by Julia Sykes
“Yes, I’m glad to be back.” I turned my gaze on my father, but I spoke for Gabriel’s benefit. “I don’t think I told you about the girl I met in Cambridge, Dad. Her name is Ashlyn. We missed each other, and I was so worried about her being alone and sad at Harvard.” I emphasized worried. Dad would get what I was saying. “She’s decided to take some time off school to be with me, so she’ll be staying at Marco’s place for a while. I hope you don’t mind if I stay there instead of at home.”
I was essentially telling him I wouldn’t be in the city to help him with his business for a while, but Dad was sharp enough that he picked up on the veiled significance of my words. Even if I wasn’t telling him outright that Ashlyn had been under threat, he could appreciate my caution in bringing her to the safety of the De Luca estate.
“That’s great, son,” he said with a bland smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I hope I can meet her soon.”
“I’d like that,” I lied. I didn’t want Ashlyn anywhere near my mafia family, even my blood relatives.
I’d keep her safely guarded on the estate, with Marco and me. No one would be able to touch her while she was under our protection, especially not Gabriel Costa.
Chapter Six
Marco
I snuck into my bedroom to retrieve the notepad with Ashlyn’s messages. She’d fallen asleep, no doubt exhausted by everything we’d hit her with in the last few hours. Her tears had dried, but I’d waited a long time after her sobbing stopped before I entered the room. I’d been telling Joseph the truth: I didn’t like seeing her cry. I might be a monster, but I never hurt women.
Well, I might enjoy delivering a sound spanking when it was warranted, but that would be completely inappropriate. Even if Ashlyn was beautiful enough and bratty enough to make my palm itch to connect with her round ass.
But she belonged to Joseph. And if she was as innocent as he claimed, she wouldn’t accept the kinds of games Joseph and I sometimes liked to play with a willing woman. Ashlyn might be our captive, but I wouldn’t violate her.
I picked up the notepad from where Joseph had left it on the bed, and then I slipped out of the room, making as little noise as possible. Ashlyn didn’t stir, and I was happy for her to get more rest. She’d be more clearheaded once she got some natural sleep and the drugs fully left her system. I’d had to dose her twice to keep her out on the journey from Massachusetts to New York. She was probably still feeling some of the effects.
Leaving her safely locked in my bedroom, I went down to the media room and turned on my iMac. I usually used it for gaming, but it would do for this more important task.
I accessed the student portal at Harvard and entered Ashlyn’s login information to open her email. My lips twitched as I typed 1997unicorn. She really was cute. I could see why Joseph had become obsessed with her. The attraction part was easy to understand; Ashlyn was gorgeous. But Joseph had always longed for a simpler, cleaner life than the one we led. Ashlyn might not be simple, but she was certainly pure and innocent in a way no one from our world ever could be.
Yeah, I definitely understood why Joseph wanted her.
When her inbox loaded, I noted a few emails about coursework from professors and one from Jayme, Ashlyn’s roommate. She was getting worried that Ashlyn had missed her text, and Jayme couldn’t remember seeing her at their apartment last night.
That could easily be explained away. I’d seduced Jayme and then slipped her rohypnol to secure an invitation back to the apartment she shared with Ashlyn. Once she passed out on the couch, it was just a matter of waiting for Ashlyn to return from the library.
So, if Jayme didn’t remember much from the previous night, she’d blame it on her intoxication. She could have seen Ashlyn and simply forgotten about it in her drunken stupor. Jayme would have been confused enough this morning to make that plausible.
I typed out the message Ashlyn had written for her friend, adding a line about how she had seen Jayme sleeping off her hangover on the couch and hadn’t wanted to disturb her. The lie Ashlyn had come up with was serviceable: she was on a retreat in Colorado, and she wouldn’t have great cell reception there.
That solved the problem of keeping tabs on her text messages. I could turn off her phone altogether, and no one would be suspicious. Not after I finished sending these emails.
The messages to her professors were a little more businesslike, of course. She didn’t mention that she was heartbroken, but instead said she’d suffered a personal loss and needed time to grieve. She wrote that she would do her best to keep up with her coursework while she was absent.
That would do.
When I turned the page to find her message to her father, a weight pressed on my chest. The note was tearstained, the ink smudged. I could read her grief as easily as the words on the page.
A strange knot formed in my gut. She must be very close with her father. It probably killed her to lie to him. She’d communicated that she didn’t have to check in with her parents every day, but it was obvious that she loved him very much.
Yet another aspect of her life that was as pretty and perfect as she was. Ashlyn had a loving family, a doting father who wouldn’t bat an eye at her running off from college and spending money on a fancy retreat.
I’d never wanted for money, but that didn’t mean my life remotely resembled hers. My father had given me everything I’d ever demanded from him, mostly to keep me quiet and out of his way. I’d destroyed it all in a childish cry for his attention. That shit had stopped when I wrapped my new Ferrari around a tree at the age of seventeen. At that point, I’d grown up and stopped being an attention-seeking little pussy.
When I looked down at the tears on Ashlyn’s message to her father, something like envy singed my veins, pulsing through me before I could fully rein it in.
I shouldn’t resent Ashlyn. She hadn’t asked to be pulled into our world. She couldn’t help that she’d led a charmed life. And why shouldn’t she have everything she could possibly want? She’d done nothing to deserve what I’d done to her, stealing her away from her safe, easy life.
I shrugged off my budding sense of guilt.
I wasn’t sorry for taking her. Joseph needed her, and I needed Joseph. He was the only family I had in the world. My father might still be alive, but that didn’t make him family, not in the ways that counted. Even once I’d dragged Joseph back to New York, he was like a ghost without Ashlyn. He’d never really been happy in his life, but this was on a whole other level. He’d been miserable without her.
So, I’d fixed that.
I’d promised Joseph that Ashlyn would come around and forgive him.
I hoped to hell I hadn’t been lying through my teeth.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, leaning against the doorframe with my arms crossed over my chest. I’d swung the bedroom door open a full thirty seconds ago, and Ashlyn had yet to notice me.
She yelped and jumped away from the drawer she’d been rummaging through. Several more were open, their contents in disarray. I didn’t like seeing my neatly-organized possessions being rifled through, but her blush and guilty expression were cute enough that I could forgive her.
I took a step into the room. She took a step back and bumped into the desk behind her.
She held up her hands, as though to reassure me that she wasn’t a threat. I almost laughed at the very idea of the curvy little brunette causing me any trouble. She wasn’t particularly short, but I still towered over her, and she was much smaller than my bulky frame. I worked hard to stay fit. Intimidating people was in my line of work, so being the scariest motherfucker in the room had proven useful on many occasions.
I’d promised Joseph that I wouldn’t scare Ashlyn. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to indulge in toying with her. The first night I’d met her, when I’d cornered her in the bar where Joseph worked, she’d looked up at me with those wide, blue eyes. She’d quivered in my shadow, and a twisted part of me liked her trepidation. I didn’
t want to truly frighten her, but I couldn’t deny that I liked making her nervous. The effect I had on her was delicious. She might soften and sigh for Joseph, but she’d tremble for me.
She belonged to Joseph, but I could indulge myself a little while he was away. Even if he were here, I didn’t think he’d mind. He might be possessive of Ashlyn, but we shared everything. Even women, from time to time.
And while I was certain Ashlyn was far too innocent to contemplate that kind of play, that didn’t mean I couldn’t toy with her. Just a little.
“I asked you a question,” I said as I slowly advanced on her. “What do you think you’re doing, tearing my room apart? It’s very rude. Are you being a little brat again?”
Her wide eyes narrowed, her full lips twisting in a frown. She lifted her delicate chin in defiance. “Stop saying I’m a brat. You make it sound like I’m a petulant child or something. You freaking kidnapped me. I have every right to be angry.”
“So, you’re tearing through my things because you’re angry?” I asked coolly.
I didn’t stop advancing on her until mere inches separated our bodies. I didn’t initiate any physical contact with her, but I let her feel my presence, encroaching on her space enough to make her squirm.
She tried to ease back again, but the desk behind her stopped her. I pressed my hands to the wood on either side of her hips, trapping her in case she got any wild ideas about bolting for the door. I had a good idea what she’d been up to in my absence, but I wanted to make her admit her transgressions.
“Tell me what you were doing, Ashlyn,” I commanded.
She let out an angry little huff, but her wide eyes watched me warily. “I was looking for a way to contact Jayme, okay?” she said in a rush. “I figured you had to have a spare tablet or something in here.”
My brows rose. “Did you really think I’d just leave something like that lying around where you could get your hands on it?”
She licked her lips nervously, and my gaze fixed on her lush mouth. I wondered what she tasted like. Probably like fucking heaven. After all, Joseph did keep calling her his angel.
“I expect an answer when I ask you a question,” I prompted in my darkest tone.
There it was: the little tremor I’d been waiting for. Her skin pebbled, and her fingers shook. Her pupils dilated, and her head tipped back slightly.
Fuck. I was understanding Joseph’s obsession more with every minute I spent with her.
“I…” she took a breath. “I thought it was rhetorical.”
“It wasn’t.”
I stared down at her, waiting for her response, imposing my will on her.
She didn’t lower her lashes in a show of submission. Her gaze remained transfixed on mine, as though she couldn’t look away.
“I… What did you ask me again?”
A low, rumbling sound left my chest. It took me a moment to recognize it as a laugh.
That was enough to make me ease back. I might be affecting her, but she was entrancing me. I couldn’t push too far. She was Joseph’s, not mine. And if I stayed this close to her for a second longer, I’d do a whole lot more to make her tremble.
I glanced around at the mess she’d made to give myself an excuse to break eye contact. I noticed my sketchbook in the drawer she’d been going through when I’d walked in. It was unopened.
That was probably for the best. If I’d seen her reaction to my sketches, I couldn’t have held back. Because given Joseph’s tastes, she’d definitely respond to the images.
“You’ll clean this up later,” I told her. “Don’t go through my things again.”
I could just move her to one of the sixteen guest bedrooms, but I liked the idea of her sleeping in my bed, even if I couldn’t be in there with her. Besides, I had the nicest room in the house, and I didn’t intend to treat her badly while she was my captive.
“Come on.” I turned and gestured for her to follow me. “I made dinner.”
“Are you going to keep giving me the silent treatment?” I asked, teasing her just a little. Although she probably wouldn’t know I was teasing, since I didn’t smile. I rarely did; I didn’t have a lot of practice smiling while I was doing my family’s work.
Blue sparks danced in her eyes, and the angry twist of her lips let me know she wanted to give me a piece of her mind. She set her fork down beside her nearly empty plate. She’d devoured the spaghetti bolognese I’d made for her, so she must have been hungry. Even if she hadn’t commented on my culinary skills, she’d enjoyed it.
“What could we possibly have to talk about?” she asked, her voice clipped as she flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder. I wondered if it felt as silky as it looked. I could imagine wrapping it around my fist while she sucked my cock.
My dick throbbed, and I redirected my thoughts.
“You’re an Art History major, right? Tell me about that.”
She blinked at me. “How do you know I’m an Art History major?”
“I told you, I had people monitoring you. I know a lot about you.”
She scowled at me. “You don’t know anything about me at all.”
“Don’t I? I know you have a three point eight two GPA. I know you went through rush for a sorority but didn’t pledge. I know your favorite coffee shop on campus and your favorite dining hall. I even know that you like your pumpkin spice latte without foam.”
Her eyes widened. I’d clearly unsettled her, but there was no point hiding reality from her. This was our world, and she was a part of it now.
“I know your father is a psychiatrist in Savannah, Georgia, and your mother is a neurosurgeon in Chicago. I know they divorced when you were eight, but they both still provided you with enough money for you to have everything you could ever want.”
“Shut up!” she shouted with sudden fervor. The hint of fear I’d sensed in her had been overwhelmed by rage. I’d hit a nerve. “You don’t know me at all.”
She shoved back from the kitchen island where we’d been eating and got to her feet. Without a backward glance at me, she started storming out of the room.
I caught up to her before she got to the door. “Where do you think you’re going?”
I wrapped my hand around her slender arm when she didn’t stop walking. She tried to jerk away, but I held her fast.
“Away from you!” she burst out. “Let me go.” She shoved me. When that accomplished nothing, she beat at my chest with her fist.
I didn’t even bother catching her wrist to stop her. I simply started walking, keeping my grip on her arm. I was careful not to hold tight enough to bruise, but she had no hope of escaping from me.
She was forced to follow, even though she continued to twist her arm in my grip.
“Let me go,” she demanded again.
“No. Stop struggling, or you’ll hurt yourself.”
“You’re hurting me,” she shrieked. She was getting dramatic again. I didn’t find her quite as cute anymore.
“No, I’m not. Calm down.”
I started leading her toward the stairs.
“Where are you taking me?”
“I’m putting you to bed.”
“What?” she spluttered. “You can’t do that. I’m not a child.”
“You clearly can’t behave like a rational adult. If you act like a brat, you get treated like a brat.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Stop acting like that.”
Her teeth closed with an audible snap, and she glowered at me in sullen silence. She also stopped trying to get away from me. She wasn’t exactly meek, but she’d definitely gotten the message.
Good. Between her hysterics and Joseph’s melodrama, I was ready for this day to be over.
When we got to my room, I finally released her, but I kept her fixed in my stern stare.
I gestured at my overturned bedroom. “I expect this mess to be cleaned up by this time tomorrow,” I informed her.
Her jaw dropped, as though she couldn’t be
lieve the way I was treating her.
And maybe she couldn’t. I was sure she’d been coddled and given everything she’d ever asked for in life. If any girl had ever needed structure and discipline, it was Ashlyn.
She belongs to Joseph, I reminded myself before I got any more ideas about disciplining her.
I closed the door, hiding her from my view. I needed to put distance between us, or I might do something I’d regret. I made sure to lock her in before I went back to my media room. I didn’t want my little captive to try to escape when I wasn’t watching her.
Chapter Seven
Joseph
“Do you know what your friend did to me?” Ashlyn fumed as soon as I opened the bedroom door. She sat on the bed, her arms crossed. She didn’t appear to have been engaging in any activity other than stewing over whatever was making her angry.
Marco had told me he locked her in the room over an hour ago. So, she’d had a lot of time to get worked up.
“He said you were angry after dinner, so he brought you back up here.”
She slapped her hand down on the mattress beside her. “He didn’t bring me back up here. He put me to bed. Like I’m some sort of naughty child. He keeps calling me a brat. He’s a misogynistic prick.”
“He’s not,” I corrected her, maybe a touch more sharply than I should have. Marco loved women. In his own way.
She glowered at me. I didn’t like when she looked at me like that; like I’d betrayed her. Like she hated me.
I lifted the shopping bags I held in a gesture of contrition. “I got some clothes for you in the city.”
Her frown eased, her eyes sparking with interest. She wanted the new clothes. I wasn’t sure if she simply liked new, pretty things, or if she was desperate to change. She’d been wearing the same clothes since Marco had abducted her last night. That had been over twenty-four hours ago.