Damage
an Arranged Marriage Mafia Romance
Natasha Knight
Copyright © 2019 by Natasha Knight
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
About This Book
Prologue
1. Stefan
2. Gabriela
3. Stefan
4. Gabriela
5. Stefan
6. Stefan
7. Gabriela
8. Stefan
9. Stefan
10. Gabriela
11. Stefan
12. Gabriela
13. Stefan
14. Gabriela
15. Gabriela
16. Stefan
17. Gabriela
18. Gabriela
19. Stefan
20. Gabriela
21. Stefan
22. Gabriela
23. Gabriela
24. Stefan
25. Gabriela
26. Stefan
27. Stefan
28. Gabriela
29. Gabriela
30. Stefan
31. Gabriela
32. Stefan
33. Gabriela
34. Stefan
35. Stefan
Epilogue 1
Epilogue 2
Thank you
Taken Sample
Also by Natasha Knight
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About This Book
We’re a match made in hell, Stefan and I.
* * *
He took me to exact his revenge. I went from being a pawn to my father to being a pawn to Stefan. The only difference is I have a ring the size of a boulder on my finger and a husband I don’t want.
* * *
And the hardest part is I thought he was different. I thought I was falling in love.
* * *
I guess my father was right. I’m not a very smart girl.
* * *
Stefan is a powerful man. He doesn’t play nice, not if you’re his enemy. But I’ve learned one thing about my husband.
* * *
He takes care of what’s his.
And I am his.
* * *
His enemies have become my enemies, but he’ll never let anyone hurt me. He’s fiercely protective.
* * *
It’s the predator inside that scares me.
***
* * *
Damage is the second book in the Collateral Damage Duet.
If you have not yet read Collateral, you need to do that first. You can pick up Collateral in all stores.
Prologue
Gabriela
* * *
Waves swell in the wake of the speedboat, lifting me up then dragging me under while gunshots fire around me. Someone shouts an order but I’m under again, swallowing water, choking on it.
“Are you going to drown me too?”
Instinct takes over and I kick.
Arms paddling wildly, I manage to break the surface, gasping as I suck air into my lungs.
Waves again, and gunshots. A flurry of them.
I think that scream is mine.
In the dark, I see our boat bobbing and swim to it. See one of the two men slumped over the side as the other frantically reloads his weapon.
It’s no use though. They have machine guns. A pistol doesn’t stand a chance against a machine gun.
More shouts and I’m picked up by a wave again and when it drops me down, my elbow slams against hard wood, the pain electric.
I push through it to grab onto the side of the boat and hold tight, but the reprieve is only momentary because the bigger boat speeds closer and I wonder if they’re going to crash right into us. If that’s their intention.
I don’t have to wait long to find out because the man on our boat stands. It rocks violently and when he dives over the side, our boat capsizes. I lose my grip and scream, my head crashing against the hard wood and what was once my salvation becomes my undoing as I go under.
Under.
“Are you going to drown me too?”
I asked Stefan that question.
The waves don’t carry me up as I go limp and I watch the sliver of light. A floodlight, maybe? I watch our capsized boat go down. Watch the man who’d been slumped over the side float away, blood from his wound turning the water crimson when that light momentarily shines down on him.
I don’t know if my eyes close or if it’s that dark. How can it be so dark? I’m floating, my arms rising above me as I become weightless.
The sound water makes when you’re immersed, it’s almost other-worldly. The gurgling, bubbling, as the shock of cold, of dark, take me deeper.
Water through my hair. Water through my fingers. It feels like an oily, slippery eel.
I watch myself as if I’m out of my body. As if it’s not real. It can’t be.
I’m drowning. Like her. Like she drowned.
Like she was drowned.
I have to wake up.
I have to swim.
Panic.
Salt burns my eyes, but I turn my face up toward that light. I kick and push against the water and there’s someone else. Someone in the water. It’s not the dead man. He’s long gone. Down in that dark. Food for the fish.
My lungs burn. I’ll never make it.
But then there’s an arm around my middle and it’s strong. Stronger than me.
He’s a powerful swimmer because we’re moving, rocketing up.
I gasp when we break the surface.
A hand in my hair pulls painfully and I remember that day. I remember the lake. It was a black night like this one, the sliver of moon offering only the barest light.
I remember my mom. I see her now.
I see her that night. Wet and cold and terrified, her hands bound behind her back as he dunked her again and again and again and she gasped and choked, and I watched. I just watched.
I feel pain as that grip tightens and I’m under again and I fight. I fight like she couldn’t, and someone laughs when I break the surface only long enough to suck in a single, gasping, wet breath before I’m down again, underwater, the sea gurgling in my ears, a hand keeping me down.
Nothing peaceful about this drowning. I wonder if it could be peaceful, after the pain. After the terror. I don’t think so.
No salt in the lake. That was a blessing. Did it burn as much when she sucked water into her lungs?
“Enough!” a man shouts in Italian. “He doesn’t want her dead for fuck’s sake. Haul her up.”
Pain again because he’s pulling me up by my hair. A moment later, I hit a hard surface. I turn onto my side and cough up water and vomit, half-choking on it.
Men talk. Someone yells. The engine rumbles beneath me and we’re moving.
Someone strikes a match and a moment later, I smell a cigarette. Small details. Why am I concerned with small details?
“She done puking?” someone asks.
A nudge at my hip, my back.
I roll my head and my eyes burn when I open them to see the dark form looming over me, faceless and menacing.
“She’s awake.”
“Then get the hood on her, idiot!”
The faceless man grunts and leans down. For an instant, I see his yellowed teeth as he laughs, sticks his cigarette between his lips. Ash falls on my face and when I feel the hood being drawn over my head, I fight. I don’t know how, but I fight, screaming, clawing at arms, a face, a wet eye.
“Fucking cunt!”
The kick comes
hard and fast, knocking the wind out of me. I curl into myself, hugging my middle. I think for all my father did to me, he never beat me. Not like this. His punishments were calculated. Thought out. Strategically placed.
“Fucking scratched my fucking eye!”
Another kick, this one to the back of my head and maybe I’m grateful for it. Grateful that I don’t have to think about the smell of the sack over my head. Grateful that I pass out as I’m lifted, my head lolling painfully over the careless arm—not like how Stefan carried me. Not at all.
And maybe I’m a coward, but I’m grateful to black out.
1
Stefan
“Find her!”
I slam the phone down, spin on my heel and run my hand through my hair.
Two days. It’s been two fucking days and no word. Not a single goddamned, mother-fucking word.
“Fuck!”
Soldiers rush in and out, Millie trying for the hundredth time to get me to eat. I’m not fucking hungry. I want her back. I want her back now.
My cell phone rings. It’s still in my hand and I look at the screen.
Marchese.
Fucking Marchese. Finally.
I answer.
“If you send any more of your men to any of my properties, I’m going to offer a fucking bonus to anyone who kills one,” he threatens.
“I will search every one of your properties until I find her.”
“Where the fuck is she? What the fuck did you do to her?” he barks.
“She’d be here if you hadn’t sent your men to fucking pick her up! We had an agreement.”
“When my daughter calls me in the middle of the night begging me to help her get away from you, you can bet your ass I’m going to send my men. What did you do to her? Did you hurt her? If you hurt her—”
“If your idiots hurt her—”
“Fuck!”
I suck in a breath. I fired every man on the roof that night. Because how did an inexperienced, unarmed girl—a fucking girl—get down to the cove and into a boat without them seeing?
Marchese called me at six that morning asking where his daughter was and when I told him what had happened—still not quite convinced it wasn’t his men on the bigger boat—he sounded panic-stricken.
But I’m more likely to believe he’s a good actor.
“If I find out you have her, Marchese—”
“I’m not scared of you, Sabbioni. You’d know if I had her.”
I exhale. As much as I hate having to work with my enemy, I can’t believe he wants his daughter hurt. Or worse. “We’ve searched the island. She’s not on it.”
“She’s not in Rome.”
“Someone knew she’d be out there. This was planned.”
“How would they know?”
“I don’t fucking know. That’s my question too and since you’re the only one she talked to before leaving, you can see why I have fucking questions. Now for the last fucking time, did you stage the kidnapping?”
“Get your head out of your—”
I disconnect the call. He’s not going to tell me anything new.
She must have taken her phone with her and I’m guessing it’s at the bottom of the sea now because the tracking device comes up empty. She fell in. I saw that. Saw it in the floodlights of the speedboat, an unmarked and unnamed boat, too far for me to see anyone’s face.
They pulled her out, though. They must have. I have to believe that.
If they went to that much trouble to get her, they don’t want her dead.
But I should have had a call by now. If it’s money they wanted, I should have had a call.
The door flies open, and I spin around to find Rafa rushing in.
“I have a lead!”
“What lead?”
“I think they took her to Pentedattilo.”
It takes me a moment to register the name. To place the location. “In Calabria?”
Rafa nods.
“It’s a fucking ghost town. Are you sure?”
“I’m not sure but it’s the first clue we have. I’ve sent men from Taormina. It’ll be faster for them to get there.”
I stop. “Your father’s men?” Francesco Catalano is my uncle. His wife, my aunt, was my mother’s sister.
“Your uncle’s men,” Rafa states. “I figured this was more important than your feud.”
I grit my teeth.
“Get the jet ready.”
“Being fueled as we speak. Let’s go.”
I nod, stopping in the study to pick up my revolver and tucking it into its shoulder holster.
“Where’s your weapon?” I ask Rafa.
“In the car. I’ll drive. I’m faster than your guys.”
“Take this,” I tell him, tossing him a pistol. “I’ll drive.”
We step outside where Rafa’s SUV is waiting. I notice the deep, long dent on the passenger side, the white paint marring the shiny black of the SUV.
“You think you’re in any condition to drive?” Rafa asks as I bypass his SUV and climb into the driver’s side of the Bugatti.
“My car is faster.” I tip my head toward his, noticing a similar dent and scrapes of paint on the driver’s side. “And judging from the damage on your vehicle, I’d say I’m the best choice. Are you coming or not?”
His brows furrow together but he climbs into the passenger seat and not a moment later, tires scrape gravel, sending up a dust storm as I speed to the gates, exit the property and make it to the small airstrip where my jet is housed in just under fifteen minutes.
The captain and small crew await, and we board. They must know this impromptu trip is not a social one. No one talks or even greets me apart from a nod from the captain as Rafa and I board. A few moments later, we’re in the air.
“What was your tip?” I finally ask.
“My father has friends in the area. Two nights ago, there was talk at a bar about a girl. One of his informants followed the men and noted unusual activity.”
“And he just decided to tell us now even though I’m guessing he knew of Gabriela’s disappearance two nights ago?”
“He wanted to be sure, Stefan.”
I’m not sure I believe it, but I know Rafa. His relationship with my uncle, Francesco, is not an easy one. And it drives me insane that he still seeks the old man’s approval.
“What was the unusual activity?”
“Two vans. Blacked out windows. Looked like they carried a bundle inside and they’ve had the building guarded ever since.”
“A bundle.” Christ. I suck in a tight breath.
“She’ll be okay, Stefan. If they wanted her dead, they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble they did.”
I nod.
It’s less than an hour before we’re climbing back out of the plane at Calabria’s regional airport where Rafa has arranged a car for us. Well, his father has.
I try to shove all thoughts of my uncle out of my mind. I need to focus.
Rafa and I ride in the same vehicle. It’s just over an hour as we approach Pentedattilo. I haven’t been here in over twenty years but seeing the cliff town brings back memories.
My mother had a special fondness for places like this. Abandoned. Old. So much in Italy is old I’m not sure why it fascinated her to the degree it did. Pentedattilo is a ghost town now, with few inhabitants. But the tourists still come piling in.
“Get around them,” I snap, sliding my window down to yell at them to get the fuck out of the way.
The driver honks his horn, and someone gives us the finger. I’m tempted to shoot it off.
Rafa puts a hand on my shoulder. “She’ll be okay, Stef. We’re almost there.”
I turn to look at him, see he’s got his phone out. He’s tracking the locations of the men his father sent.
I try to relax, forcing myself to breathe a deep breath in.
The tourists thin out as we climb deeper into the town. I’m grateful for the stifling heat keeping the throngs away.
; The four SUVs behind us follow along.
“How many men does my uncle have up there?” I ask, trying to decide if it’s better to go on foot.
“A dozen sharpshooters.” He turns his phone toward me, and I see the red dots situated in buildings surrounding the one we suspect Gabriela is in.
“How many are guarding the property?”
“Three outside. There are six total from what they saw.”
I wonder if they thought we wouldn’t find the place or if they wanted us to find it when I hear that number.
“Keep driving or go on foot?” the driver asks me when we’re about two streets away.
I rub my jaw, the back of my neck. This is easier than it should be, which makes me question why. “Only six men?”
Rafa nods. “You want them to take out the guards outside?”
I shake my head. “No kill shots but incapacitate them if we need to. None of them will walk away anyway, but I have questions. Let them know we’re coming by cavalcade.”
He nods and sends the message to the soldiers surrounding the property as well as those in our vehicles. He waits to receive confirmation.
Once we have it, I gesture to the driver, taking my pistol out of its holster as we drive on.
Damage Page 1