A warm dry palm stifles my scream as the gunfire yanks me awake.
“Cara,” a deep voice whispers in my ear. “All is well.”
He’s leaning over me, and though we’ve only met once, I know him.
Marco. The scent of salt and the outdoors, his voice, and his shadowed face are familiar. My wrists are pinned and my mind whirls as more shots are fired. There are yells and grunts.
Evidently all is not well.
I pull on my wrists, but he’s holding me tight.
“We need to go now. Will you be a good girl and stay quiet for me?”
I fight. Kicking and wriggling, but not screaming. Whatever is going on, I won’t draw attention to myself.
That’s when the tang of ammunition reaches my nostrils. Acrid and smoky. It occurs to me that if he wanted me dead, I’d have never woken.
Doesn’t mean I’m going to let him wreck all my plans. I won’t be another kingpin’s captive. I bite at his hand, thrash, and try to claw at him. Just because he was kind to me once doesn’t mean he will be again. This could be my chance to get out of my father’s house. Unexpected, yes, but no less welcome for that.
A frustrated snarl comes from deep in Marco’s chest and he uncovers my lips for an instant before his mouth lands on mine.
What?
Why is Marco…? My lips soften under the pressure and my mind goes blank. I forget about escaping him.
As first kisses go, this is…
There’s the snick of plastic and a sharp pinch at my wrists, slamming them together. The covers are tugged away, leaving my legs bare.
It’s not a kiss.
Marco is not kissing me. He’s preventing me from screaming as he gathers my ankles together, his grip uncompromising and his mouth hard. Another zip tie, and I jack-knife myself, trying to knee him. I try to scream now, but it’s too late.
I’m caught.
He lifts me with surprising gentleness, one hand under my shoulders and the other on my bum, mouth still on mine, my arms trapped between us. Slipping out of my room he moves down the corridor in assured but silent strides.
I don’t know what to do, whether to try to struggle or try to shout. Who is the biggest threat here? Brent, who is kidnapping me? The Westminster mafia, sending smoke and yells through the house? If I managed to get away from Brent and jumped two-footed through the house like the world’s most malcoordinated kangaroo, would Westminster kill me? Would Kensington—given he didn’t even give me his name—even think to search for me?
A sob tries to rise up out of my belly. Escape was so near.
I stop fighting. Brent is massive, and zip ties are impossible to break, so it would be futile. Besides, he seems intent on getting me out. He moves confidently through the maze of narrow corridors. At the bottom of the first flight of stairs, he pauses in a dark alcove as there’s gunfire. Close, far too close.
“Okay?” he whispers against my lips.
“Let me go,” I hiss.
“Don’t be afraid.” I feel his words as much as hear them. “I’m going to protect you.”
I try to be angry. He’s captured me against my will and I really should be furious. But honestly, the massive warm bulk of his body pressed to mine and his arms around me make this the most cared for I’ve felt in since my mother died. Which is a timely reminder of how this will end.
“You.” I have to swallow before I can continue that sentence because my throat is dry as overcooked sponge cake. “Fucker.”
He huffs with laughter and hitches me up his body. “Put your arms around my neck.”
Slowly I obey, my body having a will of its own.
He hums approval.
It’s as though my weight is nothing at all and despite the chaos around us, I’m not scared. I trust he’s not going to allow anything to happen to me.
“You’re doing so well,” he says in the same low voice as the noise in the corridor beside us recedes.
He moves with sure, light steps to an old servants’ entrance. Pausing by the door, he squeezes me to him reassuringly as a black SUV pulls up.
I don’t know how, but he opens the door still holding me and before I’ve really thought through the implications of leaving with him, I’m on the spacious back seat, and we’re speeding away. I look back through the rear window, and there’s a flickering yellow glow in the window of the second floor as well as the fading crack of gunfire.
“What was that about?” I snap, turning away from the place I grew up in.
“You were in danger,” he replies calmly as he kneels before me. The back of this car is excessively spacious. “I wish you hadn’t forced me to do this.”
“Force you to abduct me?” I watch as he slices off the plastic zip tie from my ankles and rubs his thumb over the red place where my skin was constricted.
“The constraint. I hoped you’d come with me willingly, knowing you’re safe with me.” Marco moves to the seat and smooths his hands down my arms and over my hands. I consider kicking him as he releases my wrists, but it seems a churlish way to get myself tied up again, and I’d do better to wait for a chance to escape. And besides, him carrying me, restraining me, and kneeling at my feet has done something odd to my insides. Liquified them. I’m frozen soup, thawed and moulding to his heat.
It’s only when he clasps my hands in his that I see I’m trembling. Shaking uncontrollably all over.
“Did he die?” I ask in a whisper. Shock, I guess.
“I think so, yes.” Softly, like I’m a flighty woodland creature he’s captured and trying to keep quiet. “Westminster were very angry when they found he couldn’t repay his debt.” Marco doesn’t ask who I mean. My father might have been a sub-standard parent—the best things he gave were decent skin and strong impetus towards entrepreneurialism—but I probably should care he’s dead. A true daughter, a loyal member of the mafia, would feel sad.
I don’t. I feel nothing.
“And everyone else?” It’s not that I liked all the mobsters, but… Gone?
“I’m sorry, cara.”
The silence in the car is as thick as the noise and smoke we came from and my brain won’t work properly, still fugged with sleep and disbelief. Despite everything that’s happened, I can’t stop sneaking looks at my… I’m going with kidnapper? But I have a question mark over other possible terms to swap in, some of which are less disturbing, some… Not.
Saviour. Mafia boss. Guardian angel. Abductor. Inappropriate older crush.
…Stalker?
Is stalker better or worse than kidnapper?
Ope. Who knows?
He’s wearing dark trousers and a charcoal grey shirt unbuttoned at the neck and sleeves rolled to the elbow, revealing muscled forearms covered with black hair that makes me long to pet him.
I keep my hands to myself and run my thumb over the bulging seams of my hoody as I look at him from the corner of my eye, my nose a shadow over what I’m trying to see.
I don’t know how long it is until we stop and Marco opens the door. I follow instinctively, but when I go to stand, he tuts and sweeps me into his arms, one hand at my knees and the other under my shoulder blades.
And oh god I shouldn’t like this mode of transport so much. Forget bicycles or roller skates, Marco is the most fun way to get from A to B. I surreptitiously sniff his skin and it must be pure pheromone, because I don’t know what he smells like except something that makes my insides quiver. The heat of him penetrates wherever we touch, and his hold on my bare legs is fire.
“Welcome to my home.”
“I can walk,” I protest as he strides across the gravel and in through a massive open door, spilling yellow light like a magic portal. Because this much enjoyment of being carried is not healthy.
“Without shoes?” he points out and, yeah. Maybe not. I shut up but there’s a low hum and I wonder if my ears are ringing from the gunfire.
“Put me down,” I insist as soon as we’re through the door, blinking at the light.
Marco nods and rolls his eyes with fond wryness and the hubbub peters out slowly as he slips me down his body. For a second we’re the only two people in the world. My hoody and top ruck up and the soft warmed cotton of his shirt brushes my stomach. I look into his light blue gaze and the hunger I saw in his face when we met is back, carnal and fierce. Low in my belly, something responds.
His hands are still holding me, stabilising me and I tip up my chin in invitation.
The hum brightens.
There’s… Applause. I turn my head away from Marco’s mesmerising gaze, and only then do I notice the rows of staff. Bulky mafia goons in suits, but also neatly dressed household staff all smiling, nudging each other, clapping and whooping. There are calls of, “Boss, finally!” and “Get in!”.
I stare. Confounded.
It’s the middle of the night and they’ve all but rolled out a red carpet and bunting.
In one of my favourite historical romances there’s a scene where the aristocratic hero brings his bride home to his enormous country estate. The servants are all lined up in an intimidatingly formal parade. She charms them all, and wins the duke’s heart as well.
This is like that scene, and yet. Not at all. There’s no hostility when my glance darts over the faces in the crowd. They’re not haughty. I don’t have to win them over; they’re predisposed to like me.
Is this what Marco gets every time he comes home after nefarious mafia business is concluded? I sneak a look at him and he’s glaring at a man near the front with dirty blond hair, glasses, and an immaculate three-piece suit.
What’s going on?
A middle-aged woman approaches with a tray of daintily iced mini cupcakes and a cup of tea and I stare, confused, at what seems to be my favourite herbal tea.
I’ve slipped into an alternative dimension. Only explanation. First the ghost. Now this.
It’s a dream. I’m going to wake up with drool on my pillow and my phone screeching at me to bring coffee to my father’s office, stat.
“Paulo, is everything as we discussed?” Marco says behind me.
The man with blond hair steps forward. “Stage two of operation why… Uh.” He coughs. “Whisky has been implemented as best we could, sir.”
Marco shoots a disparaging look at Paulo and puts his hand on the small of my back. I can’t help but lean into his touch.
“What’s Operation Whisky?”
“Some…” He sighs with exasperation. “Important logistics.”
Oh. He does like whisky then. Huh. I assumed he didn’t, and we had that in common. I’m irrationally sad.
“Tell me what would make you feel comfortable?”
I think about the unhinged things I could say, and I wonder if he’d do them. Things like, stroke my hair, take me to bed and cuddle me, drape me over the table and make me yours. I settle for something merely weird.
