SWNOVELS Sold to the Italian Mafia Boss: Chapter 2
Her pale face, her dark golden hair, her wild eyes. She looks animal in the dark, blood running from one nostril from the blow Dome gave her. Horrible, mottled bruises are spreading across her neck. She looks like she just survived something. Like she just saved her own life.
Does she know that she did?
Her pistol is light in my hand. I slip on the safety and deposit it into the waistband of my pants. My grip on her wrist is tight, bent just so that if she bends, it will snap. She’s frozen now, the fight gone out of her. She knows the fight is over. She knows she is at my mercy.
But it was close. Far, far closer than I thought it would be. She’s a fucking fighter, this one. And she succeeded in doing what almost no one does or ever can—she caught me off-guard.
“The police will arrive here shortly,” I tell Kate smoothly. Dome, grunting, is braced against the driver’s door. He has a silk handkerchief against his face, already soiled with dark fresh blood. She got him square in the eye and hard. I wonder if the damage will be lasting; it should be, biblically. He let her go. What he got, he deserved. “I advise you to get into the car without fighting.”
Kate’s eyes dart to the car, back to me, then to Dome.
“He won’t hurt you,” I say diplomatically. “Unless you fight.”
She swallows. She’s trembling. But I admire her courage. She hasn’t begged for her life, hasn’t asked for mercy. She knew I was coming, I think. She’s as clever as she is fearless. Then again, fearless can easily be a synonym for foolhardy.
“Get in the car, Kate,” I say, beginning to lose my patience. “Or I will make you get in the car.”
Quaking, her eyes wide, she nods once. I loosen my grip and her shoulders soften—I didn’t realize how much pain I had her in. So, she’s tough, too. This is going to be much more interesting than I thought it would be. As she shifts toward the open back door, I turn, pressing her against the car. She startles, looking at me sharply, her front against mine. Something crosses her expression, and I clock it, even in the dark, even in the rain: intrigue.
She finds me as interesting, it seems, as I find her.
“No bad behavior,” I warn her, stepping ever so slightly closer, pressing her ever so slightly harder against the car. “Because you may be a valuable hostage, but you’re worth a good deal dead, too.”
She hesitates, eyes locked with mine. Perhaps searching to see how serious I am. After a moment, she nods once and slides into the car.
Dome leans back, looking at me. His face is full of black rage. His eye is swollen shut, streaked with blood. Around his eye socket, his skin is taut, puffy, angry, and red. Hell. She got him good. He looks like he could break her in half. I give him a raised brow and a slight smile.
“Next time,” I advise my driver. “Don’t let go.”
I slide into the backseat, and Dome closes the door, trapping Kate McNamara, my rival mob boss’s daughter, with me in the back of my car. I reach beneath the seat and pull out a plastic bag. Inside is a fold of damp cloth. I remove it and hand it to Kate without looking.
“Breathe,” I tell her.
“What?”
I sigh, facing her. When I lean toward her, she recoils. “Come,” I order her more sharply. After a moment, she leans slightly closer. “Closer.” She obeys, eyes wild with fear, and I press the cloth over her mouth and nose.
Immediately, she recoils. This time I slide my hand behind her head, into her hair, trapping her. Her eyes go huge, but I can feel her take a startled breath. The chloroform at once begins to do its work. She grips my arm as though to fight me. But I’m far stronger, and it takes very little to keep her there, in place. To keep the cloth against her face as she, against her own will, breathes it in.
Her eyes flutter and close. As she loses consciousness, I gently lay her down.
Even in sleep, she looks troubled.
And I think: This is going to be very, very interesting.
***
“The cunt blinded me.”
I sigh, unbuttoning the front of my suit jacket and sliding into the chair behind my office desk. “You’re not blind, Dome,” I say in Italian. “Have Sergio look at it. You’re fine.” I smile faintly, studying him over my desk. The red bruising has deepened to black. “She’s a bit of a pistol.”
He grunts. “She is trouble.”
“Yes, well. She is Liam McNamara’s only child, after all.”
“The bastard was dead-set on keeping the girl out of his world,” says Dome bitterly. He worked for my late father, who was Liam’s rival before I was. “And yet, here she is. These men never learn. Since the days of war, they do not learn to protect their daughters.”
“Children are a weakness.”
Dome must hear the note of bitterness in my voice. He looks up sharply, startled. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know,” I say. “Is she awake?”
Dome clears his throat, guilt clear in his old, familiar face. “Yes. I believe she is.”
“I’ll see her.”
Dome nods once, firmly, and turns out of the room, leaving me alone. Children are a weakness. I drum my fingers on the desk, turning to face the window. It’s early here in Northern Italy, our flight having been quick and decent. Fog buries the landscape of winter-stark hills and snowy mountains. The gardens are bare and black-boughed, the stone fences crimped with white frost. Beautiful and desolate, a place fit for me, for the life I have inherited, and for the life that I have built.
I’m not the first person to say that children are a weakness in this house. My father did, too, once. And he was right. In the end, it was his child—me—that got the man killed. In the end, his love for me spelled the end of his life.
A knock at the door, and Kate walks in. Dome hovers like a shadow behind her. I don’t miss the way he shoves her through the doorway, rough, personal. But I say nothing. It’s not for me to care, really, how the McNamara girl is treated here. Even if it is my house—Kate is nothing to me but a hostage. And it would be good for her to feel a little fear.
I nod to Dome, and he closes the door, giving Kate a bitter, one-eyed once-over. Once he’s gone, I set my sights on her more seriously, more fully.
She’s showered and changed, the blood cleaned from her face. Her eyes are tired and lined, a hangover, probably, from the chloroform and the time change. Does she know where she is? She must at least suspect. And yet, she barely looks frightened at all. If anything, she looks pissed off.
And not too hard on the eyes. I try to quash the thought at once, but really, what the hell does it matter? It’s only a matter of fact. She’s petite, with sweet porcelain features and a hint of a warm undertone. She’s flushed, and I don’t know if it’s because of the situation or because of me. I tend to have such an effect on women, even on unorthodox ones. Her face is dusted with freckles, soft and light, and her dark, honey-gold hair has a natural curl to it that begs to be touched. It’s how she holds herself, though, which intrigues me most: like she’s the biggest person in the room, shoulders back and chin cocked, eyes narrowed to slits. She looks like she could shoot you point blank and not blink as the blood sprayed across her face.
I cut the tension, gesturing politely to the chair across from mine. “Sit.”
She doesn’t break my gaze as she crosses the room, and does I say. I get the sense she’s not concerned with the image of obeying me. Of course, she’s not. Last night, she pulled a trigger on me—didn’t even think twice, didn’t even hesitate. She’s certainly not the kind of girl you want in bed with you. Not the kind of girl you want to have your children. She’s the kind you’d like at your side in a fight.
I’m not sure which would make any of this easier.
“Well,” Kate says, leaning forward. She rests both elbows on my desk and twines her fingers, eyes narrowed. “You’ve kidnapped me. You’ve dragged me over country lines. You’ve holed me up as a prisoner. You must have some clever idea of how this all plays out in your favor.”
“Naturally.”
“Naturally. And I’d like to hear it.”
“You’re not a player in this,” I advise her, noting, with some pleasure, how it strikes a nerve. She manages to keep her face straight, but her eyes flash with annoyance. Good. She’s got an ego to bruise. That will make things easier. “You’re a prize to be traded, bartered, and sold.”
“Sold.”
“That’s right.”
“Might I ask to whom and as what?”
“Well, that’s all to be decided,” I say, giving her a faint, icy smile. It’s meant to belittle, and I can tell by her expression, by the tightening of her lips, that it does. “I called in your father’s debt. You called a man you supposed was my enemy. Why? To what end, Ms. McNamara?”
“I knew Gio was a rat. I do my research, too.”
“Best you can.”
“Best I can,” she agrees, seeming to give a little. She eyes me more coolly, with open suspicion. Sizing me up. “I wanted to speak with you directly.”
I chuckle, too caught by this to stop myself. She arches a brow. “You expect me to believe this—you being kidnapped and dragged from Ireland to Italy—is all somehow part of your plan? You’ve got guts, McNamara. But even you’re not that clever. And anyway, I can’t see how you’re in any kind of a winning position here now.”
Kate smirks. Smirks. Like she has one over on me. Slowly, she sits back, crossing her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a very fine sweater, something one of the maids must have selected and provided for her. She looks like a girl comfortable in a hoodie or a silk dress, and as someone who grew up in both money and the mafia, I suppose she must be. She’s immediately enigmatic, slightly difficult to read. Not something I’m exactly used to.
Not exactly something I don’t enjoy.
“I admit I didn’t think I’d end up here,” she confesses, eyes dropping. With her complexion and hair color, I thought they’d be blue, but they’re not; they’re hazel, soft, and light. In the cold winter sun, they’re almost transparent. Honey. “But I did intend to negotiate.”
“Clearly.”
“I’m of more use to you as myself than a hostage.”
I study her. She really does believe herself to be some kind of a player in this rather than a piece on the board. Fine, then. Let’s see what she’s got.
I sit back, regarding her more seriously, and say, “Negotiate, then.”