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Bloodyhell.
“The doc left all the supplies in my room,” Freya said right before she turned away and headed back through the doorway from which she’d come.
I followed her into the room and felt at once like I’d stepped into some strange realm where all periods of history merged together. Old-fashioned clocks, antique furniture, curio cabinets filled with knickknacks that most certainly had not come from this era.
Freya sat down at the edge of the ornately carved Victorian bed and motioned to the collection of modern medical paraphernalia laid out on an antique bedside table.
I perched next to her, pulled on a pair of gloves from the box on the table, and unwound her dressing. But as the gauze fell away and I loosened the bandage, revealing the wound beneath, I gasped.
The wound ran through the anterior aspect, through the deltoid muscle. I adjusted her arm carefully and discovered a corresponding wound. An exit wound.
“This is a gunshot wound,” I said, staring at the evidence but finding it difficult to believe. “You were shot?”
She shrugged, then grimaced at the movement. “It’s not all that bad, really. It’s kind of nice not to be the only one around here without any war wounds.”
“That’s my problem too; not enough bullet holes,” I joked. I actually joked. About a gunshot wound.
Freya laughed, but then sobered quickly. “So, how did you meet my brother?” she asked as I split my attention between applying a new bandage and watching her lips.
“He kidnapped me,” I said, wondering if that would catch her off-guard as easily as her bullet wound had caught me.
Her eyes widened, and her lips parted.
“I was locked in Amadeo’s room until a few minutes ago when a woman named Greta gave me the option of leaving.”
I secured the bandage and began wrapping it in fresh gauze.
Freya’s eyes returned to normal. “Well, if Greta says it’s all right, then no worries.”
That was it? “I was under the impression most… families like yours were patriarchal.”
She smiled. “My father is definitely the boss of the Luciano family. Greta’s kind of the boss of… well, everyone.”
That wasn’t as difficult to believe as it should have been. The woman’s presence had certainly commanded attention.
I finished with the gauze wrapping and pulled off the gloves, depositing them in the small rubbish bin next to the bed.
“Grazie, Heidi,” she said, the appreciation on her face so genuine it was difficult to reconcile it with the face of a criminal.
“I think I should be going,” I said as I stood and took a few backwards steps toward the door.
Freya shrugged. “Of course. But, Heidi?” She swung her legs up onto her bed, probably trying to appear as non-confrontational as possible. “If Deo brought you here, there was a good reason for it. I wouldn’t take that lightly if I were you.”
“So I’ve been told.”
I turned then and left the room before she could say anything further, shutting the door behind me.
The moment I stepped out into the hallway, though, the front door opened. Amadeo walked in with the big, bald man beside him.
I should have run, maybe back into Freya’s room, but I just stood there, staring down the stairs at him. He wore a scowl on his face, deep in conversation with the man next to him, but like he sensed me there, he looked up, finding me unerringly, and the scowl vanished. He stopped talking.
His eyes met mine, and without breaking eye contact, he left the big, bald man and started up the stairs toward me.
Every fiber of my being wanted to run, but what I saw in my mind was not a terrified, frantic escape attempt. I saw him running after me. Catching me. Slamming me back against his hard body. I imagined his muscular arms wrapped around me, pinning my arms to my sides. The hard length of his erection digging into the small of my back. He’d be rough when he took me, maybe right here in the hallway.
I blinked. My heart was beating faster and my whole body felt warm, my clothes suddenly tight and constricting and my clit pulsing with blatant need. Where the bloody hell had that come from?
He’d reached the top of the stairs by the time I’d gotten my wits about me—or at least some semblance of them.
