Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
Armando
I open the back door and push her out then pull it shut behind us and test the lock. “Show me you can be trusted.” I smack her ass again.
I’m not usually the ass-smacking type. At least I wasn’t before prison. Sure, I gave my fiancée a spank or two during sex, but Hannah is a different story altogether.
Her ass is juicy. Round, plump. Firm. I don’t just want to bend her over and fuck her again, I want to spank her brown cheeks rosy and own that ass with my cock.
Jesus, fuck.
I’m a feral animal.
A wild beast rutting.
And Hannah is my prey.
I want to throw her in the back of the van and have another go at that lush body of hers right here, right now.
I almost wish she’d give me a reason to keep manhandling her, but she behaves herself, strutting straight to the passenger side of the beat up, rust-covered, 1970s Dodge Ram van with a flower decal on the side and waiting for me to unlock it.
The paint of the aging van is peeling and chipping off, the rust eating at the edges.
The lettering of Garden of Eden Florists on the side is blistered, peeled, faded and flaking, leaving yellow paint behind.
“Does this heap even run?” I say the words out loud as I open the door for her. I don’t mean to shame the girl, but Jesus, this tin can is a dinosaur that has truly seen its day.
“Are you even allowed to drive?” she snarks back as she climbs in.
“No.” I slam her door and walk around, keeping an eye on her through the windows. She sits down and folds her hands in her lap, perfectly behaved.
Almost too perfectly. Either she’s more worried about getting this money in the bank than she is her safety with me, or she’s planning something.
I hope it’s the former.
I get in and start the van. Correction— try to start the van. It takes a couple attempts before it sputters to life. I don’t know how the fuck she handles flower deliveries with a van that needs work. Which I guess speaks to her money problems.
The van smells of lilac and gasoline, and there is a large crack in the windshield. Though the engine is now running, it’s not exactly humming like a well-oiled machine. It’ll be a miracle if we even make it out of this alley.
I glance at her hands in her lap. Her wrists still wear the mark of the tape I bound them with, and there’s an angry red scrape down her arm.
The fuck?
My hand shoots out to snatch up her wrist before I can dial back the aggression.
I’m pissed at myself for hurting her. I don’t even know when it happened.
My body goes into full rage mode like I’m going to defend her against myself.
The aggression is different from how I was back there with the hitman.
Not so clean and clinical. There’s emotion this time.
She gasps and tries to pull away. I force myself to gentle my hold because I’m scaring the hell out of her. “Did I do that?” I manage to choke, running my thumb over the long thick red line.
She looks at me like I’ve lost my mind.
Maybe I have.
“What? The scratch?” A shaky laugh tumbles from her lips. “No. My kitten did that last night. He fell in the bathtub while I was in it. Turns out, cats can fly.” Another nervous laugh.
Kitten.
Kitten. It takes a moment for the word to even process. Cute furry thing with claws. Right. Her cat scratched her.
Not me.
I relax my hold and sit back in my seat, forcing myself to exhale. I want to ask if I hurt her, but I already know I did. The skin around her wrists and bruises on her hips. Hopefully nothing worse. Nothing deep and psychological that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Yeah, right. Guy comes in, kills a man in front of her, then ties her up and fucks her. She’s definitely scarred for life.
“My thighs are all scratched up, too.”
My eyes drop to the hemline of her short skirt. Fuck if I don’t want to see those scratches for myself now.
I wrench my gaze back to the windshield. I need to get my head back in the game. I dip my cock in a chick once, and suddenly everything’s haywire for me.
Hannah’s got some kind of magic pussy or something. Like that doesn’t sound insane.
“Which bank?” I ask roughly. “They’d better have a drive-thru.”
“Chicago City Bank on Lincoln. Um...hopefully.” She sounds doubtful like she knows they don’t but just isn’t telling me.
“Do they or don’t they, Flowers?” I snap.
She reaches over and touches my forearm. “Please? I have to make this deposit.”
It’s so fucked that I’m even considering this. She’s my hostage until I figure out what the hell I’m going to do with her, and I’m going to go run her errands?
Give her at least a dozen opportunities to signal for help or run away?
On the other hand, the vague plan in the back of my head is to sit on her until I get a feel for her.
Figure out if she’s gonna squeal or not.
Ignoring her needs isn’t going to win trust. And since I seem reluctant to make the kind of threats that will keep her quiet out of fear, I’m probably gonna have to go on trust if I don’t want to get rid of her.
And I definitely don’t.
I grind my molars, trying to come to a decision. Stopping at the bank is a really, really bad one. I can’t send her in alone. I can’t leave her in the van unless I tie her up in the back, and doing that in public would be risky.
“Please.”
I glance over and curse. “You try anything, Flowers, I will make you sorry.”
That’s the closest I can come to threatening her.
Would I hurt a woman? No fucking way. We may be criminals, but goodfellas swear an oath to respect women and our elders. I nearly punched myself in the face when I thought I’d scraped her arm.
Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t smack her ass and tie her up. Show her who’s boss.
“I won’t.”
I growl but find a spot to park near the bank. “Don’t open your fucking door until I come around.” I glare at her.
She pales slightly. “Chill, Armando. I’m not going to try anything.
I just have to deposit this money.” She picks up the money pouch I set between our seats and waves it.
Her hand’s trembling like crazy, and I feel bad about scaring her, but I don’t apologize.
I just give her the hairy eyeball as I shut the door and stalk around to her side.
She waits until I open it, like I instructed.
“Good girl.” I offer a hand to help her out.
She clutches the bag to her chest. “Can I get my purse? In case they need I.D.?”
I already pocketed her phone, but I still don’t like it. I reach for the purse and pull the I.D. out of her wallet. “Let’s go.” I take her hand but fold it behind her back, like she’s under arrest. It’s symbolic—her other hand is free, but she’ll get my meaning.
I start sweating the moment we walk inside the bank.
The air is thick with the smell of polished wood, antiseptic, and body odor.
There are people everywhere. A security guard by the door with a gun.
He’s a big, lumbering guy, with a mustache and an ill-fitting uniform.
The eyes that look at you from behind his glasses are tired and bored.
All Hannah has to do is scream for help, and it’s over.
“Armando,” Hannah murmurs. I like it when she says my name. I like that she remembered me. She wriggles her hand in mine, and I realize I’m squeezing too tightly.
I loosen my grip slightly and pull her hand out from behind her back to swing between us. We walk up to the teller, and I swear to Christ my heart’s beating so loud I think the teller will hear it. She’ll probably think I’m trying to rob the bank and sound the silent alarm.
Hannah quickly fills out a deposit slip and pushes the cash across the counter.
“You had an overdraft charge today,” the teller informs her.
Hannah tenses. “I did? I thought I had until the end of the day to make the deposit.”
The teller looks at her screen. “No, it’s real time. The check came through around two p.m.”
Okay, so she wasn’t playing me. She really does have money trouble. I tap the stack of cash with the deposit slip. “Will this cover it?”
The teller counts the money and types into her computer. “The overdraft charge was $35, so you’re twenty-two short.”
I shove my hand in my pocket to pull out another five hundred Benjamins. “Put that in the account, too.”
She nods, counts it and types some more. “Will that be all?”
I close my fingers around Hannah’s hand again. “Yes.” I start to pull her away when the teller calls back to me.
“Hang on.”
I freeze, a tight cord of tension running between my shoulder blades.
“Here’s your receipt.”
Jesus, I just want to get out of this place. But I turn and grab the receipt then pull my little captive with me.
“You were short by a lot,” I say as we walk out of the building. Again, I’m not trying to shame her, I’m just wondering what the fuck her plan was.
She stiffens, tucking her curls behind her left ear. “Better to be short with the bank than short with the don, right?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “You behind on rent?”
I don’t know why I’m worried for her now, but I am.
If she owes Don Pachino money and doesn’t pay it, he’ll swallow her business up in a heartbeat.
That flower shop will become a money-laundering machine.
Every delivery van will be driven by a soldier on Family business between making the flower rounds.
It’s actually such a perfect setup, I’m surprised he hasn’t already moved on it.
She shakes her head, sending her golden-tipped curls rippling like a waterfall, but there’s still an ocean of worry in the set of her shoulders. I get it. She made the rent today, but she’s still worried about tomorrow and the next day and the one after that.
I put her back in the van. Considering what a shit show today was, I’m somewhat amazed this stop actually turned out okay.
I drive to her neighborhood, which isn’t that far from her shop in Little Italy. Parking is a bitch, so I circle around a half dozen times. I don’t want to park too far from her place because it gives her a better chance to scream for help or run or... whatever.
The stupid thing is that I know exactly how to stop any hint of that behavior. I know how to issue threats. I’ve perfected mean and cruel.
I could easily make her piss herself with fear without ever laying a hand on her.
But I can’t bring myself to do it. Even though it would make things simpler.
Make my job at her place clearer. All I’d have to do would be solidify the threat. Put the fear of the devil in her. Then do intermittent check-ins to make sure she’s still scared.
Intimidation is an easy game, really.
But that’s not tonight’s show.
I don’t know what the fuck I’m going to do with her, but everything in me rebels at the thought of scaring her even more than I have. And honestly? She’s a tough cookie because so far, the only thing that broke her was the closet and the risk of not making her deposit.
So she trusts me against her better judgment, or she trusts herself to be able to handle me.
I don’t mind either of those scenarios.
We pass a motor cop giving tickets out. Hannah’s head jerks up.
I tense, a million ugly scenarios running through my head, the primary one involves her trying to open her door and jump out. But she immediately looks over at me. Nothing surreptitious about it. Not hiding what she just saw. More like she’s questioning me—did I see that cop?
I cock a brow. I really don’t understand this girl.
“What happens if you get pulled over?”
My brain scrambles to follow. Is she for real?
“You worried about me?”
She shrugs. “You don’t have a license.”
I throw on the brakes when I see someone pulling out and put on my blinker behind them. While we wait, I give her a total stare-down, trying to get into her head. “You scared of me at all, Flowers?”
I should want her answer to be yes. It would mean I’ve done what needs to be done to keep her quiet. Ensure she doesn’t talk. But for whatever dumbass reason, I love that she’s not all that scared. Because she’s into me.
Her eyes widen slightly like I just reminded her that she should be. “Yeah.” She sounds breathless.
“Not enough to want me busted.”
She’s still holding her breath when she gives her head a little shake.
Huh. Not sure what I did to win her allegiance, but I like it.
I park and throw my door open, walking around swiftly in case she runs.
She doesn’t. She hops out and tugs down her short skirt, which rides tight over those shapely thighs. Her mess of curls falls over one eye as she contemplates me.
I hold out my hand like we’re on a date and she invited me in instead of whatever the hell I’m doing with her.
“I’ve had enough of hand-holding with you.” She flounces past me without taking it.
Something foreign and buoyant stirs within me. Something I haven’t felt in years. What is it?
Amusement.
The girl amuses me.
That’s my lips trying to curve, but they don’t remember how.
I ignore the urge and follow her.