“Come on—” Ziggy starts.
I weave around him and pat the wall.
“It’s a kick plate,” the enforcer says after an embarrassing amount of time passes. “Bump the bottom right of the panel.”
The creepy secret passageway leads to a door. Behind that door is a stairwell with a fuckton of stairs, like at least four or five flights, and they only go one direction—down.
There’s another door at the bottom.
Once we’re through that, the space opens up, and the unfinished brick walls, concrete floor, and sour smell indicate that we’re in the basement. The long rectangular room has nothing else of note. There is, however, a large opening across from us, and noise spills out.
“This isn’t shady or anything,” Magnum says from behind me, keeping his voice low.
“Not at all,” I whisper back, taking off before I can stop myself. It wasn’t totally dark in Moretti’s secret passage, but it was dimly lit. Much brighter light spills from the room, and it takes my eyes a second to adjust as I stop dead in my tracks.
“Ay, your wife is here,” one of the men says. There are several of them, all standing around the plastic sheeting spread across the concrete floor.
Moretti has a guy on his knees.
The man’s hands are shackled to the floor with a circular ring and actual chains.
Moretti’s knee rests against the man’s back, and he’s choking him from behind.
Is that a garrote?
Nah, I think a garrote has to be wire.
That’s just a good old-fashioned piece of rope with the ends twisted around my husband’s hands.
“Uh, maybe we should go…” Magnum wraps his arm around my middle, pulling me backward.
“Darling,” Moretti says, continuing to choke out his prisoner. “Did you need something?”
Hawk shoves off the opposite wall and makes his way around the plastic sheet that takes up most of the floor.
My head swivels, and there are two more men on their knees over near the left wall. A couple of Moretti’s guys watch over them at gunpoint.
“Is this part of the club?” I ask, and I have no idea why those are the words that come out of my mouth.
“Technically? No. That passageway you came through connects to the building adjacent to the club, but I own all three in this row,” Moretti says, drawing my attention back to him. He has his suit coat off and the sleeves on his button-down rolled up. The veins on his forearms poke out as he tightens his hold, twisting the ends of the rope.
It’s kinda hot, and I don’t know how I feel about being attracted to him right now. It’s a gray area since I’m pretty sure he’s strangling that guy…to death.
“The cameras catch me entering the VIP section, providing an alibi that I never left, while I slip over to handle business,” he says calmly.
“That’s smart,” I admit, swiping Magnum’s hand off my middle. “What did he do to make it worth leaving me alone during our date?”
“I’ll be done in just one minute.” Moretti flashes me a dazzling smile. “Did you miss me?”
“What did he do?” I ask again.
If he wanted a wife to look pretty and provide alibis without asking questions, he could have had his pick of other women. He chose me, so he’d better get used to sharing details about how torun the family business. He’s mentioned wanting heirs multiple times.
I understand how this life works.
If anything happens to him, I need to know enough to protect our children until they come of age and step into their place, carrying on his family name.
“Stephen is responsible for a rash of break-ins in my territory,” Moretti says. “That was annoying, but it wouldn’t be enough cause for me to put him down. Unfortunately, his new strategy was to focus on the elderly.”
