He doesn’t step aside. Doesn’t so much as shift as far as I can hear. Just stands there ominous, in his complete lack of response.
“We’ll sleep downstairs,” Naima decides out loud, her voice shaking but determined.
But Naima’s right about it having been a long day. And I’m tired. Too tired to distress her any further by fighting my ex-husband’s bodyguard on the sleeping arrangements.
“It’s okay,” I tell her, beckoning Joey forward to lead me to his boss’s suite. “I’ll be fine, I promise you. Get some sleep. I can take care of myself, and I’ll be fine until we see each other in the morning.”
I put a ton of emphasis on those last words, hoping she understands my real meaning. That there’s no way in hell I’ll let Luca do anything more than sleep in the bed with me, and that we’ll both need to get plenty of rest in order to figure a way out of this mess.
Naima eventually gives in, but she doesn’t sound happy about it. And Joey leads me to a new door.
“I’m not allowed to follow you in,” he tells me, “But the boss said you should use this alone time to learn the room. Everything’s already been unpacked for you.”
After the door closes behind me, I reluctantly take “the boss” up on his suggestion and use my cane and hand to explore what turns out to be a sitting room with a window bench and several bookshelves. There’s even an Echo Dot in the window sill.
“Echo? Whose account is this?” I ask.
“I’m not sure who is speaking, but you’re in Amber’s account,” the device answers.
My heart cheers, because while I doubt my laptop was in the stuff they brought over from my apartment, much less my phone, I can call out on the Dot.
“Echo, call Peter Peretti,” I say, deciding my assistant D.A. half-brother is my best bet for getting out of here ASAP.
“Sorry, that function has been disabled on this device,” Echo answers.
Dammit! And I’m willing to bet, Rock stripped the much fancier Alexa Show downstairs as well.
So, this room is cozy, but technically useless, as far as a jailbreak is concerned.
It’s also just the beginning. I continue down the narrow hallway, toward the bedroom. The next exploration takes much longer because it’s twice the size of the bedroom I memorized earlier when I thought I’d be sleeping with Naima. So large, that there’s a stone beam between the bathroom and the bed. Probably load bearing, but I can just see myself running smack into it, like a hapless Looney Tunes character while stumbling around late at night.
The Echo Dot seems to be the only consideration given to my blindness. I soon discover the room is filled with modular and crazy heavy furniture. Even the bed sits on what feels like a glass and marble platform with sharp-cornered shelves and nightstands built in as if to dispense a cold and cutting antidote to whatever warmth and softness the bed might have provided. And as for the walls, from what I can feel they’re mostly windows that serve no function other than to deliver a spectacular view I can’t see.
So when I reach into the first chest of drawers I manage to find to see if my clothes are inside, I’m not exactly holding my breath. But they are! And they must have taken pictures or something because the five-drawer set is laid out exactly the same as the one I have in Astoria. So maybe this master suite isn’t entirely one big forget you to Luca’s blind ex-wife.
I bend to the bottom drawer and pull out a pair of Christmas pajamas. Not because I’m feeling particularly festive, but because those are the only ones I have with a top and a bottom. The rest are basically oversized shirts. And as much as I hate to admit it, I’m going to need more than an oversized shirt if I’m sharing a bed with Luca. I mean, look how much trouble I got into when I was wearing a summer dress?
The memory of his hands slipping under the skirt of that dress and resting large and warm on my hips as he moved inside of me, hits me with unexpected force. Like a memory and a dream and a sigh, all at once, heating my body.
But…bad guy. Remember? Keeping you and your best friend prisoner, with no option for parole.
Reminding myself of that, I dress before groping my way over to the bed, a huge California King, from the feel of it, and double the width of the bed I replaced when I moved out of our marriage apartment. I can only hope the sheets have been changed since the last girl he had in here.
Slipping between the covers anyway, I turn sideways with my back to his empty side of the bed. Then I pull the heavy duvet up to my chin, willing myself to be asleep by the time he comes upstairs.
I’m not, but I pretend to be anyway. Keep my eyes closed and my breathing slow and steady as the mattress dips under Luca’s weight.
He lays down on his side of the bed. There’s no tossing and turning, just one soft thump. Maybe he’s laid down on his back and is now looking up at the ceiling, as wide awake as I am. I listen to him breathing and wonder if he’s doing the same to me.
Wait…oh God, why am I even wondering about what he’s thinking after he freaking kidnapped me this morning. It’s like there’s a Somethin’ Stupid magnet inside of me. One that becomes completely attuned to him whenever he gets anywhere close to my magnetic field. Making it so I can’t think properly when we’re in the same room. Can’t plot an escape. Can’t do anything but vibrate, so intensely aware of the man on the other side of the bed.
I lie there. Scared. So scared. Because even though I have no intention whatsoever of doing anything beyond sleeping in this bed with him, there’s a falling sensation inside my chest.
4
I Don’t Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You
Luca
Three weeks. Amber serves me spaghetti and meatballs, and nothing but spaghetti and meatballs every day for three fucking weeks. Not to be a fitness freak, but that probably amounts to more carbs than I’ve eaten in the five years since we’ve been apart.
It’s gotten so bad, I’ve started doubling up on cardio in the mornings, and upped my weight training to six days a week. So when Holt texts me on Tuesday of the third week of Spaghettigate, asking if I want to meet up for a lunchtime session at our favorite rock climbing gym, I’m like, “Hell yeah, I’m in.”
Which is how I end up walking straight into the ambush.
“Z, what are you doing here?” I ask when I find him, waiting on a bench with Holt in the gym’s lobby.
Maybe I should have been less surprised that he decided to crash. Z moved into Prin’s recently rehabbed Jersey mansion the morning after she took him back, and it’s only a thirty-minute drive from the city. So unlike before, when he mostly lived in his home country of Jahwar, he’s pretty much always in town these days.
But in my experience, guys with gorilla muscles, aren’t usually all that excited to heft their 250+ pound bodies up the sides of huge walls. Guess, the ending of King Kong left a bad taste in their mouths for climbing activities.
Plus, unlike Holt and me, Z’s still dressed in a suit.
And that’s when I guess, “This is another intervention, isn’t it? Jesus fucking…”
Z flinches. “There is no need for this language, Luca,” he says. Cuz apparently nearly two decades of friendship, still isn’t long enough for him to give up on the dream of me suddenly deciding to clean up my mouth.
“Hey, at least I showed this time,” Holt adds, the dry humor in our trio.
Anyway, that’s how I end up in the juice bar, crowded around a circular table with my best bros, instead of climbing off all the pasta I’ve been choking down.
“Sylvie has…doubts about the email Amber sent around three weeks ago,” Holt tells me, without beating around the bush.
“As does Prin,” Zahir adds, taking a stern sip of his mango energy smoothie. “She finds it hard to believe Amber would choose you for ‘baby daddy duty, after hating on you so long’—Prin’s words not mine.”
Holt nods in grim agreement. “Sylvie’s also concerned on that front after what happened at our shower.”
I dead eye both of th
em across the table. “Amber’s pregnant with my baby. I can guarantee you that’s true.”
“Yes, that is the one part of Amber’s email Sylvie believes,” Holt answers, setting his drink down. “But the parts about her taking time off from her practice and moving in with you…”
“…while also not returning any of Prin’s calls or texts,” Zahir finishes. “Apparently this is very unlike her. According to Prin, Amber is very conscientious about staying in touch and took not so much as a day of vacation in all the time Prin worked for her.”
My body tightens because I know what they’re doing. Trying to get me to tell all, so they can “advise” me to do exactly what Amber wants. Forgive, forget, and let my ex-wife go. Kick this battle to the custody court and let a judge I might not be able to pay off decide how involved I’ll be in my only son’s life.
However, men like Zahir, Holt, and me don’t advise for shit. You either do what we say, exactly as we say or get consequenced in a way that makes you wish you had just taken our “advice” in the first place.
I could use somebody to talk to about all this shit, but I know Holt and Z too well. And I can’t exactly see them trotting home after my full confession to tell their ladies, “He kidnapped her alright, but there’s nothing we can do about it. Sorry, hon.”
Yeah, I’m not giving these two anything. In fact, I keep my face purposefully blank as I say, “Okay, so your girls have decided to worry about Amber, whose perfectly safe and protected under my roof. Not sure what you want me to do about how they’ve decided to feel.”
Holt and Z exchange a look, then their own faces blank out to emotionless, just like mine. Now it’s a business discussion, no longer a negotiation among friends.
“Perhaps if you attend Prin’s and my engagement party in January with Amber as your guest, this would set both Sylvie’s and Prin’s minds at ease,” Zahir answers, his voice coldly polite with the suggestion.
“I’ll think about it,” I answer, lying between my perfect teeth. At this point, I’d have to call in Stone to hold Naima at gunpoint before Amber would willingly go anywhere with me. Much less act the part of a non-captive mother-to-be with the wives of the two most powerful men she knows by association.
“Do more than think about it, my friend,” Zahir answers, his voice still coldly polite, even as he adds, “or we may be forced to intervene.”
“Forced,” I repeat, the word bitter as a Ferraro death dime in my mouth. It’s hard to believe either of these guys are the ruthless bastards I knew just a couple of years ago. And I’ve got to ask them, “Pussywhipped much?”
But instead of taking offense, Holt and Z exchange another look, like they’re my parents, and I’m just the foul-mouthed kid who doesn’t know any better.
“If you and Amber were really living in the accord her mass email claimed,” Zahir answers, pronouncing the words “mass email” in a tone that easily translates the words to completely fake and we all know it email, “then you would understand our desire to set to ease the minds of my future wife and the mother of Holt’s chil—”
I stand up from the table, done with this intervention just like I was done with the one Zahir pulled on me, back when neither his nor Holt’s bitch asses would have dared to get with non-daddy-approved wives.
“We’ll see you at the wedding,” Holt calls after me, his voice laced through with both warning and threat.
And maybe that lunchtime encounter wouldn’t have been so bad, but a few hours later, a new message suddenly appears on my text message screen.
“Sent the video to Amber’s brother. He’s really interested in what else I got on you.”
I release an angry breath before reminding whoever’s on the other end. “You don’t have anything on me.”
“Not yet.” The answer comes back instantly. “But soon. Let her go.”
Fuck, the anonymous assistant is turning up the heat. But the answer to her command is still the same. “No,” I type back.
Because I’m the Ferraro don. And nobody’s going to tell me how to deal with my duplicitous ex-wife but me. Not this hacker asshole, not Holt and Zahir, not even Amber herself.
“Why haven’t we found this fucking assistant yet?” I demand, a couple of hours later when Stone answers my text to come visit me at my office.
“Rock’s working on it. Says he’s sure your ex was using somebody other than herself to get hold of those documents and pictures she used to win her cases. But like I said about these dark web fuckers…”
“Yeah, yeah, nothing to grab and choke to death.” I push out of my seat and go to the window, eyeing the Hudson River as I say, “I know Amber, and if she were using someone shady to dig up dirt, she wouldn’t do it all by computer and phone. Too much of a trail that could be used against her in court. She knows her assistant IRL.”
Stone grunts behind me. “Well, whoever this assistant is, Amber chose smart. She’s ghosting like nobody’s business, and ‘cording to Rock’s source in the D.A.’s office, Peretti got a package in the mail and then left out of the office real quick yesterday. He could be planning something.”
“Or getting a judge to sign off on a warrant for your arrest,” I say, looking back over my shoulder at him, as yet another fucking problem joins the pile inside my mind.
Stone just shrugs.
“You’re not worried?” I ask.
Stone cranks his head and exchanges a cynical glance with my office’s brick wall, before returning his flat gaze to me. “More worried about how close Rock’s getting to a chick I might have to end to keep her from testifying against us in court.”
I curse, turning all the way back around, as my mind follows Stone to the same inevitable conclusion. If Peretti brings charges, Naima will have to be disappeared since corpses tell no tales. She won’t be the first innocent that’s died to keep one of our family members out of jail. And I wouldn’t blink an eye over giving the order to kill Naima to keep Stone from joining his dad out Midwest. But that loss of leverage would introduce all sorts of complications to my already messy Amber plan…strategy… whatever this thing is I’m doing with her.
Stone’s right about, Rock, too. His twin’s been taking his dinnertime babysitting job way too seriously—I’d say as of late, but it’s pretty much been from the fucking start. During our meeting this morning, he even mentioned taking Naima out to one of our clubs tomorrow night, just because she’d told him she’d never sat in VIP before.
This prison sentence is supposed to be about revenge. About me making sure Amber knows that I, and I alone, control her time, her freedom, and even her best friend, because she’s mine now. And I’m the new master of her universe.
But here’s me, staring out the window and feeling the exact opposite.
Too close. Rock’s gotten too close to Naima. The hacker assistant and Peretti are getting too close to building a case against Stone. And Zahir and Holt are too close to figuring out the truth, which could mean going to war with my best friends.
I’m the one holding all the cards here. But right now it feels like Amber is winning.
All the problems racking up behind the scenes of the luxury cage I’ve placed Amber in weigh heavy on my mind that night when she serves me her usual platter of fuck you spaghetti and meatballs. This time with homemade noodles, because she had the nerve to put a pasta maker on the last shopping list she gave Rock. But I grit my teeth, refusing to say anything as she sets down the twentieth platter of spaghetti she’s made in our three weeks of eating dinner together. Then I silently watch her waddle around to the other side of the table, depressed as fuck.
Believe it or not, I’ve been trying with her. Working the FBI program steps to get hostile people to like you. Ignoring her fuck you silence and spaghetti in order to stay in her proximity. But after three weeks of enduring pasta, I’m no closer to getting her to abide me, much less attend Prin’s and Zahir’s wedding of her own free will.
Plus, she’s nearly six months pregnant now. As
I watch her carefully lower herself into her seat, something pricks inside my chest, nasty and sharp. Because according to the book I’ve been listening to during all that extra weight training this is supposed to be the good part of the pregnancy. After first trimester morning sickness, but before third-trimester backaches and total fatigue. We should be making birth plans, picking names, actually giving a fuck about stores like Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn. Naima should be planning a baby shower right now, not having dinner wherever with Rock.
But instead of discussing the pros/cons of open facing versus convertible cribs, I’m glaring at her across a platter of fuck you spaghetti, and she’s pasting on another insincere smile to say, “Mangiam—”
I pick up the plate of spaghetti and sling the goddamn thing before the snide invitation to eat up is fully out her mouth.
The platter makes it all the way to the sculptured staircase before it meets any opposition to its flight. That means my loss of impulse control results in maximum damage. By the time the dish shatters, marinara sauce is splattered across the pristine marble floors. There’s also pasta covering the back of my light grey custom oval backed couch. And my one of a kind staircase has a huge red stain that looks like it’s going to be a bitch to fully get out.
No doubt about it, the housekeeper will be getting a bonus this week, maybe even a raise. And then there’s the look on Amber’s face…
Her smile’s not nearly so insincere now. In fact, her eyes sparkle with the triumph of finally making me break.
But do I dial it back? Try to get a hold of myself?
That would be a big old nope. With the unchecked rage still riding me, I keep the temper tantrum going. Here’s me, tearing out of my chair and into the kitchen, like a lion on the hunt. I find my prey on the island counter, covered in chrome and flour, with little bits of pasta dough still stuck in its cutter.
AMBER - His to Reclaim (Ruthlessly Obsessed Duet, Book 2): 50 Loving States, New York Pt. 2 (Ruthless Tycoons 4) Page 3