Page 26 of Savage Don

His tattoos are unmistakable. They slither out from under his cufflinks like black snakes, lashing towards my tiny pale wrists, starving for a taste of my tender flesh.

“You drugged me?” I ask in disbelief. I’m still stubbornly trying to pull away from the increasingly horrifying man as I ask my question, but my words seem to stun him just enough that he eases his grip.

Finally, I’m able to pull away. If only I had anywhere to run.

“I saved you,” he clarifies. Pulling down on the sleeves of his black turtleneck, he pours another glass of water and hands it to me.

I’m hesitant to take it.

“By drugging me? Is the water spiked too?” Just like that, my throat feels tight and the clear water looks like poison.

“Don’t be silly, girl,” Ray says, shaking his head. “I’m Irish. We don’t deal with poisons. If you want to drug someone, you’d be better off asking the Russians… or the Italians.”

The way he looks at me when he says “Italians” makes me break out into a cold sweat. He knows who I am.

The tattoos. The blood red lips. The secrecy. The muscles.

Ray is Irish. He must be part of the mob.

My father hates the Irish mob.

Shit. Is this some kind of twisted payback for some beef I’ve never even heard of?

Had Ray been following me when I saw him outside of the lecture hall?

A cold shiver skates up my spine.

“Are you saying I was drugged by the Russians?” I ask, my mind racing with a million awful scenarios. What the hell have I really gotten myself into?

“I don’t think that boy was Russian,” Ray says, shaking his head. “Just another spoiled WASP.”

“What boy?”

“The boy who drugged you.”

My eyebrows furl against the pain pulsing behind my skull as I search my mind for any idea of what he’s talking about. Then, I see that blurry face that came to me earlier.

Soft-features tucked beneath a backwards baseball cap. It’s hard to remember any details, but I can still somehow remember the eyes.

Those eyes are what drew me to that boy. They were rich and dark, just like Ray’s eyes…

“Jonathan,” I remember out loud. That’s how he had introduced himself… I think. I’d already been three drinks deep by then.

“So, that’s what his name was,” Ray sighs. Without seeming to give it any thought, he takes the glass of water he had just poured for me and chugs it down for himself.

Even through the darkness, I can see his big Adam’s apple clench and throb as he downs my drink.

Maybe he isn’t trying to poison me, after all.

“What did you do to him?” I ask, already sure it was something horrible.

There’s little doubt in my mind that Ray works for the mafia. Now, the question is whether or not he works for my father.

I doubt it, though. My father hates the Irish with a burning passion.

“I killed him,” Ray says, wiping a trail of glistening water from his thick red lips.

He says it so casually that I could scream.