7. Remy
REMY
I wake,my brain slowly coming online while my eyes remain shut.
I’ve got a headache, my skull already throbbing—no doubt from another night with one too many drinks—but at least I’m warm.
Goddamn fucking toasty actually.
I shift, trying to settle farther into the comfortable heat, but the solid surface beneath me becomes evident, the rigidity grinding into my hip.
I snap upright. My head collides with another solid surface. The pain in my brain skyrockets as I flop back down.
“What the—” My words vanish as I take in my surroundings, slowly rising onto my elbows.
I’m in a compact brick enclosure. The glow of tiny flames poke out from the bottom of the walls of my hellish cave. The only opening is a square of space near my feet.
Reality sinks in. The snapshots of Javier’s murder. The funeral home. The alluring Olivia Pelosi.
Fuck.
I’m in her motherfucking cremator.
“Ollie.” I attempt to keep my voice neutral and fail, her name coming out as a lethal warning. “Although I appreciate the ambiance, I’d like to check out of this unscheduled Airbnb.”
She comes into view, hunched over at the opening near my feet, her pale face peering back at me. “I don’t think I can let you do that.”
She doesn’t think?
At least the hesitation works in my favor.
“Well, turning me to ash isn’t a good plan either. What would that achieve apart from a murder charge?”
She gnaws on her bottom lip, the glow of flames dancing in those innocent hazel eyes. “I’m thinking on my feet here. Excuse me for using the only tools at my disposal.”
“You’ve made your point. Now move so I can get out.” I skootch toward her.
“No.” Her arm lunges to the right, out of sight, the flames licking higher a split second later.
Heat engulfs me. “Jesus fucking Christ. Are you insane?”
Her beautiful eyes widen with terror. “I don’t know what else to do. You’re going to kill me.”
I hold her gaze, hating how her vulnerability affects me even while my face melts from the hellfire temperature. “I already told you I have no plans to hurt you. But your self-preservation techniques are making me rethink the lenience.”
“You gave me no choice. What else was I going to do?”
“Maybe let me explain without the threat of a concussion and third-degree burns.”
“There’s nothing more to explain. You kill people, then break in to my family’s funeral home and illegally cremate them.”
“I don’t break in.” I yank at the top of my button-down, the heat and confinement triggering my first introduction to claustrophobia. “I was given a key.”
She balks, those magnetic rosy lips parting.
“See?” I scowl. “You don’t know as much as you think. So move out of the way and we can talk. It’s fucking hard to breathe in here, and this can’t be sanitary. What would Grandma Betty think if she knew I was rolling around in her remains?”
“That’s not funny.”
No shit. It’s going to take a hell of a lot of dry-cleaning to get the minute remnants of dead people out of my favorite suit.
“You’re right.” I reposition myself on my protesting elbows, my head almost colliding with the brick ceiling again. “This is serious, especially if the news of this threat against my life becomes known to my family. They’re not people you want to get on the wrong side of.”
Her face loses more color. Or maybe that’s just the effect from the brighter flames that are slowly dehydrating me to death.
“I don’t know what to do,” she rambles, exquisitely vulnerable and meek. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I wasn’t sure if I could call the police. And my dad isn’t answering his phone. If word gets out about illegal cremations…”
“So you didn’t call the cops?” I ask slowly, keeping my temper in check.
“Not yet. But you know I have to.”
“If you do that I won’t be the only one going to prison, my pretty little pyro. This family business of yours isn’t an innocent party.”
“What does that mean?”
“Let me out and I’ll tell you.”
She shakes her head.
“At least turn the heat down before I fucking roast.”
Her breathing increases, her chest rising and falling beneath her black blazer before she finally reaches for something that makes the threatening flames recede. “Who are you?”
“Remy Costa,” I offer without pause, wanting the fuck out of this scorching hot pocket asap. “But you might be more familiar with my uncle’s reputation—Lorenzo Cappelletti.”
I’m not sure what reaction I expect but the breathy laugh that escapes her isn’t it. She gasps a chuckle. Then another. The manic humor is delirious before it transforms into ragged gasps of hyperventilation.
I guess leaning into my family’s notoriety wasn’t the best strategy.
“It’s okay.” I skootch forward again, gaining an extra inch toward freedom.
“No.” Her grabby hands snatch at my Gucci loafers. “Stop.”
I’ve imagined those pretty little fingers doing a lot of scandalous things these past six months, but none that surge my anger like this. I grind my teeth. Suppress a snarl.
I could kick her. Could force my way out of this… Wait a minute. I pat my waist, searching for the hardness of a familiar bulge and come up empty.
“I already took your gun.” Her voice shakes.
Am I surprised? Yes.
This woman was such an awkward slip of a thing in that dive bar. Sarcastic and self-deprecating, yet timid and so fucking tempting. And somehow she managed to knock me out, get me into this death vault, and successfully steal my weapon.
Kudos, princess.
“I guess it’s only fair you took your turn to scrounge around in my pants after what happened the last time we met,” I drawl.
Her eyes narrow, her lips tightening in the cutest show of subdued aggression. “Yeah, and I bet you were left just as satisfied as I was.”
I take the insult with a smirk. “Move, Ollie.”
“Talk, Remy.”
Fuck this.
I skootch again, snapping my feet around her hips.
She squeals. Wiggles. Fights. She retreats in an attempt to escape my hold and I keep scoot, scoot, scooting my ass along with her, not releasing the deadlock around her body until my waist is free from the oversized pizza oven.
She stumbles backward, bumping into the corner of a metal gurney with a wince and a whimper.
Shit. First fear, now pain.
“How the fuck did you get me into that thing, anyway?” I prowl toward her.
“Half my life’s work is moving lifeless bodies.” She sidesteps along the side of the gurney, turning toward it, her attention straying to my gun that lies on the far end of the steel surface.
Fuck.
She lunges.
I sprint, my longer legs catching up to her as she reaches for my Walther.
“Don’t do it.” I skitter into her, grabbing her arm as she grips the barrel. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Please stop,” she begs. “Please.”
The plea fucking kills me, but I’m well aware that the gun could do a better job.
I slide my palm to her hand. Squeeze her fingers. Not too hard. Just enough to let her know I’ll strengthen my hold into painful territory if she doesn’t concede.
“Please.” A sob escapes her. “I don’t want to die.”
Her terror sinks into me, tightening my lungs.
I briefly close my eyes, hating the guilt that thunders through me. Despising how it’s so effortless to remember the ease of our last time together. How she still smells of the same sweet strawberry scent. The way her dark hair tickled my face while my dick begged to plunge inside her… at least until she said she was a virgin.
“You’re not going to die,” I vow, “as long as you follow instructions.”
She should die.
If she were anyone else under these circumstances, the air would’ve been stripped from her lungs the moment my men were caught entering the premises.
But she’s not anyone else.
She’s Olivia Pelosi. A valuable asset. And the woman I’ve failed at trying to forget for half a goddamn year.
I lean close, daring to rest my forehead to her temple, hating the tremor that vibrates through her. “We have some heavy shit to discuss.”
She shudders with a shaky breath.
“Let go of the gun, pyro.”
She winces. Concedes.
“Good girl.” I remain close, returning the weapon to the gurney in a gesture of good faith, although my palm rests on top of it because I’m not a fucking idiot. “Now before we talk, I’m going to need you to help me dispose of evidence.”