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I came quietly enough, so there wouldn’t be a commotion outside Dad’s bakery. But I’m not about to take this lying down. A whole range of insults and objections flies into my mind as I hear his voice, and whip around, ready to unleash them –
And stop.
For some reason, the words die on my lips. I don’t know what I was expecting – some grey-haired, fat old man with greasy fingers and a cigar in his mouth? I’ve never seen the boss of the Lucio family, but by the way, the men behind me refer to him, this is Tommy. I wasn’t expecting him to be so… young.
Well, young is a relative term. He’s still a lot older than me. I don’t know by how much, exactly. But he’s hot – much hotter than I thought he would be. So hot that he looks like he could be a model. Dark hair swept back from a smooth and angular face, which doesn’t look hard or arrogant as I would have supposed it might. He looks – well, a little like I feel taken aback. Was he not expecting me?
He moves suddenly, letting go of the railing of the balcony and walking to the side, down a curving staircase that connects the two levels. There’s one on either side, no doubt intended to make a grand impression. I refuse to be impressed – or at least, I try to.
But while the building might be fading away in my estimation, the man coming down the staircase does not. Without the railing, in the way, I can see the sharp black suit and tie he wears, seemingly molded perfectly to his body. He’s tall, and his body appears well-muscled even through his clothes, his arms, and shoulders thick as well as his thighs.
I can’t help but be impressed, at least, by the cut of the suit.
“Carina Bianco,” he says, almost as if he’s not quite sure.
“Yeah, boss, like we said,” one of the men who took me says.
“Thank you, Enzo,” Tommy says, seeming to snap to attention as if he’s just woken up. “Good work, both of you.”
“What should we do with her now, boss?” the other one asks.
Tommy tilts his head back a little and gives me an appraising look. It makes me feel like a horse being bought at an auction. His gaze travels over me, down my face, and over my body –
And now I don’t feel like a horse at all. I feel like this is something different. I feel like… a woman, being checked out by a man. In spite of myself, I shiver. This is stupid. How can I think that the man who intimidated my father, wants to take all of his money, and even had me kidnapped, is hot? I need to get a grip.
“Follow me,” he says, turning sharply to go back up the stairs again.
“Wait,” I protest, as Enzo shoves me from behind – not so hard that I’d fall, but hard enough to make me move after Tommy. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Follow, and you’ll find out,” Tommy says, casting the words carelessly over his shoulder as he climbs up above me.
“No,” I say, suddenly frozen with fear. Everything about this situation just became very real. The three men around me, each of them far stronger than I am. This isolated house, on the edge of the city, set in an estate of its own grounds, hard to escape. The fact that my Dad will be too scared to call the police and report that I’ve been taken. “What do you want from me?”
The men push me forward again, and I find myself being propelled up the stairs, unable to resist. One hand on the flat of my back is all it takes, forcing me forward until I have to take a step or fall.
“I want your father’s money,” Tommy says, mildly. We reach the top of the stairs and he leads us along a hall, away into a wing so that we can no longer look down on the entrance hall, past what seems to be endless identical doors. He stops in front of one and opens it, and walks inside, and I have no choice but to follow.
Inside is a lavishly decorated bedroom that looks unused, everything in black satin or velvet, matched by dark wood furniture. It looks like it suits Tommy exactly, and I have no doubt about who was in charge of decorating it.
Enzo and his colleague shove me into the center of the room, and this time I nearly fall flat on my face. I have to reach out to stop myself, and my hands grasp onto the nearest thing for support. As I right myself, I realize with burning cheeks that that nearest thing happened to be Tommy. I release my handful of his suit jacket and step back, glancing around. He doesn’t even move, just watches me passively, dispassionately.
