dead or alive. Her big man. Her sturdy lover. Waving to her now like it was yesterday he disappeared. His carved jaw, pouted lips, narrow black eyes winking light at her from the halogen above. A kindness on his face. The most heartless man she knew. His kindness was some kind of mask he wore. What did she expect from a sociopath? She nodded, faking warmth just as he was. Two could play that game.
He guided her to the far side of the hall with his hand. Pushing her to walk at his hip on his left side. He put his hand up to cover her eyes. Below the edge of his big hard hand she could see two outstretched legs. Black wool suit pants, burgundy loafers with dead hanging tassels, the soles crusted with white flaking fringes of city salt. He’d killed Vito. Left him sitting with his legs splayed out in a bathroom hall four hundred feet above street level. Guy who she’d known and trusted for four years. Guy who took Rocco’s job when he left without a word. Didn’t deserve to end like this.
She stepped over his legs in her cheap flats he’d squeezed onto her. Rocco held her by her waist to steady her.
“I’m fine,” she said, and she squirmed from him. “I’m a big girl.” Still, she wouldn’t look back.
They came to the far end of the hall. There were two doors, one at either end. One at the other end would take her to a vestibule that led to the conference room where eight men sat with their own soldiers, waiting for her to return. One of those eight had ordered her death. The door they stood at now, at the opposite end, led out of the conference suite. On the other side of this door was a small marble tiled space and a polished black cherry table with an exploding bouquet of fresh cut flowers, a modern rectangular chandelier above. Past that, a broad double doorway, ten feet across. It would take them to a hallway leading from the suite to a bank of elevators.
“There’s guards out there,” she told him.
Broken (Dying For Diamonds Book 1) Page 2