Terror gripped me as the scratching stopped only to be replaced by something opening my window.
A gust of wind hit me full force.
I was going to die if I didn’t find that bat and make a run for it.
Finally, my fingers grabbed onto it, with a yell, I waved it in the air and ran for the door.
A figure dressed in all black chased after me.
A leather-gloved hand pressed over my mouth covering my scream.
I smacked the bat behind me, coming into contact with the intruder’s body, and kept hitting until the door burst open.
The intruder stumbled backward and dodged for the window.
“I don’t think so.” Sergio grabbed the guy by the back of his shirt and tossed him against the door. He stumbled backward.
A black mask covered his face and mouth, even his eyes were blacked out.
Sergio stretched his neck, and it cracked before he exhaled then took his time to approach the guy before kicking him in the side.
I could have sworn I heard the sound of bone cracking.
Terrified, I stumbled back to my bed, trying to get as far away from them as possible, but my legs tangled in the sheets, trapping me in place.
Crack.
Another sound came from the man’s body as Sergio kept kicking him.
And then he leaned down and pulled the mask off the guy’s face.
The man spat at Sergio.
Sergio uttered, “Bad choice,” before punching the guy across the jaw, blood spewed everywhere. It was nothing like I’d seen on TV.
It was messier.
And loud.
So
loud.
I could hear the guy bruising, breaking, the metallic smell of blood filled the room as Frank burst through the door followed by my uncles and finally Dante.
“Recognize him?” Sergio asked in a detached voice.
“No,” Frank said. “You?”
Sergio shook his head.
Sal, Papi, and Gio exchanged concerned looks before the man grabbed a knife and surged toward Frank.
Sergio was on him in seconds, using the guy’s own knife against him and stabbing him in the throat, then with a quick movement of his hands, snapping his neck in half.
He fell to the floor in a bloody heap.
And that’s when I started screaming.
With a curse, Dante was at my side, pulling me into his arms, but I didn’t want Dante. He wasn’t my comforter anymore. I might as well have been hugging a wall instead of my twin.
I didn’t know who I wanted.
No one?
Maybe I just needed to be alone.
I was able to suck in a deep breath and stop screaming, which was good, because the only thing scarier than someone else’s scream — is hearing your own but not registering that it’s your voice until a few minutes later.
“Shh, Val it’s okay, you’re safe.” Dante whispered reaching for my body again.
“Clearly!” Who was that yelling? Not me. I never yelled. I wasn’t the type. But there I was, losing my mind! “Was I safe ten minutes ago?”
Nobody would look at me in the eyes.
“How did you guys even hear him come in?”
Again no eye contact.
“I was worried,” Sergio whispered. “There have been a few veiled threats so I was coming by to double check your window when—”
“—you saved my life,” I finished for him, unwilling to break the stare down we both had going on.
He didn’t nod or even acknowledge the fact that he’d just done something so heroic.
Not that snapping a man’s neck won him a medal or anything.
Which brought on a whole different issue.
I started to hyperventilate. “What about the police? We need to call the cops and—”
Frank laughed. My uncle actually laughed at me and then sobered. “Sorry, it’s been a while since I’ve been around someone outside of the Family. We do not need cops.”
“But.” I frowned. “You have to report a crime.”
“There was no crime,” Frank said in a smooth voice. “Tomorrow they will find his burned body in a car along with several murder weapons that tie him into a drug dealer of our choice and, to add to the effect, I’ll toss in a few bags of cocaine.”
“C-cocaine,” I whispered. “You have drugs?”
Again silence.
“Right.” I nodded. “I um…” I was mumbling again, I moved past every man in the room on lead filled legs and kept on walking. I remember touching the stairs because my naked feet were cold against the hardwood.
I went to the kitchen but everything was… foreign.
So I walked from the kitchen into the living room and sat Indian style in front of the fire, pulling my knees up to my chest, as if that was going to make the fact that Sergio had just snapped someone’s neck in half okay.
As if it would make the whole idea that there were drugs and no cops and happy accidents where murder was blamed on others… okay.
I had no idea how long I stared into the flames of the fire. It was long enough for the log to turn to char, long enough to feel the first bit of a chill inching into my bones.
“Get up.”
“What?” I shook my head then turned around. Sergio was towering over me, his face indifferent. “Are you serious right now?”
“Get. Off. Your. Ass.”
Terrified, I scrambled to my feet then was so overrun with anger at the situation, I slapped him across the face.
Which of course meant he was going to kill me, right?
Gasping, I stumbled backward.
Only, Sergio burst out laughing.
Hard.
Irritated, I lunged for him again, but this time he caught my wrists with his hands and set me aside. “Good to know that you won’t back down in a fight.”
“I…” Embarrassed, I looked down. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he whispered. “Do it again.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What?”
“Hit me.”
“I’m not going to hit you.”
“You’re a spoiled rotten little child, who’s a danger to herself and should be given her own curfew along with a glass of juice every damn night. Slap me.”
So I did.
He winced, then took a step back and rubbed his jaw, his fingertips tapping against the spot I’d just hit. “That’s good.”
“You were mean.”
“I’m always mean.”
Man had a point.
“Slapping is fine for girls.” Sergio crossed his arms. “But we need to teach you how to escape. Had I been two minutes later, had I hesitated and gone to the bathroom, grabbed a glass of water, answered my phone — we wouldn’t be having this conversation. So I’m going to teach you how to survive, and you’re not going to bitch about it, and you sure as hell aren’t going to cry. Got it?”
There was something terrifying about the way he spoke to me, about how he was able to get under my skin, but made it seem like the most normal thing in my world.
He made violence look easy.
He made it appear necessary.
He made me believe I needed it.
“Okay.” I nodded probably five times, trying to convince myself that agreeing with a guy who, about ten minutes ago, was snapping a dude’s neck, was a stellar idea.
“I’m going to come at you.” Sergio held out his hands. “I want you to fight me off. I don’t want you to worry about hurting me, believe me when I say, I’ve had the worst of the worst, so…” His smile mocked me. “Do your worst, little girl.”
He’d just called me “little girl.”
I wanted to stab him in the throat.
AH! Stupid effing mafia.
I couldn’t even say more than effing.
It made me blush.
If I had trouble
cursing
in my head, how was I supposed to attack… that?
I choked on my spit, trying to swallow and take a breath at the same time, then waited while he charged me.
His muscled arms grabbed my body, pinning mine to the side.
All I had were my legs.
So I stomped on his feet.
He didn’t even move.
So I kneed him in the balls. He dropped like a stone, his face stark white as a garbled sound squeaked past his tightly drawn lips.
Breath whooshed out as he made a gargled sound then yelled, “Fucking hell!” He touched his face. “What was that for?”
“You said you’ve had the worst of the worst!” I shot back. “And that I needed to escape!”
A pained laugh escaped. “I deserved that, I think.”
“You did.” I smiled proudly.
“Help me up?”
I took his outstretched hand, only to have him tug me down the floor and as he stretched out on top of me and whispered. “Survive.”
“That was a mean trick.”
“Necessary,” he murmured. “Because the minute I was down, you should have run like hell.”
“Oh, good idea. I’ll just run back upstairs to the room with the
body
in it! That seems like a really poor life choice.”
“It’s dead.” His eyes did that weird searching thing as he gazed down at me. “What could it possibly do to you?”
“Well…” I licked my lips. “Turn into a cocaine addicted zombie?”
“Nice imagination there, Val. Is it going to force you to do drugs too?”
“Yes,” I stammered. “And I listened in school during the drug talk thank you very much.”
“I bet you did.” He seemed to find humor in that as his lips twitched. “Straight A’s? And let me guess, you got one of those shiny certificates they give out for having perfect attendance.”
My cheeks burned.
“You’re blushing,” he pointed out. “So it must be true.”
I said nothing. What was there to say? He seemed to know everything already.
“Did you even go to prom?” He picked and prodded at every insecurity I had — swear.
“Can you get off of me now?”
I wasn’t sure what I’d said but he suddenly looked horrified and then smug.
“What? Why are you giving me that funny look?”
“Was I your first kiss?”
“Sergio.” I kept my voice firm. “You’re literally crushing my body right now.”
He lifted his weight off but kept me pinned, straddling me and then slowly moved his hands to my face as he tilted my chin toward him. “Answer.”
“I’ve never met someone so demanding in my entire life. And I live with three overprotective uncles and a twin.”
“Just answer the question, Val.”
I wanted to look away but his gaze held me. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” he prompted.
“Yes,” I yelled. “All right? You were my first kiss. And now that my humiliation is complete I’d REALLY like to sleep on the couch and try to forget the fact that you probably still have blood on your hands.
“Washed,” he answered gruffly, and when I gave him a doubtful look he pulled one hand up and showed me. “I know how to get blood off my hands.”
“Well if that isn’t the most uncomforting statement…”
“How was it?” He licked his lips again, this time leaning in.
“Bloody.” I refused to suffer more humiliation.
“Val,” he said my name slowly, drawing it out, like he wanted to say it, like I wanted to hear a man say it. Which was so stupid, but when you’re in the moment, when you have over two hundred pounds of muscle straddling you, and looking at you, not through you, how are you supposed to respond? It’s not like I could swoon, I was already lying down and I wasn’t the type, I was more terrified of him than I was attracted.
Mostly.
His blue eyes flashed.
Okay, so not mostly.
But he was violent.
Snapped a man’s neck, snapped… a… man’s… neck!
His hand moved from my chin to my hair and then to the back of my head as he gently pulled me until we were about a half an inch away from tasting one another. “I can do better.”
“Don’t,” I whispered.
He jerked back a bit. “Don’t kiss you?”
“Please.” I was ready to plead with him, like he held my life in the palm of his hand, when really, it was just my heart, but just as important to a girl who needed to build a fortress of concrete and locks around it. “Don’t toy with me.”
“Kissing is just kissing.” He didn’t believe a word that came out of his mouth. I knew it, he knew it.
“Not for me,” I said urgently. “Please, Sergio, please get off of me. I’m tired.”
Surprisingly, he moved off of me and helped me to my feet, but the minute I tried to go back up the stairs he tugged me back. “You’re stuck with me tonight. Don’t worry I’ll sleep on the floor, Frank has a cleanup crew coming in a few minutes, so it looks like I should add another few logs to the fire. You take the couch.”
“But—”
“For once in your life, try not arguing when someone is doing everything in their power to keep you safe, yes?”
“Yes.” Properly scolded, I grabbed the afghan from the chair and wrapped my body in it like a little mummy then lay down on the couch.
Watching him stoke the fire was probably a bad idea, a very bad idea, because the outline of his body in the firelight was beautiful.
It made a girl want to throw caution to the wind.
He was going to be my husband.
And the sucky part.
He would never actually be mine.
“Stop sighing,” he said without turning around. “It’s stressing me out.”
“You? Stressed?”
“Me,” he said in a clipped voice. “Stressed. I am human you know.”
“Hmm.”
“What? No snarky comment?” Another log was tossed onto the fire sending sparks flying into the air. “Nothing?”
“You can kill someone in less than one point two seconds.” I shivered.
“You counted?”
“Not the point.” I turned on my back so I’d stop staring at him like some freak. “The point is, maybe I should learn not to poke the ninja bear.”
“Ninja bear?” he repeated. “I think you can come up with a more bad ass name than Ninja bear.”
“Nope, Ninja bear it is.” I felt somewhat satisfied that his nickname bothered him. “Goodnight.”
“Val?”
“Yes?”
The crackling of the fire was starting to grate on my nerves only because it made me more tense. My body was going to be sore from all of the tightening of my muscles on that stupid couch.
Well, that and the fact I probably had a Sergio sized bruise on my front side from him lying across me.
“Don’t be scared.”
“I won’t.” My answer was quick, swift, because at least I knew that if it came down to me or some random guy who broke into our house, he’d choose me, every time.
And then a thought occurred.