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He stands like a dark shadow in the door, his eyes blazing with fury even as his face remains still as a pond. His arms are stretched out before him, pointing a pistol at Roy, his body pulled tight as if he’s ready to act the instant he needs to. He exudes the graceful power of a predator, and I’ve never been happier to see him.
“Who the fuck are you?” Roy spits, swaying on his feet as he looks past the gun pointed at his face.
Santino doesn’t look away from his target as he calmly says, “Renee, are you alright?”
I nod at him shakily, edging away from Roy to put space between us. “I’m okay.”
“Good, I want you to leave the room and go sit in my car. There’s someone waiting for you to keep you safe while I take care of some business.”
“What are you going to do with him?” I ask as clamber to my feet.
“That’s for him to decide,” he answers, his tone eerily neutral.
He doesn’t look at me once, even as I brush past him and stumble out to his car. For some reason, that doesn’t worry me or make me feel like I’m not worth his attention. It’s clear he’s focused, almost as if he’s in his element.
I don’t bother taking a last look at Roy. Whatever is about to happen, he honestly has coming to him. I don’t think Santino’s about to hurt him—Roy’s too much of a coward to put his own skin on the line—but if he does, I can’t say I’ll be sorry.
I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.
Right now, I don’t really care. I just want out. I just want to go the rest of my life without ever seeing him again.
***
The man waiting for me in Santino’s car is named Marco, and he’s good at looking the other way as I cry quietly in the back seat. At one point, he leans over the center console from the driver’s seat and hands me a box of tissues.
“Don’t worry about Santino, alright?” he says. “He’s the best in the business.”
Before I can ask him what he means, the car’s door locks click, and one of the back seat passenger doors swings open. Santino slides in, looking cool as a cucumber as he barks “Drive” at Marco. The car starts and peels out onto the road as Santino pulls out his phone and starts typing something.
No one speaks until we’re a few blocks down the road from the motel.
“How’d it go?” Marco asks casually, glancing through the rearview mirror at us.
“As expected,” Santino sighs. He gives away nothing of what happens otherwise, but Marco accepts his answer with a nod.
“Did you …” My words die in my throat as I contemplate what he means by “as expected.” As much as I would like to think that Santino isn’t a bad man, I don’t truly know if that’s the case. He had a gun, and Marco said he was “the best in the business,” whatever that means.
“We’ll talk about it once I’ve gotten you somewhere safe,” he assures me, his voice finally softening a little. “We have a lot to talk about, sweetheart.”
At that, I don’t ask any more questions. I trust him when he says we’ll talk about it, hard as that is to believe. I don’t have any good reasons to trust him, but the fact of the matter is that he’s been there for me right when I need him, not just once but twice over the past two days.
It’s only when we’re inside his penthouse that I feel like I can breathe again.
Before I can speak, Santino does. “Why did you leave this morning?”
I can feel his eyes on me as I put space between us. I need to think clearly, and I can’t do that if he gets close. Even in the car, his presence had my heart racing and lust building in my veins. If we’re going to talk, I want to do it as objectively as I can.
“I found something in your office,” I start. “I panicked. I needed space.”
Santino nods as he prowls closer, his jaw so tight that once of his muscles is twitching. “You weren’t supposed to be in there.”
“It’s not like you forbid me.”
“True. I just thought you had more common sense than that.”
I stifle an incredulous laugh. “And was it not common sense to leave when I found out you’d been looking into me?”
“That’s a good point, little girl,” he smirks at me, his voice scarcely more than a purr. More than ever, he seems like a beast on the hunt. That’s when I realize I might be his prey—why am I so okay with that? “So, does that mean I should punish you? Or praise you?”
