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“Enough bullshit,” he snarls out, cutting me off, and the way he swings from cold to hot and back again chills me. “We’re not playing cops and robbers here. You’re dealing with people who would murder you, then go home and kiss their wife and kids before sitting down to dinner. It means nothing. They’re protecting what’s theirs, or don’t you understand that? You should, considering you’ve made it your business to meddle in ours.”
“I know all about your bullshit macho excuse for loyalty,” I fire back. “The so-called code you live by.”
“You don’t know the first thing. You’re still speaking in clichés, acting like the shit you’ve seen in the media is true. Let me clue you in. Consider it a free lesson. The sons of bitches have no honor. Alessandro Vitali? All he sees is what his, or what he thinks is his. You tried to get in the way of that. Therefore, you are the enemy. And you must die.”
“But I didn’t try to get in the way of it,” I argue, not understanding.
“Oh, right.” He laughs. “I’m sure the Vitali name had nothing to do with any of this. You have a hard-on for the name Santoro, and that’s it. Stop wasting your breath before I pull into the next parking lot and put that mouth to better use.”
I turn my face away, staring out the window rather than asking what use he’s referring to. To think, the night we met, I was so taken with him I might have gone ahead and let him use me the way he just hinted. As it is, there’s a telltale warmth between my thighs at the idea. Good thing he can’t tell, or I’d die of shame.
“Remember,” he mutters. “They think you were at the club that night to get intel on the business I was conducting before you were arrogant enough to get in the way. Don’t think about blaming me for that, either. You brought this on yourself, trying to be a hero, trying to single-handedly accomplish what hundreds of cops, detectives, Feds, lawyers, and more have failed at for years.”
I shiver at his words. The worst part is he’s not saying this to frighten me. He means it. I hear it in his flat, no-nonsense delivery.
“And what about your family?” I counter. “They won’t listen to reason?”
A growl rumbles in his chest, loud enough for me to hear. “Let me worry about my family. Don’t talk about things you don’t have the first idea of,” he warns, but it only spurs me on.
“I hit a sore spot, didn’t I?” I venture since, no matter how terrifying he is, part of me wants to push his buttons.
“Shut your fucking mouth,” he snaps before stepping down on the gas pedal and making the car leap forward, weaving back and forth between the cars around us until I have to close my eyes to keep myself from screaming.
This man won’t be satisfied until he’s broken my mind completely.
Don’t let him. Don’t give in.
I have no plans to, but then I didn’t plan to be kidnapped today, either. I sure as hell didn’t plan on negotiating for my life or wondering which breath would be my last. But I’m not going to whimper and cower, especially when I know how it turns him on when I do.
I felt the erection that began to stir when he had me up against the door. The way it twitched when he ran the muzzle of my own gun over my breasts, tracing my curves with steel instead of his fingers.
And only I know how repulsed I was by my reaction to it and shuddered not only in fear but in need. The memory stirs heat to life in my core, which sparks the heat of humiliation in my cheeks. It has to be the drugs in my system screwing with my head.
Is he only trying to protect me by dragging me from my home? Or is he saving me for something worse, something so awful it would make me wish he’d been a second later in pulling the trigger that saved my life? I can’t imagine a scenario where keeping me alive would be in his best interest, yet that seems to be his MO. He said he wants to be the one to settle the score. Why not kill me in the apartment, then?
I can barely keep my head up by the time we cross North Jersey and enter Pennsylvania. As hard as I try, there’s no stifling a yawn. I’ve hardly slept in days, I’m drugged, and the strain I have put on my adrenal glands today has me struggling to keep my eyes open.
He found that I was a detective while I was unconscious, at his mercy. How much worse can he do now if I fall asleep and let down my guard?
When I yawn again, he clicks his tongue in ridicule. “Go the fuck to sleep already,” he mutters. “Do you think I’ll slit that smooth throat of yours? Or maybe paint the inside of my Mercedes with your brains like I painted your bathroom? After all the trouble I went through today? For fuck’s sake.”
The memory of splattered blood running down my skin stirs nausea in my gut. “Pardon me if I don’t trust the homicidal maniac stalker who practically shoved me into a car at gunpoint.”
“Don’t exaggerate.” He sneers. “You’re the one who put a gun to my head, remember? And don’t think I’m going to forgive that. As far as I’m concerned, it goes on your tab.”
I’d ask what that’s supposed to mean, but I’m not sure I want to know. I settle for muttering, “I hope this makes you feel very big and important, talking to me that way.”
“I hope you know my ego isn’t so fragile that I would respond to your pitiful attempt at insulting it.” He slides a disparaging smirk my way. “You’re boring me. Take a nap. Get your head together.”
That’s the first reasonable thing he’s said so far. I need to get my head together. No, chipping at his ego isn’t going to be what saves my life and keeps me in one piece, unharmed by him.
But he has his weaknesses. He’s already revealed more than one, with me being the common denominator. My fear. His control over me. He gets off on it the way he got off on infiltrating my life. If I’m going to survive, I need to use his weakness against him, which means playing up my fear. That won’t take much acting skill. I’ll never forget how empty his eyes looked when they met mine moments after he committed murder.
How he felt… nothing.
“I think I will close my eyes,” I murmur, groaning as I shift my weight in the seat. “I should have laid down across the back, come to think of it. I’m in a lot of pain.”
“It won’t hurt when you’re asleep.”
