Chapter 1 #2
“Implement my proposals in full, and she will be returned to your family safe and sound. To ensure her safety, I will keep her right beside me for the full implementation process. One week, Mattia. Tick tock.”
He swiped the screen to end the call, then shifted his body so he was facing her. Smiling broadly, he extended a hand. “Let me introduce myself properly. Gino Vicario.”
Gino waited for a response from the young woman staring at him with a look that could only be described as incredulous.
He hadn’t been lying when he’d described her to Mattia as beautiful.
He’d seen plenty of photos of Francesca Marino over the last couple of weeks – one of his men had said she was so oblivious to even the possibility of being followed that he’d wondered if he was actually following the right woman – but none of the pictures had done her justice.
Other than a sweep of mascara around her light brown eyes, she wore not a scrap of makeup.
With her heart-shaped face and perfectly plump heart-shaped lips, all framed with a tumble of long, glossy dark chestnut hair, she didn’t need it.
The only imperfection he could see was a slight bump on the bridge of her nose, but it in no way detracted from her beauty.
“Gino Vicario?” she repeated, a faint line appearing on her smooth forehead as she looked intensely at him.
“Yes. Gino. Consider me your humble protector for the next week.”
She raised an eyebrow more natural than any female eyebrow he’d seen since his school days and loosened the hold of her arms around herself. “Mr Vicario, do you have a death wish?”
He laughed, partly at her question but mostly in satisfaction that the enactment of his plan had passed almost exactly as he’d envisaged.
The almost came from Francesca’s lack of tears.
He’d imagined sobbing and pleading, so it was quite the relief not to have to deal with histrionics. “Do you play poker?”
The line on her forehead, low between her natural eyebrows, reappeared, and she shook her head.
“You know the basic rules of it?”
Another shake of her head.
He spread an arm out along the back of the seat.
“Okay, then let me explain. In poker, each player is dealt a hand of cards, and each hand has a scale of value from low to high. Whoever has the highest value hand at the end of the round wins all the money bet in that round. A player can fold at any time, which means they stop playing that hand and lose any money they’ve staked.
A player can also raise the bet, meaning they increase the stakes.
The other players have to either match the raise to continue playing or fold. With me so far?”
Eyes fixed on his in concentration, she nodded.
“Good. Now, to go all-in is considered an extremely risky move. It means that you are gambling every cent of your remaining money on the cards in your hand. That is what you are to me – you are my all-in move. I could lose everything on it, but I’m gambling on the win.”
The faint, vertical line made another appearance. “But you can’t win. Even if Mattia gives you what you want, the moment you set me free…” The vertical line deepened. “Were you telling the truth about that? Do you intend to set me free?”
“A man is nothing without his word.”
Did he imagine the faint rolling of her eyes at this?
“Okay, so you set me free as promised. Then what happens? Mattia kills you. That’s what happens.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?”
“There’s no maybe about it. He will kill you.” She stated this as if it were a simple fact.
He eyed her speculatively. “You really have no idea who I am, do you?”
She pulled a face. “I know you're some kind of gangster.”
“But my name means nothing to you?”
“Should it?” she asked doubtfully.
“If my name meant anything to you, you would know that Mattia killing me is not a done deal. To kill me would mean starting a war. Your family is powerful, Miss Marino, but I am powerful too, and unlike your cousins, everything I have, I built myself.”
“Am I supposed to be impressed by that?”
“Most people are.”
Her heart-shaped lips pursed together and wiggled from side to side, then her slender shoulders lifted. “I’m not most people.”
“So I’ve learned.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You know about me?”
“I didn’t choose you from all the members of your vast family at random. I know everything about you.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Just because I like to gamble doesn’t mean I don’t try to mitigate risks first.”
“No, I mean why choose me? Is it because you thought I would be the easiest to take?”
“That played a very small part.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “But the biggest factor was that you are the most valuable member of your family.”
It was rare for Gino to be taken by surprise, but when Francesca’s face lit up and she burst into laughter, he found himself looking at her with complete astonishment.
Other than her initial struggle when he’d kidnapped her, she’d not acted at all in the way that he’d expected, but laughter? That really was unexpected.
“Me?” she snorted, glee on her beautiful face. “The most valuable member? I can’t wait to tell my brother that one! I’m not even the most valuable member of my immediate family – even the dogs come higher in the pecking order.”
“Family dynamics always appear different from the outside than the inside…”
“Really? What are your family’s dynamics?”
Her question took him aback. “I thought you wanted me to explain why I chose you?”
“Oh yes. You were about to tell me why I’m so valuable. Carry on.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, eying her more warily as he wondered what the hell he was dealing with.
She smiled. It was a very pretty smile, but still a smile, and just like her laughter, thoroughly disconcerting. “You’re welcome.”
Okay, there was the definite possibility he was dealing with a lunatic. That was something his men hadn’t picked up on. “You’re valuable to your family because you’re young…”
“I’m twenty-two,” she cut in helpfully.
“I’m aware. And that is young. But you’re not just young, you are still intact, for want of a better word, which makes you extremely valuable.”
“Intact…? Oh.” The smile left her face, suspicion replacing it. “How do you know that?”
“I made it my business to know.”
“You’re very nosy, aren’t you?”
“I like to think of myself as being thorough.”
She pulled a face. “I call it nosy.”
“Whatever.” He took a deep breath to curb the spark of irritation.
“So why does my virginity make me important?”
“Because Mattia is in advanced talks with Elio Ranieri about marrying you off to him.”
Her head and shoulders reared back, and she blinked. “Please repeat that?”
“Your cousin is in talks to marry you off to Elio Ranieri.”
It happened again. Her face lit up, and she laughed, this time even harder. “Oh, you are funny! Marrying me off? I know I’m young, Mr Vicario, but I’m not completely credulous. The truth, please.”
“That is the truth. The Ranieris and your family have history. To stop an old war starting up again, Mattia is brokering a marriage to unite the two families. Your beauty and virginity make you quite the prize, Miss Marino.”
Now she blatantly rolled her eyes. “This isn’t the seventeenth century. No one can make me marry anyone.”
“What if you were told by your family that marrying this man could prevent a war? Could prevent bloodshed? What would you do? Say no? Would you really say no if the head of your family asked you to step up and play your part?”
The light in her pretty light brown eyes dimmed. “Are you really being serious? There are really talks underway about marrying me to a complete stranger, and the plan is essentially to bully and emotionally blackmail me into falling in line with it?”
“Exactly that.”
“And my parents? Are they involved in these talks?”
“Yes.”
For the first time, he detected a hint of steel in her pretty eyes before she primly clasped her hands together and smiled tightly. “Well, we shall see about that.”
Gino shrugged. Francesca’s future and how she chose to deal with it beyond the following week was none of his concern.
“So now you know your importance, you understand why I chose you to be my pawn? Mattia is not going to risk swooping in to save you if there is any chance you will get caught in the crossfire. There’s too much at stake for him.
He has no choice but to comply with my demands. ”
“And his comment about you not touching me in any way…? I assume that was a warning for you not to rape me?”
The matter-of-fact way she said this took him aback. Again. “I’m not in the habit of forcing myself on women, Miss Marino.”
“I should hope not, Mr Vicario. I always think it’s best for men in your position to stick to good old-fashioned gangstering.”
Again, he found himself wondering if the woman he’d taken as his pawn was, in fact, a bona fide nut case.
Who found themselves kidnapped and, after the initial panic, responded with laughter, smiles and quips?
Gino had seen grown men in Francesca’s position soil themselves through fear, and it was remembering this that had him considering whether her carefree attitude was a coping mechanism to deal with her fear. Yes, he decided. That made sense.
Now convinced she was masking her fright with smiles, he reassuringly said, “While you are in my care, you will not be touched or harmed in any way.”
“How kind,” she beamed, “although I think it’s a little bit of a stretch to call my position as being in your care. Let us not deal with euphemisms, Mr Vicario. I am your hostage, and you are my kidnapper.”
Okay, so there wasn’t even the faintest tremor of fear in her blasé voice. “The situation is the situation.”
“Exactly, and the situation is that if my cousin doesn’t comply with your demands, then you will hurt me?”
Eyes narrowing, he nodded.
She raised an eyebrow. “Possibly kill me?”
“Not unless I have to.”
“Have to kill me? Why, you’re positively a gentleman! And if you have to kill me, will it be done slowly, or will you be quick about it?”
Having reverted back to thinking she must have a screw loose, he just stared at her, trying to work out how his men and all the reports he’d had done on her had missed this important factor.
She shook her head disappointedly. “You mean you haven’t thought about it yet? Well, my preference would be for it to be quick as I am very much allergic to pain, so can I request the quick method?”
In all his thirty-eight years, Gino had never been lost for words.
“I shall take your silence as agreement, so the quick method it is. I also have one more request regarding my death at your hands.” Leaning forward, her young, beautiful, innocent face only inches from his, she held his stare and, smiled.
“If it comes to it and you feel you have to kill me, then you do not get one of your men to do your dirty work. You do it yourself, and you look me in the eye while you’re doing it. ”