Chapter Five — Vinny
The smell of cigars and expensive bourbon perfumed the air.
I sat at Lady of Rage’s place, positioned at the conference table in her dining room for another after-dark meeting.
The room was packed with people with hard faces, cold eyes, and hands resting on weapons as if they were extensions of their own bodies.
These were Rage’s people. She sat at the head of the table, her voice slicing through the air like a razor blade as she laid out her plans.
She'd stayed in Florida after Bael handed his father's empire over to her, running it with an iron fist.
But my mind wasn't in this room—it was back at my apartment with that woman.
Why the hell had I taken her? She definitely wasn't Sophia.
Sophia had been sweet, soft-spoken, the kind of woman who'd blush at a compliment.
Petite, dainty, soft in a way that made you want to shield her.
That woman? Nothing like that. She wasn't really afraid of me.
Sure, there'd been fear in her eyes, but buried under layers of defiance.
When I told her I had to kill her, she didn't beg or cry.
She just looked at me like she was okay with it—but only if she could take me down with her.
It was so attractive, I couldn't stop thinking about fucking her.
Hard and fast. I couldn't remember ever wanting to consume Sophia that way.
I'd made love to Sophia. Carefully. Tenderly.
Like she might break. That woman? I had a feeling she wouldn't break, no matter how deep or hard I went.
I could have had her if I wanted. I understood exactly what she was offering me when she asked what she could do to change my mind.
“Vicente.”
Lady of Rage’s voice snapped me back to the present. I looked up, meeting her calculating gaze. I knew she’d noticed my distraction.
“You with us?”
I cleared my throat. “Yeah, all’s good.”
“You take care of that problem?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “She’s somewhere at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico by now.”
Rage studied me for a moment, then nodded, turning back to the papers spread across the table. I forced myself to focus, to listen to her commands, but my thoughts kept drifting back to Jamie. That’s what the old lady had called her.
I’d left her shackled to my bed, her wrists bound with thick metal cuffs.
She’d been unconscious when I locked my apartment door, her breathing slow and even.
I’d made sure she was secure, but now I couldn’t stop wondering if she’d woken up during the long hours I'd been gone.
If she was struggling against the steel. If she was finally scared.
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t get distracted. I didn’t let personal shit interfere with business. But there was something about her, something that had gotten right under my skin, and it wasn’t just because she carried my dead wife's facial features.
Maybe it was the way she’d looked at me. Maybe it was the way she’d fought back, even when she was completely outmatched. Maybe it was because I saw the exact same darkness in her eyes that I saw in my own.
The meeting dragged on as Lady of Rage barked orders and went over logistics. I nodded when I was supposed to and chimed in when necessary. By the time it finally ended, I was itching to get out of there, desperate to get back to my place and figure out what the hell I was going to do with her.
I drove home in silence. The streets were empty; it was barely five AM.
My apartment sat on the top floor of a nondescript industrial building, surrounded by matching, hollowed-out structures.
It was the kind of place that didn’t draw attention.
I took the stairs two at a time, my heart pounding against my ribs.
When I reached my door, I paused, taking a deep breath before punching my code into the keypad and stepping inside.
The apartment was quiet, save for the faint hum of the refrigerator. I moved through the living room and pushed open the bedroom door.
She was awake.
Her eyes snapped to mine the second I entered. She was sitting up against the headboard, her wrists still cuffed to the bed frame. She looked pissed.
“You gonna kill me now?” she asked, her voice casual, like she was asking about the weather.
I held my tongue and watched her. She looked different in the early morning glow—softer, almost angelic. Tantalizing in a way that hollowed out a man’s mind and made them do stupid shit.
She saw me watching her and gave me a crooked grin, but her eyes gave her away. They burned with too much fire to belong to anybody soft, but I bet she would feel soft. I had never ached to touch anybody, but I ached for her.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said finally, my voice low.
She raised an eyebrow. “Well, while you’re deciding, you mind getting me something to eat? I’m starving. I gotta piss too.”
There it was again—the slight Northern accent peeking out.
Who the hell was this woman?
I stared.
“Who do I remind you of? The longing on your face is killing me.”
I tensed. She was reading me too damn easily. Most people didn't see past what I allowed them to.
I shook my head and opened my mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
She kept going. “Your mother?” Her eyes narrowed. “Nah, not her. Not a sister either.” Her gaze darkened, a wicked spark lighting up her doe eyes. “You looked like you wanted to fuck me earlier. Your wife?”
I don’t know what gave me away, but she shook her head and answered her own question. “Yeah. It’s your wife, isn’t it? She dead? Left you?”
I nodded before I could stop myself. She had me mesmerized, and I fucking hated it.
She tilted her head. Then, with a smirk that shouldn’t have made my dick instant iron, she whispered in perfect Spanish, "?Era latina como tú, papi?"
She was taunting me.
"I know your type," she murmured, her voice dropping to a hushed, lethal register. "Pretty little petite thing, Latina or Asian women, sweet as honey, long black hair, little frame... just enough of all the good parts."
Her smirk widened as she delivered the final blow. "El amor de tu vida."
My jaw clenched so tight it ached. My head was foggy with how badly I wanted to pin her into the mattress and stuff her mouth for my pleasure to make her shut up. I had to breathe slowly, through my nose, just to keep from doing exactly that.
I moved towards her, she didn’t even flinch.
The metal clicked as I unlocked the cuffs. She didn’t waste a second before standing, rubbing her wrists and rolling them to ease the stiffness. Her movements were unhurried, like she was completely unbothered by the fact that she’d just been chained to a stranger’s bed.
"Go use the restroom, shower, and meet me in the kitchen," I ordered, stepping back to give her space. I could hear the dangerous edge in my own tone, but I still forced out the warning. "Don’t try to run. My place is locked by a security code. If you kill me, you’ll die in here because you won’t be able to bypass the door, and there’s no phone. It’s locked up tight."
She nodded, her face calm and unreadable. I could see the wheels turning in her head, though; she was already calculating her options, mapping out her next move.
I watched her for a second longer than I should have, my eyes tracing the lines of her profile.
This woman wasn’t just some random bystander. She was someone. Tied to something or someone important, dangerous. She was too confident with me, too at ease for a woman who had just been ripped from her life.
And I was going to find out exactly who she was.
I turned, leaving her to the bedroom, and headed for the kitchen.