When the door clicks shut behind me, I realize the men are gone and it’s just me and this "boss" they brought me to.
"Where am I? Who are you? I want to go home." My voice sounds a little more defiant now. He has no gun, no angry glare, and he's smiling at me as he sips his drink.
"I," he says, moving gracefully toward his couch where he nods at me in a gesture, "am Raphaelos Ferretti, but you may call me Rafe. Please, sit."
I'm feeling a bit more at ease, but there's a lingering unease in my gut as I walk around the sofa and sink onto the cushion at the opposite end from where he parks himself. He's charming, watching my every step, but it's also disarming me. I can feel him taking down my defenses simply because he's a good-looking man, and it scares me.
"Did you get that dead body out of my trunk?" Being a child about this and letting him manipulate my emotions just because he's hot is stupid. I find my edge and dig into it. "Because this is illegal, you know?" I almost wince at how stupid that sounds. Of course he knows. He's not surprised by the dead body in my trunk. He does way worse things than threaten single women by kidnapping them.
"I assure you that you're perfectly safe here, Riley. Try to relax."
"Relax?" I scoff, then I drop my bag and stand to my feet in a huff. "You want me to relax? Then explain why your dead friend was in my trunk and where the hell I am! I have things to do. You can't just keep me here."
As if I've flipped a switch and opened a portal to hell itself, his eyes go as black as sin and narrow as he says, "Sit. Down. Ms. Maddox." When his tongue flicks out over his bottom lip, I shudder. "I'm sure your sister's wedding will be a flop without abride, and if you aren't careful to do exactly as I say, I'll make sure Mr. Hargrove is a widower before he even says I do."
The cold dread that grips me makes my knees buckle and I sit back down, this time scared shitless. They know more about me than I thought, and I don't know what to do next. If they hurt Lila, I'll never forgive myself.
"Good girl," he purrs, and I already know I'm going to do whatever he wants. If for no other reason than I can't let him hurt my sister.
4
RAFE
Riley sits on the edge of my couch now, gripping the duffel bag in her lap as if it's the only thing tethering her to reality. Her eyes track every movement I make, and I can see the way her shoulders tense whenever I shift in my seat. She's keeping her back to the far wall, her gaze flicking between me and the doors that lead out of the room. She realizes she's a cornered mouse and the cat is ready to pounce.
I take another sip of my drink and watch her over the rim of the glass. She's holding herself together better than I expected. Most people would be sobbing by now, begging for mercy, promising to do whatever I ask if I'd just let them go. But Riley's not about to beg. She's letting rage cover that primal fear. I can see it in the way her jaw tightens, in the way her fingers dig into the fabric of her bag. She's furious, and she's using that fury to keep the terror at bay.
I respect that.
"How long are you planning to keep me here?" Her voice is steady, but there's a tremor underneath it that she can't quite hide.
"That depends on you." I set my glass down on the table beside me and lean back, crossing one ankle over my knee. "How cooperative you are will determine how long this takes."
"Cooperative." She scoffs and shakes her head. "You kidnapped me. You threatened my sister. And now you want me to cooperate?"
"Yes."
Her eyes flash with anger, and for a moment I think she might lunge at me. But she doesn't. She stays seated, her knuckles white where they grip the bag. "What do you want from me?"
"Information," I say, "and your skills."
"My skills?" She stares at me as if I've lost my mind, with narrowed eyes and a scrunched forehead. "I'm a bank teller. What could you possibly need from me?"
"You work with numbers. You understand financial records. And you have access to records and systems I may need." I pause, letting that sink in. "The man in your trunk kept records for me. Handwritten ledgers, coded entries, cross-references that only he understood. He's dead now, and I need someone who can decipher his work and finish what he started as soon as we find his ledger."
Riley's face pales. "You want me to help you with whatever illegal thing he was doing?"
"Yes."
"No." She shakes her head, her voice rising. "No, no, no, no!" She shakes her head and glares at me. "Absolutely not. I'm not gonna help you launder money or hide transactions or whatever the hell it is you do. I don't care what you threaten me with. I'm not doing it."
I study her for a moment with amusement. She thinks she gets a choice in this and I find it sweet. Her defiance is easy when she's still holding onto hope. The trick is to take that hope away slowly, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but compliance.
"Tell me about your family," I say. Then I roll my glass around and sip the whiskey from it slowly. Nothing she can say will surprise me. I've spent the last hour searching for every shred of detail about her life that's public, and I have more men working to dig up things she doesn't want anyone to know.
Her expression shifts, confusion replacing the anger. "What?"
"Your family. Your sister. The wedding. Tell me about them."
