Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
RAYNE
My legs are shaking. Every step feels like it might be the one where my body finally gives up and folds beneath me, but I keep moving, because that’s what I do.
One foot. Then the other. Enzo is right behind me, his presence so familiar I’d know it was him without even turning around.
My thoughts are splintering apart. So many questions and doubts racing through my head.
As if coming back here wasn’t already humiliating enough, my ex-fiancé had to walk in and slaughter an entire family.
He couldn’t have waited twenty more minutes?
Or even ten. Maybe then I’d have what I came for. Maybe then I’d be gone.
By the time we reach the club’s exit, my heart is trying to break out of my chest. I shove open the heavy steel door, and the warm air rushes over my cold skin.
I drag in a breath, and it shakes on the way down.
Instinct makes me scan the street, left then right, searching for somewhere to run.
But there’s nothing. No escape. No clean way out.
Just Vegas heat, empty pavement, and Enzo at my back like a haunting specter of a past I can’t seem to escape.
“Don’t even fucking think about it.” His snarl comes from behind me, sending shivers racing up my spine.
God, I hate him. Arrogant, self-righteous asshole.
I roll back my shoulders, remind myself who I am, and prepare to inject a bit of steel into my voice.
“If you’re insisting on kidnapping me, can you at least let me get my things?
My bag is in my car over there.” I jerk my head toward the white Ford Edge—a rental.
His eyes narrow in suspicion.
“Look, you can let me grab my things, or Joseph Bertelli’s blood isn’t the only kind you’ll be cleaning off your seats today, okay?”
He blinks at me. Moron.
“Tampons, Enzo. I need tampons.”
He’s still glaring at me, like he’s hoping he somehow might make me burst into flames if he hates me enough. Feeling is mutual, buddy. “Fine. But I’m checking your bag first.”
I shrug. “Fine by me. Not like we all carry Makarovs and Rugers around for fun, is it?” He ignores my comment and follows me toward the car. I pop the trunk and point to my overnight bag. “Have at it.”
He grunts something unintelligible and then rummages through my small bag, rifling through my one outfit change, my pajamas, toiletries, and couple of pair of panties like he’s TSA.
Satisfied I’m not smuggling grenades in there, he zips it back up and grabs my purse.
“Hey.” I grab it back. “You don’t need to look in my purse.
There’s nothing in there of any interest to you. ”
“If you were carrying a Ruger, then it would be in your purse, wouldn’t it? Not your My Little Pony bag.”
“It’s ‘Pink Pony Club’, asshole. It’s a song.” I glare at him. “Of course, you wouldn’t recognize it because it was made after the Vietnam war.”
He rolls his eyes. “Give me the purse.”
“If I had a gun, Enzo, why wouldn’t I have taken into my meeting with the mob instead of leaving it in the trunk of my car?”
“Give. Me. The. Purse.” He says the words through gritted teeth.
“Fine.” I hand it to him and he opens it up, peering inside. There’s nothing in there I don’t particularly want him to see: my wallet, house keys, lip gloss, epi-pen, a couple of tampons, and all of the other random things that a girl might need. But a girl’s purse is her sanctuary, you know?
He fishes something out and holds it aloft. “Pepper spray?”
I nod. “Every woman should carry it. And I’m nothing if not prepared.” Who knows when you might be kidnapped by a hot Italian mob boss who hates your guts.
He pockets it. “You won’t be needing it now.”
I fold my arms over my chest. “I think we’ll agree to disagree on that.”
He ignores me, shoves my purse back into my hands, and closes the trunk. Then he holds out his hand. “Cell phone,” he orders, making a give it to me gesture.
I’d like to give him a punch in the mouth. But instead, I take it from the pocket of my jeans and place it in his outstretched hand. Not like I have anyone to call to tell them I’m about to be kidnapped by my psychotic ex.
He slips my phone into his jacket pocket and then, without another word to me, he takes out his own phone and calls someone.
Whoever it is answers quickly, and I listen to the one-sided conversation.
“We hit a snag or two. I need you and Luca to meet me here. We have a car to get rid of. Yeah. Bye.” He ends the call but keeps his phone out, looking like he’s typing out a message.
“That’s a rental car. You can’t just get rid of it.”
He doesn’t take his eyes off his screen. “Then we’ll return it to its rightful owner.”
“And me? How long before you return me to my rightful owner, Enzo?”
The atmosphere changes so fast it feels like the temperature drops twenty degrees. Too late, I hear the very poor choice of words I just used. And while I don’t intend making this easy for him, I know better than to provoke his jealous possessive side and expect him not to react.
He lifts his head. Slowly. Eyes darker than the deepest pits of hell. His jaw flexes and the vein at his temple throbs.
Oops.
“And who exactly would that be, Rayne?” His tone drips with chilling menace, the kind that sends a shiver of excitement racing up my spine because, clearly, I am a masochist when it comes to him.
“I don’t belong to anybody.” And I never will again! I don’t add that second part.
He snarls, sounding feral and unrestrained. “Thought so.”
And just what the hell is that supposed to mean? Does he think I’ve gone short of offers these past six years? I don’t ask him though, refusing to let him know he’s gotten under my skin in any way. “So, what do we do now?” I ask instead.
“We wait for Rafael and Luca. Luca will take you to my place while I have the pleasure of telling Carmine his only son is dead.” He says that like it’s an accusation, like somehow I’m responsible.
Rafael Medici was once one of my favorite Medici brothers but is now simply a man I hate and distrust almost as much as Enzo.
Luca isn’t much higher on my list of favorite people either, but I’ll take him over Rafael any day of the week.
He was always the strong and silent type—let’s hope he’s maintained that silent persona.
“Well, good luck with that,” I say, shuddering internally when I think about his conversation with Carmine Falcone, a man who always made my skin crawl.
We were forced to go to his house sometimes, when he invited the family for a barbecue, and as I was considered one of them—which seems laughable now—I was always invited too.
But I never liked being there. His house was far too grand and showy for my taste, always filled with too many people.
Enzo steps closer, too close. Instinct makes me want to take a step back, reclaim my personal space, but I won’t give him the satisfaction. “I don’t need luck, Rayne. The fact that I’ve been loyal to Carmine for fifteen long years will be enough.”
I snort. “So loyal that you just decorated Bertelli’s club with his son’s brains?”
He’s saved from answering by the sound of screeching tires as a classic silver Mercedes comes to a halt a few feet away from us.
Rafael leans out of the driver’s window and stares at me, mouth hanging open like a dead salmon. “What the actual fuck? Is that—”
“Yeah, it’s her. I don’t have time to explain, Raf.
Get her car back to whatever rental place it needs to go to,” he says nonchalantly, like this is an everyday occurrence for him.
Maybe it is, except I know for a fact he only has one ex-fiancée that he despises.
Then he leans down, so he can see the person in the passenger seat, whom I assume is Luca.
“Can you take her to my place? Don’t let her out of your sight for a fucking second. If she gives you any trouble, feel free to use this on her.” He tosses my pepper spray into the car.
“God, you’re such an asshole, you know that?”
He ignores me, still focused on his brothers. “Can we get moving?”
Rafael jumps out of the car first. “Where’s Vinny?”
“Dead,” Enzo says, no hint of emotion, not even panic because he’s the one who killed him. I wonder if he’s going to come clean to his brothers.
“Fuck! Which one of them got him?” Rafael asks.
“I did,” he replies deadpan.
I guess that answers my question.
Rafael actually smirks. Psychotic asshole. Luca climbs out of the car next, resting his meaty forearms on the roof. His eyes meet mine. Cold and uncaring, much like his brothers. He doesn’t speak.
“Does this piece of junk have a key?” Rafael asks, looking at my rental with disgust.
“It’s not a piece of junk. It’s a perfectly reliable car for the kinds of people who don’t live in mansions and penthouses and get Lamborghinis for their eighteenth birthday,” I snap.
He arches an eyebrow. “I seem to recall you having a particular fondness for cars back in the day. Specifically the back seats of them.”
“You disgusting piece of shit!” I snarl, annoyed at myself for letting him get to me.
He’s just trying to push my buttons, trying to make me fit into their narrative that I’m a lying cheating whore.
That’s what both Enzo and his father told me, while Rafael stood by watching, knowing the truth—or at least some of it—yet doing nothing.
“Enough!” Enzo growls. “Luca, will you please get her out of here?”
“Yes, Luca. Just get rid of me already, because that’s what we do with people who make us feel bad, isn’t it? God forbid we ever have an adult conversation.”
Enzo moves so quickly he’s almost a blur. His hand is around my throat, squeezing. “No, that is what we do with lying, cheating whores, Rayne.”
And there it is again. Those words. That old, ugly verdict rolling off his tongue like it costs him nothing to say it.
Lying. Cheating. Whore. Six years away from him, six years of stitching myself back together from the girl he shattered, and still it lands like a blade between my ribs.
I rebuilt a life out of the wreckage he left behind.
I learned how to breathe without him. How to reconcile being the villain in a story I never got to tell.
But hearing him say it now—hearing that he still believes it—hurts worse than his hand around my throat. Worse than the pressure on my windpipe.
“Just do it, Enzo.”
His eyes burn into mine.
“Do it. Because I would rather die than spend another moment with you or your deranged family.”
His nostrils flare, and, for a moment, I wonder if he’s finally going to snap—and then snap my neck. But he pushes me away, his eyes back on Luca. “I said get her out of here.”
I take the key from the pocket of my jeans and toss it at Rafael. “The rental company number is on the keychain,” I tell him. Not to make his life any easier, but so I don’t get hit with any late return fees.
He catches it with ease. “See you later, Rayne,” he says with a cruel sneer.
“I sure hope so. It was so wonderful to see you,” I reply, voice dripping with sarcasm, just in case they don’t get how much I don’t want to be here from my body language alone.
Luca indicates the open passenger door of the Mercedes, and I take the opportunity to get away from both Enzo and Rafael, even if it is only temporarily. Luca slams the door and I stare out of the window.
“Keep an eye on her, yeah?” I hear Enzo tell him. “I have to go deal with the don, but I still don’t know what kind of mess she’s got herself mixed up in yet.”
There’s silence for a moment. Some silent communication happening if I know Luca. But then he speaks. “I’ll look after her, Enzo. Promise,” he says so quietly I struggle to hear.
And now I’m even more confused. Why the hell would Enzo care whether Luca looks after me?
Why would any part of him still care what happens to me at all?
I close my eyes and let my head fall back against the seat, but there’s no relief in the dark.
Today has carved me open from start to finish.
Coming back to Vegas was bad enough—a city full of ghosts and trauma.
Then Joseph Bertelli, and his tendency to get a little too friendly with members of the superior sex, reminding me exactly why men like him think a smile is an invitation.
And after all that, I still don’t have the video.
The one thing I came for. The one piece of proof that could finally drag the truth out of the grave and let me breathe again.
Now the police will be everywhere. Bagging evidence.
Opening drawers. Pulling apart every inch of that place.
What if they find it? What if they watch it?
What if they decide my worst memory is evidence in someone else’s investigation?
The thought turns my stomach so violently I have to swallow against it.
Not now. I can’t fall apart now. I’ll deal with that horror if it comes for me.
Because apparently today isn’t finished ruining me. Now I have this to survive too. Being kidnapped by my ex-fiancé—the man who once held my whole heart in his hands and then crushed it like it meant nothing. A man who could teach Heathcliff a lesson in cold-hearted cruelty.