Authors: Courtney Lane
“I don’t know how much simpler I can make the answer to your question.”
“Try.”
“You.”
“Sexually?”
He rolled his eyes to the ceiling and chuckled. “Why do you constantly return to sex? Do you really think I would go through all of this just to keep you here and fuck you on a daily basis? That’s a benefit, not my sole purpose.” He jerked my chin up to regard him. “You haven’t stopped thinking about it—what I made you feel in the hotel room. The appetizer for the full meal has you pining for more.” He swiped his thumb across the corner of my mouth. “Someday, I’ll feed you more than you can handle.”
Throwing my arms across my chest and shifting my feet underneath me, I receded deeper into the bed. “Despite what you did for me and the amazing thing you did for Darren, right now we’re not anything close to friends. My cup is pretty full up on crazy people.”
His grin turned wolfish as though he was ready to exploit the victim he trapped with poisoned bait. I mentally berated myself to prevent falling into his cunning and beautiful trap. “You’ll find I have a very contagious way about me.”
“What makes you think I’ll stay here and comply? That I won’t try to run again?”
He grabbed my thighs and tugged me down toward the edge of the bed. I fought to keep my skirt down during the act and missed the opportunity to push him away. He slid a hand into his back pocket and pulled out his cell phone. My mouth opened to speak. He prevented my protest, placing a finger to my lips.
I jerked back, hating the feeling evoked when he touched any part of me.
Showing the screen of his cell phone on the cusp of a freeze frame, he revealed what was on it.
I stood before my legs were ready to endure the weight. Crashing into his body, I almost fell to my knees on the floor.
It’s Deana, my half-sister.
He wrapped one arm around me, embracing my energy-drained body. He held the phone within my view and tapped the screen to play the video:
“Please,” Deana begged, her words muffled, “what do you want from me?” She was tied to a chair in a dark and dilapidated room. A lone spotlight shone on her face. Blood decorated pieces of her features and the upper portion of her shirt. A strap of cloth was tied around her head and planted between her lips but still allowed her to speak. “I’ll do anything you want,” she pleaded. “Please, let me go.”
“You son of a bitch,” I muttered, balling my hands in anger. “I was already skeptical. I should’ve known better. You think you know about me? Is that why you came to a place way out of your way to get cigarettes you could’ve gotten anywhere? Do you know what Michael is going to do to you when he finds out you have his only daughter? She’s his pride and fucking joy. He would die for her.”
“His
only
daughter?” An eye narrowed as he looked down his nose at me.
I tried to move his arms from around me; the man was like a rock when he didn’t want to move. The muscles in his arms flexed and tensed, strengthening his hold on me. “Why help Darren, then take Deana? If you did this because you thought it would affect me—it doesn’t make any sense.”
“Apples and broccoli,” he said as though I was supposed to understand. “It makes sense when you are looking at it from the right perspective.”
“You mean apples and oranges?”
“It’s an incorrect way to compare. Both are fruit with similar tastes. What I’m referring to has nothing in common with the other.”
“I…don’t understand.”
His eyes glistened with a secret knowledge he wouldn’t share, making him appear a bit more smug. He scanned my face as though he was in search of an emotion he couldn’t find. “Why are you putting on an act as though you lack feelings for her?”
“I’m not. I don’t really know her.”
Inexpressive eyes and a strangled grin greeted me at once. “I’m losing track of your lies, Sugar.”
I rolled my neck and cracked my knuckles, trying to distract him with my erratic movements and not let onto my confusion. “You…knew I was connected to Deana before you met me?”
He ran his finger across the screen and showed a picture of me with Deana during the costume party in August. The connection and the reason he had the picture had begun to come together. I wondered if the woman in the bath was one of the women who was declared missing from the “family.” If true, I was staring down the face of a man who had a vendetta against the syndicate, and wanted me and Deana to be his next targets.
I had to find some way to save her. Fast.
“How much do you think you know about me?” I questioned.
“A good player never reveals his strategy by disclosing what he knows about his opponent,” Catch replied. “He only gives a glimpse, be it false or true, to whether or not he can win the game.”
“Again with the fucking riddles?”
“If you weren’t so blinded, you wouldn’t see them that way. You would see them as morsels of truth.”
Deana was the only person in my life who was good to me. If anything happened to her, it would’ve broken me. My act to behave as though Deana meant nothing to take away Catch’s bargaining chip eluded me. “Don’t hurt her.” My voice cracked and delved into a docile territory I hadn’t touched in years. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want…let her go.”
“That’s different for you.” His fingers grazed against my chin. I jerked backward but didn’t get very far due to his iron strong hold on my body with one arm. I allowed him to touch me.
“All this time you’ve met my words with threats and unwise statements. Now you’re showing me underneath the act to be tough, you are vulnerable.” He bit into his lip, staring at me. The shift in his eyes was stark. “Show me all your pretty, soft pink and gray parts, Sugar, and I’ll let you into my world.”
“Never willingly. Never fucking again.”
He released me, and I flopped back on the edge of the bed. Ducking down, he cradled my foot in his hands, drawing my attention to the device surrounding my ankle. “If you run again, I won’t have to chase you. There’s poison in this ankle bracelet. All it takes is the touch of a sensor, and a needle will inject itself into your skin and dispense the poison. I’m told once the poison floods your body, you will experience the worst pain imaginable. You’ll cry. You’ll beg. You’ll be compliant in ways you never thought you could be. It will cripple you with pain for days.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me up to stand with him. “Downstairs. Ten minutes.”
On the tail end of his exit, I scanned around the room and spotted a camera in the upper left side of the room.
Turning to the bed, I grabbed a pillow, hoping the psychotic asshole hadn’t installed cameras in the bathroom as well. I placed the pillow to my face and screamed into it.
I returned downstairs in less than a chipper mood. All I wanted was my freedom. My affiliation with Michael made sure I made my way into another prison. Granted, the company and the scenery was better, but the company consisted of one unpredictable killer.
Catch sat in the middle side chair at the long ivory dining table.
I sat across from him and glowered at the food on the table as though it was laced with cyanide. “Where’s your lawyer?”
He considered me with a mischievous grin on his face. “You really believed I’d draw up a contract for ownership of you? A contract like that would be silly. Besides, we’ve reached a verbal understanding, haven’t we?”
“So this is what?”
“It’s a dinner meant to help us get acquainted.” He clasped his hands over the table and shot a glance toward the empty seat beside him.
“Are you serious?”
“Very.” Grit wormed its way into his voice, making his simple command one I couldn’t ignore.
I stood, slamming the chair back from beneath me, and took my time walking around the table to sit next to him. The wine was left open to breathe on the table. He poured a small portion in a glass for me and set the bottle back on the table. Pinching the stem, he handed it to me.
“No thank you. I’m not in the mood for a drink.”
“You believe you have a choice?”
I plucked the wine glass from his grasp, holding it apart from the table, refusing to drink it. “What is it you want from me? Hasn’t torturing Deana given you what you wanted?”
He shook his head at me. “Would you like to try this again?”
I glanced at my empty plate. “Are you going to starve me until I do what you want? You did promise to punish me for running. Is making me sit at dinner with you a part of it?”
“Do you know the story of the three families who used to run L.A.? They were held together by the same loyalty and respect that used to run rampant in New York. La Cosa Nostra.”
“I think everyone who cares about that knows what went down and what happened to make them street thugs again,” I snapped.
“L.A. is different,” he contended. “New generations came up in ranks after the original family members were either murdered or turned disloyal by the government’s successful way of instilling fear and pitting families against each other. It’s been quiet for a reason.
“Where once cockiness and boldness ran uncontrolled, things have changed with one particular family. The Di Stefanos—they’re smart, using technology, discreet practices, and powerful connections to their advantage. If they keep going as they have, they’ll return the syndicate into something formidable. Not the golden days where bold crimes didn’t have technology to solve. No…it will be something more. Something so powerful not the government, nor any other jealous family, will be able to steal the crown from their sights. On their incline, other families who were relegated to common gang members have heard of their plans and want it to stop. The Leones are the loudest distractors.”
I set the glass of wine down and sat rigidly in the chair. “What does this have to do with me?”
“You remember what I said of loyalty? Some don’t believe it extends to the women in their life. Husbands have mistresses. Children from those unions don’t usually know who their father is, and if they do, they’re silenced. They don’t matter as much. Could you imagine growing up, knowing who your father is, and having him spit in your face by telling you, you aren’t truly a part of his family? I couldn’t envision what it would do to a person. They might seek extreme ways to distance themselves, or they might be open to helping someone take down the very family that shunned them.”
“May I be excused?” Acid coated my condescending question.
“Don’t you have any questions for me, Sugar? Who I am? How I know this information?”
“Obviously you work for the Di Stefanos as a lowly associate. Not even a solider or a captain, but a contractor.”
A grin puffed up his cheeks. “I was wrong about you. I thought you were blind to the organization, but you know the structure.”
“Anyone who cares to do a search on this thing called the Internet can find that out,” I replied, dripping in sarcasm. “You should take your own advice. Your cockiness is going to kill you.”
“I understand. I haven’t shown you enough to prove assuming I’m an associate is an insult.” He glanced around the home and inclined forward. “I could presume fantastical things of you.”
“Like?”
“That you might be the scorned illegitimate child of a mob boss. Interesting theory, isn’t it?”
“Not really.” I held the glass with a tighter intensity as I glared him down. “What if I was? Women aren’t allowed to hold office anyway. Someone who would get angry over not being claimed because they want power is a vapid brat.”
“Maybe she wants what she’s owed,” said a woman as she entered the dining room. Jory spread her arms out grandly, looking much better than she did when we met for the first time in the bathroom. She plucked up my glass of wine, and gave me the once over like a woman sizing up competition for a man she wanted. With a roll of her eyes, she tipped the glass to her lips to finish every drop.
“May I be excused?” I asked again, sliding my chair from the table and rising.
“Are you sure you want to leave, Sugar?” Catch questioned me. “I’m a very good cook.”
“I’d rather chew off my own arm tonight,” I droned.
He gestured with his fingers toward the doorway of the dining room.
As I walked away, I heard Jory hiss to Catch, “I don’t understand why you want her. She’s kind of fat and not that pretty.”
“Those spiteful little words do more of a disservice to you than your appearance.” An audible pause in Catch’s biting words to Jory slowed my pace. “Pack your things. You’ll be going ahead of me to Norway.”
“You’re sending me off alone?” Jory’s voice rose in pitch.
“Try not to kill yourself over the unrequited love you cry yourself to sleep at night over while you’re there alone.”
I paused at the stairwell, staring down Catch through three doorways leading to three rooms. It appeared I’d never lost his attention.
As Jory walked off in a huff, Catch gave me a subtle wink, saying without a word,
“You and I are going to have lots of fun, lacking any semblance of sanity, together.”