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My helpless little Emilia.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I whisper before savoring her soft, defeated groan.
9
EMILIA
I need to think.
My brain is foggy, and my reflexes are slow. I’m sitting in a car with a man I hate to the very depths of my soul. A man who has spent the past week toying with me, breaking into my home, and screwing with my head until I was on the verge of breaking down. A man with a gun in his lap, which he’s already used to get me moving down the stairs and out the door.
A man who kept me from being run over today.
A man who killed to prevent my death.
A man whose kiss has never been far from the forefront of my thoughts since the moment our lips met, and he set my body on fire.
What the hell is going on here?
His anger is thick enough to steal the air from inside the car as we pull away from the curb across the street from my building. All this time, he knew exactly where to find me. He could’ve killed me at any point. He didn’t. But I’ll be damned if I give him a gold star. This is not someone I can trust. A tiger could be raised in captivity and treated as a house cat, but that won’t make it gentle when its instincts kick in and it remembers it’s a predator.
And that’s who this man is. Someone who could shoot a stranger dead without flinching, like it was just another day at the office for him. That’s what happens when you don’t have a soul.
He has to know he may as well have signed his own death warrant when he pulled me from that apartment at gunpoint. There is no way there won’t be search parties formed once word spreads that I’m missing. With all his faults, Craig is still a solid detective. He’s bound to find something in that apartment that ties Luca to my disappearance.
Or am I only telling myself that?
Dammit, I need to think, but it’s like trying to wade through semi-set Jell-O. My thoughts are plodding. The panic that’s flooded my body and kicked off my fight-or-flight response isn’t helping them move any faster.
He took my gun.
Remembering the way his firm, tight body pinned me to the apartment door leaves me doubting I could beat him in hand-to-hand combat, especially when my hip and leg hurt like hell after nearly running down three flights of stairs without anyone’s help. I didn’t bring the pills with me, either.
I’m going to have to tough it out. That’s for the best, anyway. I can’t afford to be foggy around him after this. I need to stay sharp.
What do I know about him? I close my eyes, thinking back on what I’ve already learned. He’s the second son after Dante. He has a younger sister named Guilia. The family still lives together in the Santoro compound out on Long Island, with Dante and Luca staying in small cottages away from the main house. I’ve studied drone footage and looked over Google Earth images of the entire property.
What good is any of that going to do me now?
Luca was first arrested when he was seventeen for a shooting during a fight at a bar he was much too young to visit, but of course, the family lawyer managed to get the charges dropped. He sailed through the open doors of his jail cell that very day and never so much as stood before a judge. He’s been connected to countless disappearances between then and the time when his father placed him in charge of the club, which serves as the family’s last connection to legitimacy and likely serves as a money laundering front in the meantime.
He’s always gotten away with it. That’s what money can buy—a lack of consequences. This man has never dealt with repercussions in his life.
I guess now is as good a time as any to introduce him to the concept. All I need is the courage to stand up and fight, but right now, my courage might as well be up on the moon. Panic and dread are the dominant forces pumping blood through my veins hard enough that the sound drums in my ears.
“Are you taking me to your house?” I ask as the world moves by in a blur. I’d push out the door if he weren’t controlling the locks from his door. Jumping from a moving vehicle doesn’t sound like a good time, but I’m as good as dead if I stay with him.
He blurts out a laugh. “Right. I’m sure everyone in my family would be thrilled to meet you.”
Because they’re such a great group of lovely people. My tongue hurts from all the biting I’m putting it through. “All you have to do is tell them I’m not a spy.”
“Again, Detective.” God, I hate the way he says that like it’s a bad word, something to be ashamed of. “The only way I could remotely prove you have nothing to do with the Vitali is to announce your job title. That would not do you any favors. Even then, you could be on the take. Though if any of them took a look at that apartment of yours, they’d soon change their minds.”
“You must not have much influence in your family, then, if you can’t convince them,” I taunt.
“Nice try.” He gives me a filthy look before snickering and turning his gaze toward the road. “You’re wasting your time trying to get into my head.”
Dammit. I pushed too hard. “I wasn’t trying to—”
