Cruel Savior (Ruthless Arrangements #1)

Chapter 1

Adora

Ipush open the door of the twenty-four-hour laundromat with my shoulder, my arms aching from carrying the hamper of heavy wet bed linen.

It’s nearly one in the morning, and my eyes are gritty with exhaustion.

Greenish neon strip lighting flickers over rows of silent washing machines and driers, and a fly buzzes listlessly overhead.

The place is deserted, and the background hum of the city fades away as the door swings closed behind me.

I head to the nearest machine and put my burden down with a groan.

I should be in bed right now, getting some much-needed sleep before my crack-of-dawn shift at the coffee shop, but my roommate, Vicky, came home drunk, staggered into my room instead of hers, and spilled her takeout food on my bed.

As Vicky lurched back to her own room, I sat bolt upright, staring in horror at the slippery, fish-reeking mess spreading everywhere.

I gathered up my stinking bedding and made my way here on foot, to a place that smells of stale cigarettes and… something metallic.

I can’t place the smell, but for some reason, it makes my heart race.

I open a washing machine and feel in my pocket for coins to buy laundry powder for a single wash. All I have is my card for the machine. I forgot my change.

“Che palla.” What balls, I mutter, like Nonna would have before being chided by Mom for using coarse language.

My throat thickens with grief as I remember better days when Mom and my grandmother were still alive, and my brother Cristiano was at home…

But it’s best not to think about Mom and the rest of my family right now, or I’ll be swallowed by homesickness and loneliness.

There’s a change dispenser on the back wall, and I head there with my last five-dollar bill.

Once upon a time, a whole six weeks ago, I lived in a mansion, and my fingers had never touched the start button on a washing machine.

I studied business at Malus University, and I drove a top-of-the-line convertible.

Now, I’ve had to drop out of college, and I can barely afford to wash my own sheets.

I feed the five-dollar bill into the change dispenser, vaguely aware of the L-shaped space to my right. The metallic smell is stronger here. The scent prickles at the back of my throat, and my stomach twists with nausea.

The laundromat’s humming strips of neon are replaced by a golden-lit ballroom. A splash of red stains my pretty lilac dress. Not wine, but blood. Screams of agony pierce the room and shatter it like glass.

I slam my eyes shut and press my palms against the cold metal dispenser as a shiver goes through me. It’s just a laundromat. I focus on the feel of the coin slot under my fingertips and the click of the machine, but the metallic tang in the air remains.

I force my eyes open, and something tickles my peripheral vision. A smear of red on the tiled floor that shouldn’t be there. My heart races again, and I finally recognize the scent in the air.

Blood.

A primeval sensation creeps over my flesh that tells me I’m being watched. That I’m in horrible danger.

I turn my head, and shock slams into me.

Less than ten feet away are four big men with hard eyes and menacing expressions, standing as still as stone and glaring at me. One is brandishing a bloodied baseball bat. The others have tattooed hands clenched around brass knuckles.

Merda, as Nonna would have said, because she knew when the biggest, rudest words are needed.

My eyes travel downward. A fifth man is slumped on the floor, covered in blood and bruises.

His face is contorted in pain and fear, and blood is matted in his blond hair and pouring down his cheek.

More blood is spattered across his white T-shirt and the tattoos covering his arms and throat.

He’s outnumbered, and possibly dazed by a wallop from that baseball bat.

Our eyes meet, and his are a vivid, agonized, terrified blue. His pain pierces me all the way into my soul.

I stand frozen in place. My father is one of the most dangerous men in this broken city, and after escaping from beneath his violent, murderous thumb, I told myself I was safe.

My plan is to exist on a coffee-shop salary and a diet of instant noodles, and as soon as I’ve saved enough money for a plane ticket abroad, I’m leaving and never coming back.

But nowhere is safe in Malus. You barely need to scratch the luxurious facade of this city to find the treacherous, violent underbelly.

Coming out alone and unarmed in the middle of the night was a mistake. I should have shoved my soiled bedding to the floor and slept under my bathrobe.

I should have bought the first bus ticket out of town when my engagement party turned into a bloodbath.

The dispenser releases my change, and the cascade of quarters is deafening in the silence.

I jump and breathe faster as I continue staring into the blood-soaked man’s eyes.

I want to scream, but the ghost of my father’s hand striking me makes my throat seize up.

I’ve been slapped across the face for crying.

For screaming. For feeling anything at all.

The man with the baseball bat brandishes it menacingly. I imagine the bat crashing into my skull, and my world going dark forever.

A strained voice speaks from the floor. “Let her go.” The man on the floor has his teeth grit, and sweat is beading on his brow. He doesn’t look away from me as he pants, “Go. Run. Don’t get involved. I’m not worth it.”

For a moment, he almost looks like someone I’ve seen before, but then the flash of familiarity is gone.

I moisten my lips. The man with the baseball bat looks ready to swing at me.

A memory flashes through my mind. The golden ballroom light illuminating the carnage and screaming, while I, the reason this is all happening, am frozen in place.

For a crazed second, I imagine saying, I’m Adora Montoni, Don Agnello’s daughter, and I demand you release this man immediately.

I don’t, because they’ll probably laugh at me for being delusional.

In these sweats with my hair a mess, I don’t look anything like the polished and protected mafia princess I once was.

Or they could be from a rival gang and kill me too.

It’s nearly impossible to keep up with who wants who dead in Malus.

People change alliances like they change their clothes.

Fear beats inside me. The smart thing to do would be to leave the blue-eyed stranger to his fate.

I can’t help him. It’s four against two, and they’re all armed.

I picture running away, but this man would be tortured and killed with no one to hear his screams. Sadness washes over me.

This man no doubt has family, and they will weep over his desecrated body when he’s found discarded in a ditch.

The injured man’s voice rises in desperation. “She didn’t see anything. Please, just let her go.”

A small, shaky voice I barely recognize as my own whispers, “What?”

Is he begging for my life? One of the thugs kicks the bloodied man in the ribs. I wince as his face contorts in pain.

Again, something about this man’s face reminds me of someone I’ve met or seen in a photograph, but it’s impossible to place him under all the blood and bruises.

“Stop that,” I burst out. “Why are you doing this to him?”

“This psycho fuck would gut you the second he gets free,” the man with the baseball bat sneers. “Walk away while you can.”

The captive’s expression is bleak, but even through the grime and dark streaks of blood, I can see the striking, clean lines of his face.

His angular jaw is marred by a scrape, and his high cheekbones are swollen and purpled.

His despairing eyes hold a piercing intelligence.

The thought that those eyes might lose their light makes my heart ache.

The man with the bat is losing his patience. “Last chance, bitch. Turn around and walk away, or once we’re finished with him, we’ll have you for dessert.”

The other three men leer at me like they’re hoping I’ll stick around, and my mouth goes dry.

“Please, just go,” the captive urges me, his voice rising with desperation. “I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

The man with the bat jabs him with it. “Drop that fake kicked-puppy act, you one-man slaughterhouse. You’re not fooling anyone.”

The blond man winces, and then he looks desperately around my feet. A knife with a wickedly sharp blade is lying on the cracked tiles a little to my left.

It unlocks a flood of unwelcome memories. I feel warm blood soaking into my lilac dress, and the screams of dying people chase after me. Acid-like guilt has shocked me out of sleep night after night.

Am I going to do it again? Just run away?

I scour the men for clues as to who they are.

They each have scorpions inked into their flesh, on the backs of their hands, their arms, or the sides of their necks.

I’ve known what a scorpion tattoo means since I was in middle school, and that gives me an idea.

A reckless idea, but it’s all I have. The Dervishis are a crime family who moved into the north of the city some years ago, and their hallmark is cruel and sadistic violence.

My father is always railing against them, though he’s no better than they are just because he wears suits and lives in a twenty-million-dollar house.

Planting my feet more firmly, I let my lip curl. “Dervishi scum.”

The ringleader’s face transforms in hatred as he shifts his attention toward me. “What did you just say, bitch?”

The young man’s eyes widen in horror, and he gives me a tiny, scared shake of his head.

I put my hand on my hip and take a step to my left, and my foot lands deliberately on the blade of the knife. Intent on the woman daring to disrespect them, the men don’t notice.

“You heard me. Why don’t you run back into the hole you crawled out of?”

Outrage spreads over the Dervishis’ faces. They’re distracted from their victim. Now’s my chance.

I propel the knife across the floor with my foot, and it feels like an eternity before the blond man snatches it from the tiles.

He doesn’t fumble. He seizes it, and in one fluid, coiled motion, he rises to his full height.

He’s a wall of muscle, far larger than he appeared on the ground, and he moves with a predator’s grace that chills me to the bone.

The wince of pain that I expect from him never comes.

Instead, a smile unfurls across his face, slow and vicious, and my blood turns to ice.

The Dervishis’ anger at me melts into shock as they see their “captive” holding a weapon. The blond man is a head taller than any of them, and his muscles are straining against his bloodied clothes. He made himself look smaller and weaker while he was on the ground. Why did he do that?

My stomach clenches with a new kind of fear, and it’s not about the Dervishis.

The blond man reaches out and yanks one of his captors closer by his hair.

The Dervishi flails for his companions and begs to be saved, but before anyone can move, the blond man draws the blade—the blade I gave him—across his captive’s throat.

I’m transfixed in horror as the Dervishi makes a choking sound, and blood sprays everywhere.

The blond man’s blue eyes are dark with malice as he lunges for his next victim. He stabs the man in the stomach over and over, the blade moving in a blur.

“You’ve killed us all, you stupid bitch,” the Dervishi ringleader roars. He lifts his bat and swings in a futile attempt to defend himself.

The blond man ducks, and then jams the knife through his attacker’s throat. He leans in close so his grinning face is all the dying Dervishi can see. He twists the blade, and a sickening crunch and squelch fills the air, nauseating me. The Dervishi dies, and slumps to the ground.

After taking a moment to enjoy his handiwork, the blond man turns to the last Dervishi, who’s cornered and on his knees with both hands clasped together in prayer.

“You’re a devil. God save me,” the man screams.

The blond puts the blood-covered blade between his teeth, grasps the man’s head, and viciously snaps it to one side. The body slumps to the ground.

Then the only sound is my rapid, terrified breathing. Blood is pooling around my feet. Memories of past slaughter are overlapping with this one, pressing in on me.

This can’t be happening again.

The blond monster takes the knife out from between his teeth. Those beautiful, emotional blue eyes that touched my soul a moment ago are dead and cold. His gleaming white teeth are stained red with blood.

He’s still smiling like a psycho.

He is the devil. I don’t know why I believed he needed my help.

I pivot and run, but my foot slips in blood, giving the man enough time to tackle me. We crash to the floor with him on top. I thrash back and forth, drawing enough breath into my lungs to scream, but it does me no good. No one’s coming to save me.

I feel his hot breath in my ear as he says, vicious and mocking, “Where do you think you’re going, my pretty little savior?”

His right hand is braced by my head, and I see what I didn’t notice before. The detail of the tattoo on his forearm.

An ominous midnight raven with its wings spread.

Even before I knew what a scorpion tattoo meant, I knew the deadly significance of a raven tattoo.

When I gave this man a knife, I thought I was saving a victim of Dervishi violence.

Maybe not an innocent victim, but at least someone who would thank me for saving him from a deadly beating in a laundromat.

I was wrong.

This man’s a Vici.

If he finds out I’m a Montoni, I’m a dead woman.