I am wet.
Maybe it’s survival, but I don’t think it is. For months, this current of tension has arced between us, shattering my defenses. With every rough command and inappropriate remark, he’s nourished the most neglected parts of me.
As I close my eyes, my mind runs wild with the possibilities of how this might play out. Visions of him pushing me to my knees, unzipping his pants, and using my mouth. Bending me over a chair, pressing me against the building, fucking me all over this garden until he’s purged this obsessive need inside him…
Dio mio.
There’s something seriously wrong with me.
I shake myself out of it and start to pivot, but he jerks me back. My spine collides with his chest and the rigid heat of his cock.
Jesus, he’s huge.
“Thinking about all the ways you want to be wrecked,principessa?” His words brush against my ear and cascade down my body, settling between my thighs.
“By you?” I counter. “Only in my nightmares.”
He fists my hair and tips my head back, a primal growl vibrating against me as he breathes me in. Then he lets out a low exhale of frustration and releases me like I’ve managed to piss him off just by existing.
For a second, I think maybe he’ll leave. But that thought dies when he slips a black bag over my head, obscuring my vision.
All I can manage is a resigned sigh. After the day I’ve had, I’m not even surprised that I can add getting abducted to the list of things that went wrong.
He lifts me off the ground and tosses me over his shoulder, heaving a breath from my lungs at the impact. There isn’t an ounce of gentility in his bruising grip around my thighs or the warning he gives me when he smacks my ass.
“Be a good girl, and maybe I’ll be nice to you.”
Somehow, I doubt that.
He stalks through the garden, and after a moment, the faint sound of additional footsteps drawing closer makes me wonder if it might be Eugene or Tony. But if I can hear it, so can my stalker, and he doesn’t seem fazed in the slightest—which means it’s not likely to be a threat.
The realization that he might not be alone snaps me back to reality. This man has a motivation, and it can’t just be an obsession with me. The most reasonable conclusion is that he’s an enemy—someone who could benefit from my kidnapping. Anyone my father has wronged, enemies of the Vitales, and particularly the Stavros family, are all sound assumptions. Truthfully, the rivals of theCosa Nostraare far and wide, and it could be anyone.
The shadow of this exact scenario has followed me for the entirety of my existence. I’ve always known it might happen. I was told as much so many times that it became a foregone conclusion. Perhaps that’s why I feel oddly numb. Or maybe it was the whispered reassurances of my mother, who told me they’d return me once Papà fulfilled their demands. Except, he won’t.
My life isn’t worth much to him.
A cool breeze sweeps over us as he hauls me off, unlocking a new fear I haven’t yet considered. An image springs to mind—one of him tossing me over the railing to plummet to my death.
In a moment of bravery or stupidity, I thrust a knee into his chest and try to wiggle free. An irritated grunt catches in hislungs before his giant palm collides with my ass in a stinging slap. This time, I yelp.
That’s definitely going to leave an imprint.
“What did I tell you?” His rough words heat my blood, temporarily disorienting me.
“I—”
A protest lodges in my throat when I’m lowered onto a chair. I don’t know what his plans are, but there’s no point in abandoning myself to an emotional outburst. I learned long ago that would get me nowhere, with the harshest lessons being from my father. Anything but neutrality is a sign of weakness, and I learned to dissociate out of necessity.
Taking a Mafia princess hostage is a power play, but these men don’t know me. They’ll expect easy tears. They’ll probably try to break me in unimaginable ways. The only variable I can control in this situation is depriving them of the satisfaction. So, as I wait for what comes next, I invest my energy where it matters, which is figuring out who I’m dealing with. Off the top of my head, I can think of at least ten of the most likely culprits.
“Ares Stavros?” I offer up my first guess.
My question is met with a hollow laugh.
“Any of the Stavros brothers?”
That goes unanswered entirely.
