I kick off my sandals, slide out of the sedan, and run for my life. My feet hurt as they hit the hot pavement, slamming against gravel and litter until I hit a busy road. Vinny once told me that the best criminals always conduct business behind closed doors, so I need to go somewhere crowded. Vinny won’t pull out a gun and kill me with a large audience. Otherwise, he knows his father will hang him by his balls.
I pause, bending at the waist to catch my breath, and that’s when I realize I don’t have a phone.
Fucking Cristian and the orange juice.
I run to a gas station and hope that Vinny isn’t anywhere behind me. The door to the gas station dings, and all eyes shoot to me—a frantic, barefoot woman, wearing a shirt sprayed with blood.
“Honey,” an elderly woman whispers, taking a step toward me, “are you okay?”
“Ma’am, do you want me to call 911?” the young guy behind the counter asks, holding up his phone.
“I need to call a cab,” I say, still out of breath.
“Did you kill someone?” a snot-nosed kid holding a juice box asks. “You’ll go to jail for that, you know?”
As much as I’d love to ask for a ride, Vinny is connected to a lot of people. There might even be someone in here affiliated with him.
“Your phone—can I see it?” I ask, stumbling toward the clerk.
“Uh … sure,” he mutters, holding it out to me.
I don’t call a cab.
Instead, I take the phone and dart out of the gas station. I spot a man talking on the phone and unscrewing his gas cap. Before he enters the pump into his truck, I jump inside.
“What the fuck?” he screams as I slam on the gas and take off.
“Sorry,” I yell out the window.
I speed back to the iron gates.
From one monster to another.
What a shit show I’ve made of my life.
Javier, Cristian’s guard at the gate, is shocked to find me returning not only alone but also in a rusted pickup truck that I prayed wouldn’t break down on my drive to the mansion.
Cristian makes me wait fifteen minutes before allowing me inside, and I pray harder that those fifteen minutes weren’t spent preparing for my death.
He’s standing in the foyer when I walk inside. He, Benny, and Rocky are all staring at me in question. I can hear my heartbeat blasting through my ears.
“Where the fuck is Dario?” Cristian roars.
He doesn’t ask why I returned in a random truck, or why I’m wearing a bloodstained shirt and no shoes, or why I look like I just spent a week on Survivor.
He doesn’t care about any of that.
The high-ranking Mafia men are shooting daggers in my direction, and now, I have to tell them one of their men is dead because of me.
“He’s dead,” I say in a throaty voice, my eyes on Cristian’s soulless ones.
“What do you mean, he’s dead?” Cristian steps toward me.
I scramble back, just as I did with Vinny, and back myself against the wall.
Cristian looms over me, the toes of his shoes meeting my bare feet. “Did you kill him?”
“No!” I shriek, attempting to tip my head back for a better look at Cristian so that he can see the truth on my face. “Vinny shot him!”
“That doesn’t mean he’s dead, Natalia.” He raises his voice. “Did you even try to help him?”
“Dad—” Benny says, and even though I can’t see anything past Cristian’s massive body, I picture him walking in our direction when Cristian holds up his hand, stopping him.
“He was shot in the head and wasn’t moving,” I argue. “Vinny might be dumb, but he knows how to kill someone. He killed Dario and then tried to kill me.”
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t the other way around,” Rocky comments.
“Fuck!”
I jump when Cristian’s hands slam the wall on each side of my head.
“Motherfucker!” His icy stare stays on me as he drops his hands and backtracks a step. “Rocky, go to Natalia’s house and clean up the mess.”
Rocky salutes him and walks out of the mansion.
Cristian grips my elbow and jerks me forward. “Take off your shirt, Natalia.”
“What?” I stutter.
“You aren’t wearing a bloodstained shirt into my office.”
I motion toward his office. “You literally kill people in there, and they bleed.”
“Natalia.” Cristian grits out my name as if he wants to rip me into pieces. “Take your fucking shirt off and walk into my office before I’m wearing your goddamn blood.”
I shift from one foot to the other. “I’ll go upstairs and change.”
He doesn’t release my elbow when I attempt to slip around him. “I said, my office.” His eyes are cold as he smirks. “You don’t have anything we haven’t seen before, trust me. I don’t want you to take off your shirt so I can jack off to the image of it later. I don’t want blood in my office, and I need to make sure you’re not wearing a wire.”
I attempt to yank out of his hold, resulting in a squeeze from him. “I can’t exactly do that with you holding me.”
He tightens his grip so hard that I know it’ll leave a mark, and then he releases me, pushing me back as if I were a rag doll.
I quickly pull my shirt over my head, standing in front of them in only a black lace bra—one Helena brought over. The scrap of fabric doesn’t leave much to the imagination. The men go quiet as they stare at me. My nipples pucker at how they cast their eyes down my chest. I drop the shirt to the floor as Cristian reaches forward, and his callous palm presses against my chest, between my breasts. With one swift motion, he runs it between, under, and over my breasts—as a man in an airport would do to search someone.
It’s not gentle or intimate.
It’s rough and so Cristian Marchetti.
Embarrassingly, I wonder if that’s how he is with his lovers.
As if he’s happy with what he sees, he turns around and stalks to the office. Benny does the same, his strides long. As do I, my sore feet taking slower steps.
“Natalia, sit your ass down,” Cristian orders when I enter the room.
I won’t argue with that demand. My feet need a good rest. I plop down onto the chair and cross my arms, hiding myself from them.
Cristian glares at me. “I should’ve kicked you out when you asked for help. Now, I have a dead soldier, and my son is over here with a hard dick, wanting to marry you.”
Benny wanders to the bar cart, pours himself a glass, and doesn’t bother correcting his father.
Cristian rubs the space between his dark brows. “Tell me what happened.”
My shoulders relax for the first time in hours, and I tell them everything.
Cristian’s eyes don’t leave mine as he consumes my every word, and Benny downs two glasses of liquor.
“Benny,” Cristian says when I finish, and his son sets his glass down. “Drop the truck off somewhere and collect the security footage from the gas station. Hopefully, they haven’t turned our little car thief in yet. Pay the clerk for a new phone and make sure there’s no police paperwork on this.”
When Benny leaves the room, Cristian steps toward me. His feet hit mine—as he did in the foyer—and he bows his head to whisper in my ear. “You’re becoming more trouble than you’re worth, Natalia. And do you know what I do with trouble?”