“You had your chance to walk out, and you didn’t take it. You should have taken it, doe.”
Even with her arms pinned above her head, she searches around her for a way to escape. “I know I should have. Yourpoorlittle meact really had me convinced. You manipulated me into feeling sorry for you. You didn’t really need me to save you, did you?”
I smile at her adorable question, and elicit from her a little shiver of fear. “Without your help, I think I would have walked out of here with a few more bruises. Maybe a bloody lip. But no, I didn’t need saving.” I lean closer and whisper in her ear, “But thank you, doe. I didn’t think there was anyone left in the world who cared enough to save my life.”
Despite her defiant eyes, she sucks in a shaky breath. “I don’t care about you. I don’t even know who you are.”
I doubt she knows my first name, but if she recognizes a Dervishi tattoo, then she knows that a raven tattoo means I’m a Vici. We’re the city’s assassins-for-hire; we’re fast, brutal, and leave no witnesses. My father commanded made men who are just as vicious as I am. The Vicis have always done the city’s dirty work. The powerful families hand over bags of cash and beg for our services. Whoever has the Vicis as allies can bring this city to its knees, which is why we all had to die. My father, the don. My brother and one of my cousins. Don Agnello didn’t have to kill my innocent mother and sister, but they died too, all wiped out in a hail of bullets on what was meant to be a happy day.
Ever since, my heart beats for one reason only.
Revenge.
“You saw the tattoo on my arm. I know you know who I am.”
“I don’t know you, I swear,” she whimpers.
“Liar,” I seethe, viciously clenching her wrists.
The young woman screams and struggles back and forth beneath me. She manages to get her hands free, and she beats my chest with closed fists. After whacks from the baseball bat, it feels like being pummeled by a kitten. The neon strip light catches her hair, all liquid gold and silk. Her mouth is so full and perfect, even while she’s screaming.
“Getoffme. I don’t know who you are. Idon’t. I didn’t even get a good look at your face. I want to go home.”
Her hips buck beneath me, and her sweatshirt rides up, exposing the soft, warm skin of her belly. A jolt of animalistic heat goes through me. It’s been a long time since I felt anything but howling grief and white-hot rage, and my reaction to this attractive young woman takes my breath away.
“Stop wriggling, doe,” I gasp, trying to keep hold of her without taking advantage of how exposed she is. “You’re giving parts of me I can’t control some very heated ideas.”
If Agnello Montoni hadn’t ripped my life apart, I’d be married by now. The mafia princess who’s so far out of a Vici’s league would be warming my bed. Adora Montoni. I never encountered her in Malus. We may have been neighbors, of a sort, but she’s seven years younger than me and moves in very different circles. I saw just one picture of my future bride before our engagement party. A formal, professional portrait that Dad texted me. She had golden hair piled on top of her head, diamonds in her ears, and she wore an elegant dress and immaculate makeup.
The woman pinned beneath me wears no makeup. She has no diamonds in her ears. She’s dressed in a pale blue hoodie and sweats, yet she’s all the lovelier for her simple appearance. Her lashes are dark, and her cheeks are flushed pink. An ordinary girl, but her beauty glows brighter than any spoiled princess.
She stares up at me in horror. “You’re getting off on this? There arebodiesright there. We’re both soaking in their blood.”
I track every detail. The flutter of her lashes, the pink of her flushed cheeks. “So? You’re the prettiest little savior I’ve ever laid eyes on.”
Her frantic wriggling stills. The terror drains from her eyes, leaving cold, hard fury in its place. “Don’t even think about it, you creep.”
I raise an eyebrow at her insult. “Got a death wish, doe? It sure seems that way to me.”
“Why do you keep calling me doe?”
I reach out and pick up the knife I dropped, and caress her cheek with the flat of the blade. She goes very still, and she follows the blade out of the corner of her eye. “Doe, as in Jane Doe, which is what your toe tag is going to say after the cops find your unidentifiable body in the morning.”
She whimpers, desperate for an escape. There is no escape for her, and no one is coming to save her. She seems to realize that for herself and wets her lips. “Wait, please. We can figure something out.”
A witness to a quadruple murder wants to make a bargain with me. This should be amusing.
After thinking for a moment, she blurts, “Listen, I know you don’t want to kill me, or you would have done it by now.”
“Is that so?” I say, amused.
The truth is, I’m living on borrowed time. I should have died six weeks ago with a coldhearted mafia bride standing over my bullet-ridden corpse. All I want is to live long enough to kill Don Agnello and his spiteful bitch of a daughter, and then I don’t care what happens to me. I have no idea what I’m still doing here on this laundromat floor. I should have either killed this witness or departed as soon as my assailants were dead, melting into the dark. Most likely the latter, because the slaughter of innocents has never appealed to me. This young woman is attractive and surprisingly courageous. I was impressed by the defiant way she talked to the Dervishis. No tremor in her voice, no looking away.
“I propose an exchange,” she continues, speaking rapidly. “I only came in here tonight to wash my sheets because my roommate threw up on them. I’m sure you have things you’d rather be doing, and the cops are probably on their way. We can both be out of here in less than one minute if you agree to myidea, and I think you should because you seem, well, lonely.” She looks pointedly down at my hips.
Confused, I follow her gaze, and I see what she feels. My hard-on is visible through my jeans, and it’s pushed tightly against her sex. A breath shudders over my lips as heat floods through me. I look up at her sharply, searching for disgust or fear in her eyes, but her expression holds neither.
I should end this, but I can’t remember the last time someone looked at me like I was a man instead of a monster.
