Chapter 4 #3
“No. No. No,” I chant, hitting the steering wheel.
Everything had gone perfectly. The four-hour ride to Vegas to pick up a fake ID and passport that Renzo had called in as a favor.
The research he did on his phone to kill time, where he jotted down the private airports closest to Los Angeles, the cost to hire a plane, and contact numbers to make arrangements.
Our animated discussion about the pros and cons of executing my escape, the main pro being my father underestimating my resourcefulness, and the main con being …
well, duh … caught. When my father hacks my phone records, searching for answers, he’ll find nothing.
No cell tower dings—I turned my phone off at the house.
No clues as to how I arranged a fake identity or transportation.
With Renzo taking charge, I’ll remain a ghost in all this.
I’m practically head-over-heels for this man. He’s not only gorgeous, in a wildly untamed way, but wicked smart. He seems to have an answer for everything.
“He’ll know I took his car.”
This strikes Renzo’s funny bone, and his laughter’s a deep, warm rumble.
“This is a disaster.”
“Fina. You riddled the cherry red paint with enough dents a demolition derby driver would applaud you. And I’m pretty damn sure you smashed the back fender while parking outside the casino.”
Yeah, I was worried about the reason behind the crunching sound.
I curse my spitefulness for not being the slightest bit careful with my father’s precious car, despite common sense urging me to do so. “What am I going to tell him?” My fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “He’ll pound me to a pulp.”
What I’m more concerned about, besides a few bruises, is that my father will realize I wasn’t where I was supposed to be. That his perfect mafia princess not only escaped her cage but was plotting to destroy it.
I was close … so close … to freedom.
Hope is a dangerous illusion. It creeps in, slow and seductive, until it owns you. Until you learn all over again the reasons you should be afraid. It drowns out doubts and strangles caution. Leaves you open and vulnerable to the pain that always follows.
I used to stare out the window, day after day, waiting for my mother’s return. Weeks and months spent hoping she would.
She never did.
My father made sure she wouldn’t.
Today went too smoothly. Too easily. I let myself believe I might escape this marriage, might carve out a future that’s mine. A dangerous lie I fed myself, one destined to fail.
But I do hope. I still have it in me.
I press my forehead to the steering wheel, so caught up in beating myself up, it takes a moment to realize Renzo’s dead silent.
“He beats you?”
I sit up, blinking in confusion. Not at his question—sadly—but at the assumption my father, with his anger management issues and violent nature, wouldn’t smack me around. My father’s notorious for his temper tantrums. “Well, yeah.”
Renzo makes a low, ominous sound deep within his throat, and my lips part in surprise. He never considered I’d be a punching bag? “Less now since I learned to be one step—”
“Motherfucker.”
Violence rolls off him, thick, volatile, and impossible to ignore.
I’m stunned, not just by its intensity, but by how wrong it feels coming from a man who lights every room with chaos and charm.
The jokester. The reckless daredevil. The wild hell-raiser who bends rules like they’re toys.
He’s the “kind” Beneventi. The one everyone whispers is the softest of the three. The least dangerous.
Some say the weak link.
I was raised as a mafioso’s daughter. Spent years assessing the merits of the men in the famiglie.
Tracking who holds power, who issues it, and who makes others choke on it.
I never considered Renzo weak—far from it.
But the look in his eyes now unsettles me, and I almost laugh.
Because I see the truth within the contradiction.
His darkness doesn’t just wound. It devours.
They’re wrong. All of them. His muscled body’s built for violence, like other mafiosi. But it’s the merciless sharpness of his mind that’s most lethal.
Holy hell. How do they not see the cold, calculated predator within him?
Because he hides it well.
Almost like he’d rather not be recognized.
“If I kill that fucker, all your problems are solved.”
I lunge at him, catching him off guard, arms thrown around his shoulders as I scatter kisses over his cheek. He’s on my side. He cares.
I don’t know when it shifts. When my nipples harden against his chest. When my mouth finds his. When his eyes turn black with promise.
All I know is suddenly I’m straddling him, lips crushed to his.
God, his kiss is aggressive, his tongue torment, his lips potent.
My whole world spins.
I shift my hips, then rub my crotch against the thick bulge in his jeans.
He curls my long hair around his fingers, immobilizing me while he devours me like he hasn’t kissed a woman in a long time.
It’s a ridiculous notion; this man notoriously goes through women like dirty socks, dirty being the key word.
I’ve had a few clumsy kisses in the high school hallway and one less-than-spectacular groping session beneath the stadium bleachers.
I try to tug away, to remind him I’m a virgin.
If anything, my resistance spurs him on.
His kiss deepens, his tongue violently tangling with mine until I’m lightheaded. Fingers squeeze a nipple, the brief sting melting into excitement.
I arch into him with a sharp gasp. “Again. Harder.”
His gaze locks with mine, those infamous baby-blue Beneventi eyes darkening to something dangerous.
His palm drags slowly across my stomach, the heat of his touch searing a path upward until it claims my chest, his fingertips mapping me like a man carving out his territory.
I bite my lip as he cups my breast over my bra, weighing its worth in his palm.
A more ruthless pinch to my nipple sends a shock wave crackling down my spine, igniting my core until I’m trembling.
He watches me, silent and merciless, studying my reaction. His voice drops, low and rough. “What am I going to do with you?”
It’s a rhetorical question.
Still, I have an answer, one he can’t refuse.
I reach for my purse, dig inside it, and retrieve the shibari rope I special ordered. After the photo of me bound, I tossed it inside my purse and forgot about it.
Until now.
He glances at it, then cocks his head at me. “You carry that around in your bag?”
“Lucky you,” I murmur.
I wait, with breathless anticipation, for him to react to my invitation. When he doesn’t, I push harder. “To be clear, you can tie me up, then fuck me.”
His jaw twitches, but otherwise, he gives nothing away. Is he shocked? Interested?
Or is he feeling too experienced for a novice like me?
He finally speaks, but not before lifting me off him, setting me on my feet, and exiting the car. “Why do I feel like this is a trap?”
I climb out, then round the hood. “It’s not.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.”
Is he testing me?
“Sure I do.”
His eyes narrow.
“I studied your kinks. The spankings. Bondage. Dominant tendencies.” Lord, my voice quivers when I say the last words.
Not only have I followed him closely, but I inserted myself into each explicit scene.
If the hot flush covering my body is any indication, I’m pretty sure I’d get off as much as he does.
“You especially love restraining women.” I tap his chest with the rope.
“And I want to experience my first time, restrained.”
I turn, press my stomach into the chrome and cross my wrists behind my back, while locking eyes with him over my shoulder.
He rubs his fingers across his rugged jawline.
I wiggle my bottom.
“This is a bad decision, babe.”
I roll my eyes. “I know.”
“You don’t,” he snaps, then taps a finger to his temple. “This fucking brain. When the switch flips, I’m all frost.” He steps toward me, then leans over until his breath tickles my earlobe. “Sex barely keeps the beast at bay. You really want to tread that fine line?”
Lord, this deliciously dark side of Renzo is thrilling.
“Maybe I step straight over it?" I softly murmur. "Maybe, like in the Life, with you the only way to survive is to cross the line everyone else is afraid of?”
He hesitates.
“Or is it you’re afraid? Is it because I’m a virgin?”
“Fucking hell it is.”
“You never popped a cherry before?” I lick my lips, and his eyes track the gesture.
“You tell me, you little fucking stalker.”
It’s laughable—the answer’s so straight-up obvious. Virgins aren’t anywhere near the places he frequents.
“Perfect,” I say. “I’ll be your first.”
“Fina. Fina. Fina.”
I do what I must and strip. The denim miniskirt slides down my legs, the cropped shirt pulled overhead, revealing the black lace bra and matching thong.
The pearls stay, draped around my neck like a challenge, glinting against my skin.
I flash an inviting smile over my shoulder, then put an exclamation point on my assault.
“Tie me up, Renzo, and then make my tight virgin pussy bleed all over the leather backseat.”
His eyes flash, seconds before he snaps.
He grabs the rope from where I tossed it on the hood and unwinds it around his hand. Slowly, methodically, eye-fucking me with a thunderous expression … It steals my breath.
I still, like a deer trapped in headlights, when his fingers brush my nipples, a passing caress as he expertly removes my black bra, then hooks a finger into the thin strip of my thong and tears it off me.
My heart pounds as he threads the rope around my body, my skin coming alive beneath the silky weave.
“No pink today?”
“It’s my day off.”
He grunts, then kicks my legs apart, looping the material around each thigh, then behind my back and around my wrists until I’m completely immobile, his to do with as he will. By the time he’s done, I’m vibrating with need.