Lost Girl

  The white tank top fits her body snugly, so snugly in fact I wonder if it isn’t one of those body suit things the girls seem to wear now. She’s wearing a pair of high waisted jean shorts with a large amount of fringe at the hems but making her lanky legs and the skin there seem to go on for miles.

  I didn’t notice before that she was built like a curvy dancer, while her boobs are large, her waist is small, and I find myself wondering if I could fit her waist in the circumference of my large hands. But then she gradually broadens, and as Luca would crudely put it, the girl has ass for days.

  Maybe it was the baggy cargo pants that hid all those curves because there is no way in hell, I would have missed that the first time we saw her.

  Even as I fight to control the erection that’s trying to sprout, I am business as always.

  “Tony, get your ass in gear and start following her. Luca move and hide all the dossiers, that’ll just add fuel to her fire. Alex, get ready to grab her,” I say.

  “And the dog!” Tony adds as he brings the SUV to life and slowly gets on the road following her walking form at a distance.

  Alex looks at me like he wants to punch me in the face, probably because I’m making him do the grab instead of Tony, making him the most likely target of her wrath.

  That may or may not have been intentional.

  Everyone is quite except Luca as he quickly takes all the files he’s looked at and shoves them into the case they’d originally been in. once the sidewalk has mostly cleared of people, and we are close enough, tony slows down and whispers a fervent “now”.

  Alex swings open the back-seat passenger door as the car keeps rolling forward, and reaches out, grabbing Priest by the arm, his hand wrapped around her bicep, his other arm behind her back, snatching her by the other shoulder and pulling her up and into the car. Luca hops out of the passenger door and snatches up the mutt up off the ground, and pushs the dog into her owner’s lap and hops back into the passenger seat.

  I will give Priest this, she didn’t fight us, probably already having figured out who we were, or knowing Cobra, he’d already prepared for how to deal with a kidnapping.

  Instead of a thrashing wildcat that I expected, we get a silent molten rage of a woman. She sits in the seat, holding her dog, with an expression that has even me sweating under the collar with its indignation blatant. She looks at all of us as Luca closes the door, and I know that when we get her to her father’s house, she’s going to blow him away with that look.

  “I get that you have orders to follow and shit, but understand that this isn’t going to go well for the four of you, or for my father.”

  It could have everything to do with the fact that she is unlike every other female I’ve ever interacted with closely, but I wasn’t expecting a soft-spoken threat like that to fall from those pretty lips.

  But apparently Alex was, as he raised his hand in a surrendering gesture, and glares at me, like this is all my fault.

  It kind of is, but I don’t want to acknowledge that, so I just glare at him until I look back at her.

  She’s stroking the dog in her lap, kind of reminding me of a disinterested queen, waiting for whatever bullshit someone is going to try to sell her before telling them to politely fuck off.

  This woman is going to be hell to try to marry, I think to myself.

  “We aren’t afraid of Cobra,” I say, confidently. I know that Cobra loves her, but he’d have to be a fool to risk the wrath of Alonzo a second time, even if Cobra is the best hitman the family has ever known.

  Priest laughs like I have said the funniest thing she's ever heard and continues to pet Rosary as she looks me in the eye. I see the rage there still, but now I also find amusement lurking behind the dark pools.

  I do not appreciate being laughed at and a part of me, the dark part of me, wants to snatch her by all of that blonde hair and show her exactly who's the one in control here, but I don't.

  I wait for her to speak.

  “It’s not just Cobra you should be afraid of. Cobra already knows where to find you should he need, so I wouldn’t be all that afraid of him if I were you either. No, it’s Bones you should be afraid of. The one risking his wrath is actually you,” she says.

  Tony chuckles, finding our new soon-to-be boss so amusing. I glare at him, wondering what it is he is thinking again, because while Tony is a jokester, he’s also famous at seeing the bigger picture and remaining silent to how it’s all going to play out. It’s how he anticipates the people he has to deal with on a day to day basis.

  “So, I take it, you finally bedded Bones,” he says, laughter playing in his voice.

  Priest doesn’t react how I think she should, how a young woman with any propriety would react. No, she looks at Tony, the rage in her eyes slightly subdued and opens that pretty mouth of hers and says something I would have never expected.

  “What do you think a woman and man are doing in an apartment for three days? Not that it's any of your business.”

  At this Alex looks almost defeated, so unlike Alex that a part of me wonders just how this girl has bewitched him. Because I saw she is she's just a girl, yeah, she's Alonzo’s daughter, but outside of being the person that will bring me into power within the famiglia she's nothing more than another girl that anyone could see on the street.

  Why are you lying to yourself, the dark part of me thinks, but I ignore it and keep moving forward.

  “It doesn't matter whether you fucked Bones or not. We are taking you to Alonso, to his home, where you will remain until he has decided otherwise. Now, give me your phone.”

  She smirks, again completely unexpectedly, and I find myself wanting to scream. How is this woman making me lose this much control over myself? I’ve kidnapped people before and yet none of the people I’ve captured have ever managed to get under my skin as badly as she has in these few moments.

  She slides her ass on the leather seat of the SUV before she hands me a burner phone the untraceable kind from her back pocket.

  I quirk my eyebrow at her. How is she seemingly unconcerned with all of this?

  I can’t stop my eyebrow from twitching. She’s making me feel unsettled and I hate it, I even kind of hate her for making me feel like my world has no axis anymore. I hate that she seems to know all my buttons when even Alex, Luca, and Tony haven’t figured out how to get me this upset.

  I bite down on my tongue and she even seems to notice that, and she ramps up the wattage behind her smile.

  “You do know that Cobra and Bones don’t need my cell to track me, right?” she says in a tone that makes it evident that she thinks I’m being stupid.

  Before I can verbally lose my shit, Luca speaks up.

  “That’s not the point of taking your phone,” he says, his voice light and friendly, his standby. He only gets pissy around us.

  She nods, and finally she seems like she’s gonna be quiet as she stares as Alex.

  “So, who smashed up that pretty face of yours Alessandro?” She asks, her voice seeming to take on this velvet quality that tries to cling to me.

  It’s a sound I could listen to for hours and find something new about it, but I force myself to look at Alex, in hopes that I can bat away the effects of the sound if I don’t have the visual.

  I also wait for Alex to correct her on his name, he hates being called by his full name, an after effect of his mom walking out when we were eight years old. She always called him his whole name and he’s hated it ever since.

  Alex doesn’t dodge the question like most would, and he doesn’t seem worried about correcting her on his name.

  Instead, Alex gives her a small smile and shrug, like it’s no big deal.

  “I needed to blow off a little steam,” he says.

  I can’t stop the scoffing sound that falls from my mouth, and by the flick of her eye I know that Priest has noticed it. What she chooses to make of it, however, is lost to me as I notice that we have just pulled through the gates of Alonzo’s home.
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br />   It’s a grand thing, built by his great grandfather as a status symbol of just how stable the family was, and even though it is over fifty years old, the old Mediterranean style home still makes a grand statement.

  It might have something to do with the fact that it’s on a winding estate that is built to showcase power and wealth, the tennis court, pool, and basketball court having been added by Alonzo’s father as a way of leaving his mark on the family home were definitely on the flashy side, especially since he had them span outward form the house, instead of behind it like many might have chosen to do.

  The long driveway that turns into a circle at the front door, and currently standing on the sprawling veranda is Alonzo, with four of the Wives, the women married to his inner circle. They are all dressed in dresses of various styles, but all of them seem to scream money, and I am sure that if they were planning a girl’s night out like they commonly did, they’d be marked as targets from con men. That is until the guards the husbands all pay handsomely stepped in.

  We stop just two yards from the steps that lead up to the veranda, and Luca hopes out of the passenger seat to open the back door for Priest.

  She gets out of the vehicle slowly, drawing out the moment, not out of fear but to prove that she is not worried in the least, and I get the impression that she’s trying to prove something to Alonzo. So, she sets Rosary on the ground before looking in his direction, and I notice his jaw clench for a moment before he opens his mouth.

  “Welcome home, Priest.”

  Acknowledgements

  I’d like to thank my husband, who has let me bounce ideas off of him for years. Who lets me read whole books aloud to him, and has always told me I can do and be anything.

  My witches, Kailey and Rose, for being there when I doubt myself, and tell me that my idea isn’t silly. Rose, always the cheerleader in my corner, and Kailey beta reader/head cheerleader, I don’t know if I’d have had the confidence to push submit without you.

  Sydney, who heard bits and pieces of this story and said yes to editing and beta reading it for me. For being brave enough to ask questions and tell me stuff wasn’t working, and then helping me decide how to fix it.

  My mama, Heather, for never reading an unfinished book of mine, because “if you want me to read it, finish it!” is the type of motivation I need. I don’t know who I’d be without you, so thank you for loving me and letting me fly.