Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Bianca
Thirty minutes.
That's all it took for my entire life to implode.
Thirty minutes ago, I was a schoolteacher with a sick mother and a boyfriend I thought I could trust. Now I'm standing in a smoke-filled apartment in Newark, bought by a man who looks like he stepped out of a Forbes magazine and acts like he stepped out of a nightmare.
My hands are shaking badly. I shove them into my pockets so no one will see.
I want to bolt. God, I want to run so badly my legs are practically vibrating with it.
But I can't.
Because Mom is lying in a hospital bed at St. Catherine's, hooked up to machines that keep her comfortable while poison drips into her veins trying to kill her.
And the only reason she's there and not in some overcrowded public ward where the nurses are too overworked to care is because of the man who just walked out that door.
The man who owns me now.
I want to laugh again but I don’t want their attention on me.
I press my fingers against the gold cross, feeling the familiar edges dig into my palm.
Turns out I'm the one who has to keep the promise of always being there for my mom, now.
"Miss Mancini."
I look up. One of Dante's men—the stocky one with the scar—gestures toward the door. "Boss says I'm driving you."
I don't argue. What would be the point?
I follow him into the hallway, my mind racing. Adrian fucking Morelli. I wasted three years of my life on that bastard and he sold me to the mob like I was a used car he needed to unload.
How did I not see it? How did I miss the signs?
I thought he was climbing the corporate ladder. Turns out he was just digging himself into debt with the kind of people who buy your girlfriend when you can't pay.
And now I'm paying instead.
The stairwell smells like urine and despair. I follow the man down three flights, my heels slapping against concrete that's cracked and stained with things I don't want to identify. When we step outside, the afternoon sun feels too bright, too cheerful for what just happened and I glare at it.
A black SUV is parked at the curb, windows tinted so dark I can't see inside. And leaning against it, checking his phone with the casual ease of someone who hasn't just destroyed a woman's life, is Dante Vitale.
He looks up when we approach. Those blue eyes—cold and calculating and somehow still managing to be beautiful—sweep over me like I'm a problem he's still figuring out how to solve.
He's tall. I noticed that inside, but out here in the daylight, it's even more obvious. At least six-two, maybe six-three, with shoulders broad enough to fill out that obscenely expensive suit. Dark hair perfectly styled, sharp jaw, the kind of face that probably makes normal women stupid.
"Change of plans," he says, pocketing his phone. "You're riding with me."
"What? No." The word comes out before I can think better of it. "He can take me home. Someone can pick me up tomorrow—" I point at the man who was just staring at him blankly.
"I said Marco would drive you. I didn't say where." He opens the back door of the SUV. "Get in."
Oh so his name is Marco.
“My car is still at my school…”
“They’ll pick it up.”
"I need to pack. I have things—"
"They'll be packed for you."
I stop, stare at him in shock and try to calm my anger. “By who? Your men?" It’s not working, I can hear my voice rising but can't seem to stop it. "They're going to go through my apartment, touch my private stuff, decide what I get to keep?"
"Yes."
The casual brutality of it makes me want to scream.
"I'm not running away," I say, forcing myself to sound calm. Reasonable. "I can’t. You're blackmailing me with my mother. Where exactly would I go?"
"I don't care where you'd go. I care that you understand how this works.
" He steps closer, and I hate that I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes.
Hate that even now, some stupid part of my brain registers how good he smells and how big he is.
"When I tell you to do something, you do it.
No arguments. No negotiations. We established this already. "
"We established that I'd obey you when it comes to playing your fake girlfriend. You didn't say anything about—"
"Everything." His voice drops, soft and lethal. "I own everything now, Miss Mancini. Your time. Your choices. Your Tuesday afternoons and your Saturday mornings and every second in between. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be."
I want to hit him. Want to claw that perfect face and scream until my voice gives out.
Instead, I cross my arms and plant my feet. "No."
Something flickers in his eyes. Surprise, maybe. Or amusement.
Then he moves.
One second I'm standing on the sidewalk, the next his hands are on my waist and I'm being lifted—actually lifted like I weigh nothing—and deposited into the back seat of the SUV.
"Hey!" I yelp, trying to scramble back out, but he's already sliding in beside me, pulling the door shut.
And that's when I realize my dress has ridden up.
All the way up.
I freeze, feeling the cool leather against the back of my thighs, suddenly hyperaware that the modest floral dress I wore to school this morning has betrayed me completely.
The hem is bunched around my hips, and my underwear—a black, tiny, lace that hides nothing, the one indulgence I allow myself because no one sees it—is fully visible.
Heat floods my face.
Dante's gaze drops. Lingers. Darkens.
Shit.
"Oh my God." I yank the dress down, my hands fumbling with the fabric. "Stop looking!"
"Hard not to when you're practically in my lap." His voice washes down my thighs, husky and deep. He leans in to whisper in my ear. “Color me surprised, Miss Mancini.”
"This is your fault!" I shove at his chest, which is like shoving a brick wall. "You threw me in here like a—a sack of potatoes!"
He shrugged. "You refused a direct order."
"Because it was an insane order!"
"Even when my orders seem insane to you, you’ll follow them anyway.”
We're close. Too close. His knee is pressed against mine, and I can feel the heat radiating off him even through the layers of expensive fabric. Can smell that cologne again—something woody and sharp that makes my head spin.
He's still looking at me. Not at my underwear anymore, but at my face. At my mouth.
I gulp.
"T-This won't work," I say, and I hate that my voice is shaking. "You can't just manhandle me whenever I don't do what you want. I'm not a doll."
"No." His hand comes up, and I think he's going to touch my face again like he did inside. Instead, he reaches past me and pulls the seatbelt across my body, his arm brushing my chest as he clicks it into place. "You're much more interesting than a doll."
The seatbelt feels like a cage.
"I hate you," I whisper.
"Good." He leans back, putting distance between us. "Keep it that way.”
Marco climbs into the driver's seat, and the engine purrs to life.
"Where are we going?" I ask, even though I'm pretty sure I know the answer.
"My house. You're moving in today."
"You said tomorrow—"
"I changed my mind." He's looking at his phone again, already dismissing me. "I want you where I can see you. Make sure you're not planning anything stupid."
"Like what? Escape? That’s not an option."
"People do stupid things when they're desperate." He glances up. "I'd hate to have to punish you before we've even begun."
P-punish me?
Marco pulls away from the curb, and I watch the apartment building disappear in the side mirror. Somewhere in there, in that smoke-filled room, I left behind my old life.
I turn and press my forehead against the window, watch Newark blur into highway, highway into suburbs, suburbs into neighborhoods where houses cost more than I'll make in a lifetime.
My mother is dying.
My boyfriend sold me to the mob.
And I'm sitting in a car next to a man who bought me, touched my face, made me breathless and looked at my underwear like he was already planning how to get it off.
Thirty minutes.
That's all it took for my life to become unrecognizable.
I close my eyes and try not to cry.