4. Marisol
4
MARISOL
I spit the lockpick out of my mouth and take a step out of hitting range.
“I didn’t want to disturb your sleep?”
It even sounds lame to me. He’s going to throw me out the window.
Salvatore sits up with a frown. He produces a key from his back pocket and unlocks his handcuff.
“Give me that,” he says, and I pass the pick to him. “And the rest?”
I hand him my pouch of “tampons”. He glances inside the bag of loose lockpicks.
He levels a cold look at me, his frown deepening. Suddenly I’m back in school again, being chewed out by the principal for skipping class.
“What was your plan with these?”
I cough delicately. “Uh. I hadn’t really gotten to step two.”
He points to a chair opposite the bed. “Sit.”
I consider disobeying for a half second before I remember we’re on the thirtieth floor.
He gives me a disappointed shake of his head, and I wilt in my chair.
Personally, he can shove his disappointment next to the stick up his butt, but for the time being, my life is in his hands, and I’d rather not find out how easily my neck can break.
Salvatore goes to the bathroom and pees with the door wide open so he can watch me through the mirror the entire time. I glimpse the top of his firm ass before averting my eyes. Don’t piss him off and don’t try to fuck him. Two good rules for staying alive and keeping my wits about me, but it’s not so easy when he’s been engaging in chemical warfare all night, steeping me in his clean masculine scent. I’m now at day fifty of my dry spell and haven’t masturbated in days. Things are about to get weird.
After washing his hands and arms with the thoroughness of a doctor preparing for surgery, he returns to sit on the bed. He checks his phone and exhales deeply, scrubbing his jaw and neck with his hand. I don’t think about how the movement makes his forearm muscles stand out. I need to get out of here.
My nerves build in the silence that follows. “What?” I finally blurt out.
“My boss got back to me. He says you’re under my protection until he gets back from his trip.”
“And how long is that?”
Salvatore stretches out. His triceps tighten and the bottom of his shirt lifts to expose a glimpse of taut stomach and a trail of dark hair. I swallow dryly. “Two weeks. At least.”
“Two weeks?” I spring to my feet. “What am I supposed to do for two whole weeks?”
“Sit,” Salvatore demands, and my body obeys before my brain can object.
He lifts from the bed to loom over me in a single step, and I shrink back. He places his hands on either side of the chair, caging me in, dark hair falling forward to frame his face. His scent washes over me again, and I hold my breath to keep from breathing it in. His five o’clock shadow darkened overnight, and it’s all I can do not to be sucked into his amber eyes, nearly golden like a cat’s. I bow my head so I’m not looking directly into the sun, but even now, the heat emanating from him threatens to melt me.
“You must have not understood me properly. There’s no going back for you. You shouldn’t have gotten mixed up in our dealings, Marisol Vasquez, but you did, and now you are completely and utterly fucked . You are, officially, my property. And if you had any sense in that pretty head of yours, you’d fall to your knees and beg for a chance to thank me, because I am the best -case scenario for you.”
Salvatore wraps his fingers around my jaw to pivot my face toward his. I can’t help the way my eyelashes flutter when I make eye contact with him. Evil men are supposed to be vile and disgusting, not breathtakingly handsome, and I’m only human.
“Do you understand me?” Salvatore says, hypnotizing me with his strange eyes.
I nod against his hand.
“The next time you disobey me or you try to escape me, you will be punished . Understand?”
Heat pools between my legs, and I swallow again. “Yes,” I whisper.
Salvatore’s gaze flicks down to my mouth once, and I have the ridiculous thought that he’s going to kiss me, but he releases me and stands. I stomp down the traitorous ripple of disappointment that follows.
“Come. We’ll eat breakfast here, and then my men will take us to my place.”
In the hotel dining room, I consider swiping a knife from the table, but every time I glance at Salvatore, he’s watching me. I’m starting to think the man doesn’t blink. Eventually, my hangover takes over, and I inhale two plates of pancakes with extra syrup while Salvatore sips coffee and orange juice and charmingly tells me to hurry up.
As we step out of the hotel, I squint against the sunlight shining on the shops and streets before us. We pause so a family of four can push their stroller along the sidewalk. This is wrong. It’s supposed to be dark and gloomy after my life gets completely fucked over, not sunshine and rainbows. Just to rub it in, a little boy and his mom across the street are blowing bubbles and giggling. Super.
Salvatore grabs my hand and steers me to a black SUV waiting on the street. He opens the door for me. I hesitate. The interior is clean and dark, and there’s no second hostage bound and gagged inside, but this is another door that’s taking me further and further from my life and into whatever he has planned for me.
Salvatore leans down to whisper in my ear, “I will help you in or I will throw you in.”
I knew I should’ve grabbed that knife. Salvatore holds my hand like the gentleman he’s not, and I slide inside. He steps in behind me, sealing the door to the outside world.
The driver, a young man with dark hair, glasses, and a crisp white collar peeking out of his navy sweater, starts driving without a word. He looks like a schoolboy Salvatore’s kidnapped to work for him. He probably is.
I start to shiver and rub my arms in the cold bite of the car’s AC. Soft strains of opera music bleed in through the speakers. I chose the seat furthest from Salvatore in protest, but he doesn’t seem to care as he buckles himself in and pulls out his phone.
I miss my phone. I need something to even the playing field.
This isn’t your standard kidnapping job. He knew I was on the train, he knew my name, hell , he knew I was early for my period. I don’t even know when my next period is. He admitted to stalking me, but wouldn’t I have noticed something like that? I don’t recall any missing underwear. I haven’t received any notes with cut-up magazine letters saying “YoUr BLooD SmElls NiCe”. If this is about me discovering Beta, wouldn’t I be sleeping with the fishes already? Nothing Salvatore’s said has added up.
I flatten myself against the window and door. Whatever he wants, he’s going to have to drag me in kicking and screaming.
My fingers glance over the door handle. Maybe when the car rolls to a stop, I can jump out into a crowd.
“There’s a kid lock on that door,” Salvatore says, without looking up from his phone.
My hand drops as if slapped.
As we pass by Knossos Hospital, the drive starts to take on a familiar route.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“We need to grab your computer and any other notes you took.”
Just my computer? Maybe… is this all to scare me? We know where you live and what you did. Be smart about this. A slap on the wrist.
“I don’t have a notebook or anything,” I offer, wide-eyed. “I swear. You can look through my stuff.”
Obviously, I’ll bide my time, get a new computer, and search for Beta again. Salvatore must be hiding something really juicy if he’s going through all these lengths to scare me.
“You’ll also have ten minutes to pack your things,” he adds, slipping his phone into his pocket.
“B-but…”
I glance past Salvatore. We’ve parked right in front of my apartment complex.
Salvatore steps out of the car and extends a hand out to me, watching me wordlessly. I drop down without his help and glare at the concrete under my heels. Undeterred, Salvatore clamps his hand over my shoulder and leads us through the apartment lobby like he’s been here a thousand times. Which he probably has.
A middle-aged woman and her white-haired mom shuffle through the lobby, but neither of them catches my eye.
I should scream or beg them to call the police, but I’m guessing Salvatore would just drag me back to the car. And punish me, he said in a tone that promised a bed would be involved. The memory makes my stomach dip. Ugh. Chill out. He means he’ll cut off my hand, not make me come.
Once we’re trapped in the elevator, and he presses level nine—without asking me—I try to jerk my shoulder out of his grip, but he only tightens his hold on me.
“Why don’t you take my computer and go?” I ask dully.
“Would you promise me you wouldn’t go digging around my systems again?”
I pivot toward him, flashing my best doe-eyed look and splaying a hand over my boobs. This little move has got me out of two shoplifting arrests. I take it a step further and skim my other hand down his firm bicep.
“ Of course! Of course, I promise.”
Salvatore watches all of this with mild amusement. His hand shifts from my shoulder to cup the back of my neck. The elevator heats up a hundred degrees as he draws me in.
His mouth brushes against my ear, and I suck in a breath.
“I don’t believe you.”
A little voice in my head suggests maybe don’t instigate anything stupid with this dangerous man. But Stupid’s my middle name, and I live for danger, so I tilt my face up until his hair tickles my cheek. “Cross my heart.”
Salvatore’s fingers stiffen around my neck.
The elevator door springs open and my neighbor Trenton jerks to a stop at the threshold, a stack of books in his arms nearly spilling over.
“Hey… Mari,” Trenton says.
My heart pounds, and my face heats. This isn’t what it looks like, I want to blurt out. Or maybe, call the cops!
Before I can think of anything to say, Salvatore guides me out of the elevator by the scruff of my neck.
Once Trenton steps inside, he adds in a carefully neutral tone, “Say hi to Grant for me.”
“S-sure,” I splutter.
Salvatore gives me no time to soak in my shame as he leads me red-faced to my apartment door. I left my key in my purse back in the car, but that’s not a problem, because Salvatore has his own personal key. He lets us inside and locks the door behind him.
I shove his hand off my neck—which I should’ve done in the elevator—and rub the skin there as if checking for an injury. He barely touched me, but it feels like my skin’s been branded with his handprint.
“How many times have you been in my apartment?” I ask, to distract myself.
“This is the first.”
He looks ridiculously out of place in here. With his dark hoodie, hair, and tattoos, he swallows all the light in the apartment like a black hole. His gaze sweeps over the kitchen, the bookcase, and my desk before landing on the couch where a tattered beige bra hangs over the armrest. He glances back at me with a hint of teasing playing at his mouth.
I ignore the ridiculous urge to swipe my bra out of sight and cross my arms instead.
“So you’ve never been here before, but you have a personal copy of my apartment key?”
He nods.
“You understand I’m finding it hard to believe you right now?”
“I understand.”
I throw my arms out. “You gonna expand on that?”
“No.”
“Why. Not.”
“It’s something we can discuss at a more appropriate time. You need to pack your things so we can leave.”
I don’t move an inch except to jerk my chin in the direction of my desk. “My computer’s right there. You already have my flash drive. You can just take my stuff and my phone. I won’t tell Grant or the police or anyone.”
The corner of Salvatore’s mouth tips up. My life is just one big, fat joke to him. “You have ten minutes to pack. Take Buck too.”
He knows my cat’s name.
I wish the knives in my kitchen were sharp enough to do any damage. And that I had a chance to use them without risk of stabbing myself.
“I don’t like being kept in the dark. If you tell me what I’m packing for, I’ll get started.”
Salvatore looks around the apartment again, and his gaze lights on my bookcase where I keep all my DVDs of old sci-fi shows.
“Earth to Sal?—”
Salvatore raises a finger to his lips. He pulls out a black box barely bigger than a deck of cards and presses a button on its side. A recording of a crowd of people chatting pours out of the box. He turns it to full volume and places it on the kitchen counter next to us.
“Do you know who I am?”
An electric charge of anticipation passes through me. Finally .
I have to lean in to hear him over his noise box, but I answer eagerly, “You’re with the Mafia.”
I know I’m right, and it still makes me feel silly to say it. It’s way more likely the man in front of me is some sicko who’s developed an obsession with me, rather than I’ve stumbled into a shadow organization of underworld criminals.
“Only outsiders use that word. We’re called the Cosa Nostra. And in Chicago, we just call it the Outfit. Do you know what you did to piss off the Outfit?” He speaks as patiently as if he were explaining to a five-year-old why they shouldn’t touch a hot stove.
“I discovered Beta,” I say slowly, still trying to figure out how they found me. Did I leave some trace? I didn’t touch any of Beta’s accounts, only tracked him. It should have been impossible to detect me.
Salvatore’s voice drops lower, and I have to lean in so close I can feel the heat coming off him.
“You uncovered secrets you weren’t supposed to. And if you had taken that little flash drive to your ex-boyfriend or to the police, my organization would be looking at losses in the millions . You’ve scared quite a few people, Marisol. People that normally don’t scare so easily.” He lets that sink in for a moment, studying my face. “But luckily for you, you’ve also caught my eye. Because while every person that knows about you wants to see you dead or silenced, I want to help you.”
“…by kidnapping me?”
“Remember that man on the train? His name is Junior. And as soon as you had my attention, you had his. If he had caught you last night instead of me, you would have been wishing you were dead right now. He’s not a nice man.”
So my instincts were right about the train guy—Junior, I guess, although that’s a funny name for a gangster. I knew he creeped me out. Something tells me even if Salvatore’s lying about everything else, that’s one thing he’s telling the truth about.
I exhale. I’m way too hungover to be parsing through this all right now.
“So how are you supposed to be helping me?”
Something bright and hungry sparks in Salvatore’s eyes. “I staked ownership over you. No one will touch you while you’re with me.”
I focus very hard on not getting turned on by that insane statement.
“And what do you get out of this?”
“I get you.”
Frustration bubbles in me and thankfully rises over whatever lust I’m experiencing. “Can you just speak clearly? What do you want with me? You said you weren’t going to rape me, and I’m not going to sleep with a criminal .”
Salvatore’s gaze drops to my mouth before flicking back up to my eyes. He rests a hand on the kitchen counter behind me, trapping me in on one side. “Carrying around lockpicks is a felony , Marisol. Shoplifting, a misdemeanor. How much money have you earned cheating in your little video game competitions?”
My throat goes dry. How does he know about all that? I was careful. No one knew.
“So maybe it’s a little hypocritical that you wouldn’t sleep with a criminal,” he continues. “Which I’m not, by the way. Just like you’re not. Being a criminal means being caught committing a crime, and people like you and me, Marisol, we don’t get caught.”
A shiver passes through me. “I’m not going to sleep with you,” I whisper to myself.
“Okay, Marisol. You don’t have to,” he says in an amused tone. The heat rolling off his body is baking me through all my layers of clothes. Too cold, too hot. I need space. I can’t move. “But you still have to come with me. If you stay here, you’ll die. Very slowly and very painfully. But since you’re coming with me, you’ll be treated as a guest until I decide I can trust you, and then I want you to work for me.”
“As what, a prostitute?”
Salvatore smirks. “Always sex with you, Marisol. Do you need something taken care of?”
I seal my mouth shut, and he continues in that smug tone of his, “The Outfit doesn’t deal in prostitution. I want you on my cyber team.”
Of all the things he could’ve said, that takes me most by surprise. “You want to give me a computer and let me hack into computer systems?” Maybe he’s dumber than I thought, and I can get out of this whole situation without even breaking a sweat.
Salvatore laughs—even the way he laughs is rich and velvety. He’d make a killing as a voice actor. “Not for a long time. Like I said, I have to trust you first.”
“So how do I earn your trust?”
“By doing what you’re told.” My breath hitches, and Salvatore leans in close enough that I could count each one of his dark eyelashes. “Now run along, you have five minutes left to pack your things.”
I consider laughing in his face. I also fantasize about stomping on his foot or sneering or any number of things. I don’t think about kissing him. I dart out from under him and race to my room.
Whatever I do, I’m certain he’s going to hold me to that five-minute limit, and I have a lot of things I want to pack.
I waste an entire minute while Salvatore loiters in the living room to change into leggings, an oversized t-shirt, and some blessedly fresh underwear. I pull out my and Grant’s suitcases from under our bed and stuff my clothes inside while Salvatore comes to watch from the doorframe. Buck trots out and sizes up the stranger in his home. I side-eye them as I throw my toiletries in Grant’s suitcase, praying nothing spills. I hope Buck bites him.
Buck approaches Salvatore, sniffs his shoe, and then winds through his legs.
I fully stop what I’m doing and stare with my mouth dropped open.
Salvatore reaches down and strokes the top of Buck’s head as he leans into the touch. The last person Buck let touch him was Kristin, and now this complete asshole waltzes in and has the nerve to pet my cat, and Buck just lets him.
I have more—more things, more clothes, but I don’t care right now. I swipe tears out of my eyes as I zip up the suitcases and shove past Salvatore to roll them to the front door.
“I’m ready,” I mutter. I stare at the door so I don’t have to look at Salvatore or Buck.
Salvatore comes to stand behind me.
“Marisol—” he starts but we both freeze at the sound of footsteps stopping outside the front door.
I glance back, and Salvatore already has a knife out— where the fuck did he get that —and he grabs my forearm to drag me behind him.
Keys jangle outside the door. They clatter to the ground, and Grant mutters a curse.
“ It’s Grant! ” I mouth silently to Salvatore.
He holds up his knife with a little smile as if to say, Oh, I know .
I want nothing more than to fuck with Grant, but I don’t want to see him dead. At least for his mom’s sake.
“I’ll make him leave, I promise,” I whisper. “Please, go hide. Please. ”
Salvatore shrugs and makes a show of ambling to my bedroom while I hover at his heels. I desperately want to push him, but I don’t want to piss him off. As the front door opens behind us, my fear of getting caught overcomes my fear of getting stabbed. My palms connect with solid muscle, and Salvatore lets me shove him forward. I nearly have the door to my bedroom shut when I hear Grant’s voice from the end of the hallway.
“Mari?”