Why are my stupid fucking nosebleeds always so goddamn right?
With terror clogging my throat and pain shooting through my skull from headbutting his unforgiving chin, I kick the corner of the dumpster, hurting my toes but making a shit ton of noise.
I suck down a deep breath, open my mouth, and scream.
He claps his hand over the bottom half of my face, cutting off my yell, and spins away from the dumpster. My vision blurs. I tighten my arms around my bag. Before I can get my bearings, he squishes me against the wall with his bulk and presses the back of my head to his chest.
I bite his hand. Hard. Blood coats my tongue. I gag but bite down harder.
When he snakes his arm out from between my bag and the wall, the brick shreds his sleeve. He pinches my nose, blocking my airway.
I fight, bruising my knees and elbows on the building and tweaking my neck and spine as he grips my face and pins me to the brick with his weight.
Metallic liquid hits the back of my throat.
I release my bite and cough out his blood. My stomach roils, threatening to expel my meager dinner.
He wraps his bloody hand around my throat and presses his palm to my forehead, trapping my skull against his sternum.
He’s massive. I may be on the shorter side, but the way he towers over me is terrifying.
“Fuck, that mouth of yours is dangerous, isn’t it, mia caramellina?”
His voice sends shivers down my spine. For a horrible moment, I think I’ve heard him somewhere before, but I shove the thought away and clamp my eyes closed when he leans down.
“Stop! I haven’t seen your face. I can’t identify you. Let me go. I won’t say anything.”
“Hush, mia caramellina. I don’t want to hurt you,” he rumbles with his lips against my temple.
“I’m not your little caramel, and I swear, I’ll pretend like this never happened. Please, just let me go.”
“Mio Dio, you sound so good when you’re desperate. Beg me again, mia caramellina.”
Heat blooms low in my abdomen as he flexes his fingers around my throat. I silently curse my wayward body and swallow the fury churning in my soul.
Seven years ago, I begged a man to let me go. To stop hurting me. To leave my sister alone.
He didn’t. I saved myself and my sister, and ever since then, I promised myself I’d never beg or ask a man for anything again.
But I’m no longer a pawn in someone else’s games. If he lets me go, I can go back to living a life of freedom. Even though I know my chances of surviving are slim, I grit my teeth and give him what he wants.
“Please.”
It sounds more like a snarl than pleading, but he gentles his grip on my throat and licks the shell of my ear with a gruff, “Good girl.”
My insides melt.
I hate it. Self-disgust roars through me.
“If you don’t like the nickname mia caramellina, then what should I call you? Principessa?”
Ice spears down my spine as horrible memories threaten to resurface.
Only one man has ever called me principessa before; the man I begged to stop but who beat me black and blue and whipped me until I bled in front of a room full of evil men instead.
Seppi Capito. The vilest creature on the face of the planet and San Francisco’s leading mafia don.
The man my father wanted me to marry.
A car streaks past the mouth of the alley, yanking me back into the present.
“Nothing. Don’t call me at all. Let me go.”
“You know I can’t do that, bellezza.”
“But you can. Please, just—”
Shouting echoes from the adjacent alley. My captor curses and nips my ear before digging his fingertips into my jugular, restricting the blood flow to my brain without cutting off my breathing.
“I’m sorry, mia caramellina,” he whispers.
Even as I fight, the medical practitioner side of me admires his control. It’s much easier to kill someone than it is to knock them out by squeezing their throat, but he applies just enough pressure to steal my senses.
As my body falls slack and blackness encompasses my mind, my heart reaches out for my sister. I pray she doesn’t look for me. She can’t put herself in danger. If she thinks my disappearance is suspicious, she needs to pack up and disappear, just like we planned.
I wake in a rush of pain. Cotton fills my mouth. I can’t spit it out. My knees and elbows sting, my head throbs, and something hard digs into my stomach and makes it difficult to breathe.
Panic rushes through me when I can’t open my eyes, but the pressure of tied fabric around my head, while stifling, assures me I haven’t gone blind. His scent wafts from the material, the smell strong enough to make me wonder if he sacrificed the shirt off his back to muffle my senses.
I shriek into my gag as he shrugs me off his shoulder. My stomach lurches as I fall. I land on a soft surface and flail as I bounce, but cuffs encircle my wrists and ropes bind my ankles. Powerful hands close over my forearms and pull me over the mattress.
With movements faster than I can track, he unlatches one cuff, threads it through the headboard, and closes it around my wrist again. My anger morphs fear into fury, and I lash out without thinking, bringing my knees to my chest and kicking with both feet as the gag muffles my cursing.
The soles of my shoes hit his chest, but despite me throwing my entire body into the movement, he doesn’t budge. He wraps thick fingers around my ankles, pushes my knees to my chest, and climbs onto the bed. I panic as the mattress shifts under his weight, but he holds me balled up in the fetal position with ease, kneeling with his thighs pressed against my butt and both of my ankles in one hand.
My desperate fight only leaves me squirming in his grasp, but I can’t stop, not even when he yanks my shoes off my feet, disappears from the bed, and pulls my ankles toward the footboard, sliding me across the mattress until I lie stretched out and flat on my back with my arms over my head and my legs pulled so tight I can’t bend my knees. With a few quick movements, he connects my ankle bindings to the footboard and disappears.
I force myself to calm down before I have an aneurysm. With the fabric tied tightly around my head stripping me of my vision and muffling my hearing, the gag stealing my speech, and my bindings preventing me from moving, I lie stiff and trembling, telling myself it’s because I’m furious and not terrified out of my mind. I strain my ears for sounds of him.
A shower starts up. There are no closed doors between us. No barriers between my ears and the shower other than the material wrapped around my head.
As I listen to the water bouncing off the tub, shower curtain, and his body, I take stock of my physical wellbeing so I don’t spiral into mania.
Other than my shoes, I’m still wearing all my clothes. Even my watch is still on my wrist. The back of my head throbs, and with the slightest tilt of my chin, I confirm I have a lump where I headbutted him. It should heal on its own, but an ibuprofen would work wonders.
I don’t expect him to offer me medicine. He just kidnapped me and tied me to the bed. I don’t think my comfort is high on his list of priorities.
The scrapes on my knees and elbows ooze, but they’ll scab over within the hour. My stomach churns with nausea and my neck is sore, but overall, I’m fine. No concussion. No lasting injuries. He didn’t molest me while I was unconscious, but from his actions, a comatose quickie isn’t what he’s after.
I shiver and bite down on the gag, ignoring the heat curling through my core as I recall his control. His words. His strength.
Damn my masochistic body.
I know there’s nothing wrong with me, but shame sours my soul. Maybe if my nervous system didn’t equate pain with pleasure, I wouldn’t attract such brutal men.
I banish the thought and mentally scrub away the lingering doubt. This is not my fault.
I search my cuffs with my fingers, but with the chain looped around the bar of the headboard and my ankles stretched toward the footboard, there isn’t much for me to explore. My bindings are too strong. The bed frame is too sturdy. I don’t have the strength or the leverage to break free.
The shower turns off. My heart leaps into my throat. I stop testing my restraints and listen as he exits the shower and dries himself off.
The rustling of a towel rubbing over flesh shouldn’t be erotic, but as my apprehension grows, so does the heat in my veins. My brain replays how easily he overpowered me.
I don’t want this, no matter how my body responds.
Silence permeates the room. Every cell in my body tightens with fear.
I flinch at the sudden noise when something heavy drops onto what must be the bathroom counter. He rifles through a container and sets a few items aside. I tighten my fists around the chains of my cuffs, uncaring when the metal digs into my wrists. I use the pain to center myself when panic rises. He must be preparing to torture me.
The fabric tied over my face shifts when I crease my brow in confusion. The familiar sound of medical tape being unraveled followed by the snipping of scissors leads me to believe he’s bandaging himself.
I recall biting his hand. He bled, but he wouldn’t need to use scissors or medical tape to cover his wound. A piece of gauze and an elastic bandage would be less bulky.
Several tense minutes later, he turns on the faucet for a few seconds before plunging me into silence again.
I jump when the bed dips under his weight, but he doesn’t crawl over me. Static crackles along my nerves as I sense him lean toward me. He wedges his fingers between my chin and the fabric tied around my face. I stiffen.
“Be still, mia caramellina. Wouldn’t want you to see my face and destroy your only chance of me letting you go, would we?”
He’s playing with me. I hate it.
The gag muffles my angry response.
He runs a warm, damp cloth over the base of my throat. I stiffen and bite back my fury as he cleans his dried blood from my neck, then I wait with bated breath as he works the fabric up to my nose. A sliver of hope curls through the unwanted lust thumping in my veins as he ghosts the rag over my gagged lips and jawline before pulling the material back into place. When he lifts the washcloth, I swallow, unsure how to respond.
I stiffen as he dips the folded cloth under the neckline of my hoodie, but he merely wipes the blood from my collarbone before disappearing.
The bed shifts again as he returns.
“Keep your eyes closed. Capisci?”
I swallow and nod. Even if he’s playing with me, I won’t willingly erase my chances of escape or get myself killed.
He cups the back of my head and lifts. I hiss in pain as lightning streaks through my skull.
To my surprise, he adjusts his grip to avoid the contusion, unravels the makeshift hood from my head, and wraps a strip of cloth around my eyes three times before tying it at the bridge of my nose, completely stealing my vision but avoiding the knot at the back of my head.
He gently sets my head down on the mattress and slips his hand out from underneath me.
A shudder wracks my spine as he brushes my hair back from my temples and trails a finger down the side of my face. When he traces the strap of the gag and teases my stretched lips, I struggle to breathe. My nipples pebble and my panties grow damp. I turn my face away from him.
He stands. Without his weight, the mattress springs back into form, jostling my chains against the headboard.
A chair scrapes along the floor as he drags it to the bedside. I white-knuckle the chains of my cuffs as my heart pounds against my sternum.
He tsks and grabs my forearm.
“Relax your grip, mia caramellina. You’re hurting yourself.”
I shake my head and hiss as pains streaks through my skull.
His low curse fuels the fire between my legs despite the fear icing my veins.
He peels my fingers off the chain, unlocks one cuff, pulls my arms in front of me, and winds a rope around my forearms before removing the other cuff. I stiffen but follow his lead when he threads an arm under my shoulders and lifts me into a sitting position. With unexpected care, he unties my gag without snagging my hair and pulls the wad of fabric out of my mouth. A string of spit lands on my chin. He wipes it away with a calloused thumb.
“Drink,” he demands.
I jerk when something cold and hard presses against my lips, but his arm around my back prevents me from going far. When he tips the water bottle, I consider refusing, but getting waterboarded isn’t on my list of things to do today, so I open my mouth and swallow. The cool slide of liquid down my throat fills my eyes with unexpected tears.
For a moment, I allow myself to feel grateful for the blindfold as it hides my reaction. I haven’t cried since I escaped from my family, and I won’t start now, but the relief spearing through me needs an outlet, so I let my eyes wet the blindfold and tell myself it isn’t crying. I’m not sobbing. It doesn’t count.
With the coppery taste of blood washed away but my thirst nowhere near satiated, he lifts the bottle from my lips. A bit dribbles down my front. I stiffen as he grumbles and sets the water bottle on what must be the bedside table. Even knowing what comes next, I can’t stop my breath from stuttering or my core from contracting when he wipes the droplet off my bare collarbone with his fingers. He doesn’t stop there, smearing at the trail down my chest. I curl my shoulders and turn my face away when his knuckles brush the underside of my breast, barely curbing my initial reaction. Punching him would only earn me pain.
He skims his massive hand up my front, cups the side of my head, and pulls my face toward him. After a tense moment, he releases my face and leans toward the bedside table.
A pill bottle rattles. He presses two tablets to my lips. I clench my teeth together.
“I don’t need to drug you to get what I want, mia caramellina. Open your mouth,” he growls.
My insides melt, but I steel my spine.
“Believe it or not, kidnapping women isn’t my usual shtick. This is ibuprofen. Take it,” he snarls.
Shtick? What an odd word for a criminal.
Deciding I’d rather go through withdrawals than anger the beast holding me captive, I pry my teeth apart, my jaw feeling like a rusty hinge, and wait.
He drops the pills into my mouth and presses the water bottle to my lips without hesitation. I drink.
“Good girl,” he whispers.
It’s too much for my libido. An inferno flames to life in my abdomen, pulsing heat to every sensitive spot in my body.
I’m fucked. No matter how terrified I am or how much I hate this man for kidnapping me, my body ignites at his praise. I hate it.
I choke and spew water all over us both, coughing as the cold liquid stings my nostrils.
Acting on my fury will only ensure he never lets me go.
I’m at the mercy of a killer.
He has none.
