Chapter 9
9
CELIA
O n Friday night, as I’d promised Kara, I wound my way through the crowded club. I fixed a big smile on my face and tried to look as if I were having fun.
I hated loud noises, dancing, and to be honest, most people. However, the club was the perfect cover for spoiled mafia princesses. If we were caught, our families would think we were being slutty and rebellious.
They’d be lucky if we were rebellious instead of murderous.
I’d felt thrown off since my date with Gabriel. But I wasn’t going to end our plans and hope some man would rescue me. Especially not when that man was Gabriel Caruso.
I slipped into the dimly lit ladies’ room. It smelled disturbingly fishy in here, but when the door slammed shut behind me, the sounds outside were muffled. I breathed a sigh of relief as I moved to check the stalls. They were all empty.
The door opened behind me.
The girl who walked in had pink hair and a tight bodysuit. It took me a second to recognize the girl I knew from the daughters’ room at our fathers’ exclusive club. Her big, amber eyes and round cheeks had been transformed by the sexy look.
“I didn’t recognize you,” I told her as she locked the door behind us.
“That’s the goal, isn’t it?” Natalie’s gaze swept over me. “You look beautiful. But you still look like you.”
I shrugged and glanced in the mirrors over the dingy sinks. My hair was long and platinum blond—I’d dyed it since I was a kid to look more like my dead mother—and the red dress I wore clung to my curves.
“No one expects Carmichael’s daughter to have slipped her gilded cage,” I said with a shrug. “Who knows what I even look like?”
“Your bodyguard,” she said. “I saw him moving through the crowd. And I’m not sure he’s alone.”
I swallowed.
“Moriah handed this off to me on my way in. She and Kara went to slow them down.” Natalie held out a cell phone. “They’re going to find you. But make sure they don’t find this.”
“Thank you.” I slid the phone in between my cleavage, pushing it down until it wasn’t exposed by the low slit. Spanx corsets—not just for shaping, but also for concealing weapons. “I don’t know what I’d do without my queens.”
“You never have to find out.” Natalie gave me a sympathetic look and a hug, given that she knew my father’s ways well enough to know what was coming.
But I’d had to get that phone from Moriah. She was a tech goddess, and if we were going to topple our fathers’ empires, we’d need to do that from the inside out.
The mafia called us princesses. We called each other queens.
“I’m going to get out of here before they come in after me,” I murmured. “Stay safe.”
“You too.” Natalie squeezed me one last time. “Empires aren’t built in a day.”
“But we’ll shatter theirs overnight.” When I couldn’t smile back at her, her smile turned a little sad.
She’d started our cute little catchphrase. She was a ball of sweetness and light. I’d thought she was stupid and na?ve when our families forced us to start spending time together at the club—waiting in the daughters’ lounge while outside those doors business and murder and depravity unfolded.
But now I knew her better.
“Love you,” she whisper-called after me as I moved to the door.
“Just hide on the toilet,” I whispered back. I couldn’t say I love you to anyone.
But she grinned at me like hide on the toilet was code for I love you in our weird little world. I wanted to make sure she didn’t get caught.
She disappeared into the stall, her stilettos vanishing as she climbed up on top of the toilet. I unbolted the door and swung it open.
My heart leapt into my throat as I faced the big, muscular body that took up the entire doorway.
Luca Direnzo.
“What are you doing here, princess?” His green eyes searched mine as he bent his head, studying me. He looked at me like I was the intriguing, dangerous thing he’d ever seen, and he had to understand me.
It was so unsettling. I was furniture at my father’s house. Meant to be seen and not heard.
I froze, letting an edge of fear bleed into my expression. I didn’t have to act.
“I just wanted a night out,” I stammered.
“Mm.” He reached out and wrapped one enormous, tattooed hand around the nape of my neck. His warm grip sent a sliver of heat melting down my spine, turning it to liquid. “Is that so?”
His gaze was too sharp, and he raised his eyes from mine to look beyond me at the bathroom.
Fuck .
“Please don’t tell my father,” I started to babble, then abruptly leapt forward. My breasts collided with his pecs, and his arms started to close around me, but I ducked under his arm.
His fingers snatched at the back of my neck again, but he hadn’t closed his grip firmly, and now I was free. He hadn’t expected the sudden burst of motion.
Not for long. I knew he’d catch me, but I had to give Natalie time to escape.
I slid into the crowd of bodies undulating under the pulsing lights. My heart hammered as I tried to wind my way between them, knowing he was right behind me.
He was on me in a flash, grabbing my hips so tightly that his fingers dug into my hip bones. He dragged me back abruptly until my body slammed into his. One of his arms pinned me across the throat, holding me tightly against him.
“Don’t run from me, starlight,” he murmured into my ear, his breath hot on my cheek. “You won’t like what happens when I have to chase you.”
“Let go of me.” I choked on the words, given the pressure of his arm against my throat. Every time my throat bobbed, the hard edge of his forearm pressed into my airway.
“Not a chance. Now don’t make a scene.”
He moved the two of us fluidly through the crowd. People parted for him. If they’d gotten out of my way like that, I might’ve made it out the door.
His other hand gripped my hip, moving my body with his so that it looked to anyone who saw us as if we were dancing. I was keenly aware of his muscular body pressing mine, pushing me with him. He had a perfect sense of rhythm, moving us in time with the music. I felt an unexpected rush of heat at his body pressing mine.
Then the two of us were out of the crowd and moving into the open air by the doors. The bouncer’s eyes skipped over me and nodded to him. Fuck . No help coming from that corner, obviously. Not that I thought anyone was going to help me in this city besides my girls.
Then we were out in the cool air. Streetlights cast sparkling light through the soft rain coming down, which seemed to coat my skin. A sleek, dark car was parked haphazardly in front of the club, and Luca reached out to open the back door, his arm still tight against my throat.
He opened the door for me, and I slid inside onto the expensive leather, the new car scent competing with the spicy cologne. I found another guy sitting on the other side of the car, preventing me from scooting across and trying the door—though I was willing to bet I couldn’t escape that easily.
The other man was huge, like Luca, and he didn’t even glance my way. He was handsome, tattoos crawling up his neck, his dark hair curly and disheveled above chiseled cheekbones.
“Hello to you too,” I said to him, but he didn’t respond. Apparently, he was only there as a wall of human flesh to keep me from escaping out the other side. It was strange I didn’t know his face. No one noticed me, but I noticed everyone in my father’s empire.
There was a driver up front, too, who was pulling off as soon as Luca slammed the door shut. Luca’s big shoulder bumped into me, pushing me into the other wall of muscle on the other side so I was pinned between them.
“Dante doesn’t talk,” Luca told me. “You, on the other hand, had better start talking. What were you doing out here tonight?”
“I’m going to have to explain myself to my father, I don’t need to explain myself to his thugs.”
Luca twisted in his seat, moving so fast I barely saw his hand strike out until it was wrapped around my throat. Suddenly his face was in mine, so close that our breaths mingled. For a few long seconds, the two of us stared at each other. His hand was on my throat, but he didn’t squeeze. Yet. The threat was clear.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t insult me.” His voice came out softer than I expected.
“My father’s not going to appreciate the way you’ve had your hands all over me.”
“Really?” Amusement twisted at his lips. “I think your father’s going to want my hands all over you.”
A pulse of fear ran through my body.
As if he saw it, he pulled his hand away from my throat, settling back into his seat as if nothing had happened.
Father didn’t have time for me. Not even to hurt me. He had outsourced all his brutality to Amato, his best friend from childhood.
Dozens of times, I’d stood before my father in our dark, lush living room, trying to hold myself still and not fidget in the ways that annoyed him. I’d tried to look perfect and poised, the way he wanted me to be, as I explained some failure. I never explained myself to his satisfaction. He’d get up and signal to Amato. When he’d close the door behind him, his face was always shuttered, his eyes never meeting mine.
Instincts always took over, making me run from Amato, trying to push furniture into his path or to reach the door, even though it was locked. But it never mattered. Amato beat me with his fists, kicked me, tore off his belt, and lashed me with it mercilessly. He treated me as if he hated me. I’d never understood why he despised me so much or why my father took such full advantage of that merciless hatred.
Afterward, I would be confined to the house until the bruises had faded away, until I wasn’t an embarrassment to my father. He would never acknowledge how badly I was hurt, though sometimes a doctor came to tend my wounds. When Amato broke two of my ribs, I’d been hopeful my father would be tender and sorry.
Instead, I’d frozen in my room when I heard Amato and my father laughing in the hallway. Even the doctor who bandaged my ribs and checked on me daily didn’t meet my eyes. He had moved in silence without speaking to me.
I glanced over at Luca, suddenly afraid that he wasn’t just my father’s favorite new enforcer.
Maybe he was his punisher.