Seized by the Mafia King (London Mafia Bosses #9)

3. Willow

3

WILLOW

I crash through the forest, cursing my stupid shoes, and the necessity of bare feet. Why-oh-why did I have to wear heels to the wedding?

At least the leaves are deep and cushioned as I sprint away from the man who took me. I hold the train of my dress in one hand, and my hair whips over my shoulders and drags behind, the air caressing my nape. The sun is dappled through the trees. It’s not even dark. I don’t have any advantage other than the surprise of my escape.

But this is my only chance, and I’m going to take it.

I run, forcing my legs to move faster than they want to, the muscles burning already. Damn cardio. I drag in breaths, open-mouthed, and run with a single focus: freedom.

The plan to escape Witham might have worked, but Bethnal? A London Mafia Boss? That’s a whole different, more dangerous, thing.

Besides, I’m just a girl. I’m of no use to someone like Zane Bethnal.

I don’t think he’ll even chase?—

“I’m coming for you, little bunny.” Zane’s voice bounces around the forest, making it seem like he’s everywhere. It’s eerie, despite the sunny day.

My heart thuds in my chest as my legs channel the fear that pulses from my heart. I cannot be trapped again. I weave through the trees, searching for something that might help. Could I climb a tree? No. Is there a house nearby where I can plead for help? No.

I curse that I didn’t get out earlier, but this small, winding road was the first time the car slowed down enough for me to have the guts to do it.

Faster. I have to be quicker and smarter than the mafia boss.

My body isn’t used to this and every part of it is screaming for me to stop. It hurts. My legs, my feet, my lungs, my heart.

Even my treacherous mind whispers, Why go to this effort to get away from a man as sexy as Zane Bethnal ? It’s futile. He’s taller and stronger than you. He can take one step for two of yours. He’ll catch you if he wants to.

No.

I have to keep going. For once, I have a chance. I have the element of surprise.

All I’ve ever known is being constrained and told that what I wanted wasn’t important. Smacked down if I tried to express an opinion, and punished for doing what I thought was right. Everyone in my family thinks working in a shop is beneath a Maldon. They’ll never think to look for me there, if I can just escape Bethnal, I could make a new life with the money I have in a secret account.

Footsteps thud, heavy and determined, behind me.

Oh sugar. I snake through the trees, and pain from my feet shoots up my nerves. My arms pump and my legs are jelly-ish as I try to get to some unknown safe place.

The trees are endless.

And that’s when I hear his breathing, almost as loud as my own harsh panting and the pounding of my heart.

He’s really chasing me. Like he means it.

“Help!” I yell the word into the forest, and my panic makes it a screech. “Help!”

An animal skitters off into the undergrowth, and then it’s just the yellow sunlight, the green of the canopy above, the smooth tree trunks, and my path through the endless crunch of leaves. The land has begun to rise, and my limbs are getting tired. My chest burns. I’m slowing, despite everything.

What if he catches me, what will he do…?

He’ll make good on what he said in the car. Cake, and making his captive come until she begs him to stop because it’s too good. And then a worse thought snatches at my ankle, dragging at me like a ball and chain.

What if he doesn’t catch me?

What if I never find out all the ways he’d be filthy and terrifying and so, so hot.

I want him to catch me and do things to me, but I shouldn’t.

“There’s no one else here, bunny,” he rasps, and it’s not even a shout. “There’s no escape.”

A sob escapes me at how close he is, and how alone we are.

There’s empty woodland for miles. I was an idiot to think I could get out. He’s a massive, powerful, muscled kingpin, and I’m a twenty-year-old girl who doesn’t do enough exercise.

Giving a futile burst of speed, I push my body to the painful limits.

I jerk as he grabs my upper arm and spins me around, shoving me against a tree. I let out an “oof” as my back hits the trunk, but it’s not enough to hurt. Or maybe it is, and I can’t feel it past the terror rising in my throat.

Raising my hands, I instinctively go to strike at his face. His eyes. To scratch and claw and get away again, but he’s too quick. He grabs one wrist then the other in a punishing grip and forces them above my head.

He’s breathing heavily, but not fast, and his ice-blue eyes bore into me.

Scowling up at him—and it is up since he’s so tall—there’s a mess of emotions in my heaving chest and we stare at each other for long seconds as I drag in oxygen like I’ve been underwater my whole life.

He doesn’t move, just keeping me pinned, and not saying anything. I don’t know what to do. Cry? Try to knee him in the crotch? I have a feeling he’ll anticipate any attack I make.

The worst thing? He hardly has a hair out of place, while I’m sure I’m a red, blotchy, sweaty mess. He’s utterly gorgeous, and has chased me in a suit. He’s discarded his jacket and tie, and undone his top button, but his shirt remains tucked into his trousers neatly and he’s not even panting.

The tension ratchets up between us as my breathing evens out, but he doesn’t hit me like Robert would have, or berate me like my mother.

The silence draws out my tension, and I begin to shake.

I should look down and protect my face from the inevitable blow, but I stupidly don’t, filled with a fire I haven’t felt for years.

“Just get it over with!” I shout, frustration and fear bubbling over.

“What?” he asks, calm and dangerous. “Get what over with?”

“Whatever you’re going to do,” I reply sulkily. I can’t stop him.

“I will never hurt you, Willow.” His voice goes soft. “And I will kill anyone who does. I will break the bones of anyone who so much as touches you.”

That statement steals my breath.

There’s no reason to trust him. Except, it feels right.

“Fuck.” He tightens his grip on my wrists. “Don’t run from me again, little bunny.”

I press my lips together, even as my body tingles everywhere we touch, but I’m not making any promises.

He brings his hand to my face, and I flinch away, but I can’t get far.

“Willow.” The tips of his fingers are as gentle as a summer breeze as he touches my cheek. “Who did this to you?”

Huffing, I shake my head. He knows. It’s obvious. Violence against women is part of the Essex mafias, he should know that. When I was a kid, it was casual cuffs around the ear for being “sassy”. It escalated with my age though. Of course it did.

Doesn’t it everywhere?

I can’t go back to Maldon.

He hooks his thumb under my chin and tilts my face up until I have no choice but to look into his eyes. They’re the colour of the centre of a flame, the very palest blue.

A tremor goes through me, and I flush.

I feel safe with Zane, and the combination of safety and him holding me is having an effect I didn’t anticipate.

There’s something about this man, and I’m struggling to remember why I wanted to get away. Why I should be afraid. Because I’m melting under his white-hot gaze. My mouth opens to get more air in, but it’s not from being out of breath after running. Nope. It’s pure arousal, unlike anything I’ve felt. My hips move involuntarily, seeking friction, and his erection presses into my belly.

His eyes narrow, and I freeze.

He was turned on by our chase and our proximity as he holds me… And so am I.

“Why did you take me from the church? Why are you doing this?” I ask the question that has been spinning around my head, and that he avoided while we were in the car. My tone is breathy, revealing my conflict. I shouldn’t like being held by Zane, but it feels right in a way that I can’t understand, or deny. It’s as though all the stars have lined up.

“You don’t know?” he replies, an edge to his voice.

My heart sinks in what I’m not ready to call disappointment. Of course. Sex, money, power. One of those reasons.

Money or power doesn’t quite make sense. He has gained by taking the Witham territory for himself. Admittedly, no London Mafia Boss has managed to get into the Essex Cartel yet. There is a marriage between a London Mafia Boss and the daughter of Braintree, but that’s complicated, so maybe Bethnal thinks if he could marry in too, it might help him?

Well, he’ll be disillusioned about that. I have no influence in Maldon.

“You do know,” he says softly. “I can see it in your face. We’re meant to be.”

I blink. I must have misheard him.

He strokes his fingers down my throat in a move that emphasises how I’m at his mercy, but there’s no mistaking the hungry expression on his face as his gaze dips to my mouth. “You feel it too. You’re mine, little bunny.”

Is that what this feeling is? We’re fated?

I want to scoff. But I’m an innocent, trapped mafia princess. I haven’t a clue about being with a man. I’ve never responded to anyone like I do to Zane, but I hardly have much to compare to. Maybe this fizzing in my veins is normal?

“How do you know?” I sound confused and not at all as defiant as I intended.

“I’m a forty-two-year-old mafia boss,” he states, with a wry hook up of the corner of his mouth that makes my pulse jump.

Oh my. I thought he was older than me, and I was right. He’s more than twice my age. That’s filthy.

And makes my clit throb.

“I have instincts honed by more than a decade of running the Bethnal mafia.” His hand comes to rest over my collarbones, as light and binding as a collar. “Of hard choices, and life-or-death judgements. I trust my gut. And my heart.”

It’s mad that I understand. My heart is saying the same—that he’s mine and I’m his. Somehow, this feeling is as bone-deep as the lessons of not trusting my family.

He leans in, lowering his mouth until I’m cross-eyed trying to keep looking at him. His breath is warm.

“Say no, little bunny. Say you don’t want me to kiss you. Say that you don’t feel this too.”

He’s so close. My lips tingle and my heart races, but I don’t say no. I can’t.

His thumb strokes over the back of my trapped hand.

“Did you really want to escape me?” The low rumble of his voice is like the harmony to a song I’ve been singing all my life, that’s out of time with everything in Maldon. I thought I was out of tune. But it’s not. I just didn’t have the right person with me.

And then he touches his lips to mine.

My first kiss.