Chapter Eight
Caitlin
Oh, God.
Okay.
Jesus.
So that just happened.
It was safe to say I was never going to have a future in crime.
My captor got free of his bindings twice. He’d walked around while I slept on the job. He—oh, geez—he was who covered me in blankets both times.
I mean, really, where had my head been?
Of course he was getting up.
To eat, drink, use the bathroom, shower, brush his teeth, spray on that delicious damn cologne.
While I, what? Got sick, had panic attacks, went to the hospital, and napped.
I glanced back over my shoulder, making sure that giant of a man—with the dark brown eyes and the bag of bagels—wasn’t following me as I flew down the steps instead of trusting the elevator to get me to the street fast enough.
My heart was in my mouth as I finally burst out of the front doors.
Adrenaline surged through my veins, making me capable of doing something I hadn’t done in years. At least not willingly. I ran. All the way to the subway. Then to my apartment.
I burst through the doors and collapsed down onto my couch, trying to bring some air back into my burning lungs. And a single rational thought back into my head.
But there was no hope.
My heart was galloping. My vision was going all hazy around the edges. I was covered in sweat but shaking. And my breathing refused to slow down, no matter how long I sat.
I slid to the floor, curling my knees in to my chest, and wrapping my arms around my legs, knowing there was no reasoning my way through one of these panic attacks once they got into full-swing.
I just had to try to weather the storm.
Try to remind myself that I was going to be okay. Even if it felt like even my own body didn’t feel okay.
Eventually, though, there was no more adrenaline for my body to fuel itself with, and I was able to pull my tense, weak body up off the ground.
My wrist was screaming.
But I’d rushed out of Gavino’s place without grabbing my meds. And there was no way to get another prescription for pain medicine again so soon. So I was just going to have to take some aspirin and grin and bear it.
I grabbed myself a plastic food storage bag then made my way to my bathroom, peeling off my clothes, turning on the water, then carefully wrapping my cast in the bag before climbing in.
A shower always worked as a reset for me. Cleared my head. Chased all those post-panic-attack creepy-crawly sensations.
And, well, it felt good to get clean after a very tense thirty-six hours. Even if washing my hair proved to be a challenge.
Once I was toweled off, hair brushed, and in leggings and a roomy sweatshirt, I knew exactly what came next.
I had to leave.
He knew my name.
I wasn’t naive enough to think that just because I had a common name in a big city, that I was safe. I wasn’t. Not when Gavino wasn’t just some low-level criminal, but a ranking member of the mob. He surely had access to hackers, investigators, or whoever he might need to track me down.
Then what?
I mean, he hadn’t hurt me. He’d even pointed that out. He could have suffocated or strangled me in my sleep. There would have been nothing I could have done to stop him.
But he hadn’t done that.
I mean, he’d even given me tips on how to throw a punch. And insisted that I go to the hospital.
Looking back, that might have been less of a kindness and more of a way to get me to leave so he could shower, eat, and get some rest.
Still.
He could have hurt me, and didn’t.
Maybe I was overreacting.
Then again, from the research I’d done when I’d been tracking him down, Gavino was a capo. Which meant he was in charge of soldiers and associates, but he wasn’t the main shot-caller. That was the boss. The capo dei capi.
So if word got out that he’d been held hostage, if the boss wanted revenge for making Gavino and his organization look bad, he could absolutely make someone come after me.
And, well, I simply wouldn’t survive under torture. I knew my strengths and weaknesses. Enduring pain was not something I was good at. More than that, I just didn’t want to experience it.
So, yeah, I had to go.
It wasn’t like I had a whole lot to hold onto in this life. I’d left my father to go away to college, thinking the world was opening wide for me. I thought I would finish my degree, get a great job, then be living large in a big city with tons of friends and this rich, expansive life.
But I struggled in college. In my academics, with my social life—everything.
I knuckled down and graduated, got the first job that offered me benefits, and just…
stayed there. I didn’t like it. I also didn’t dislike it enough to leave.
I did make a few friends back when we all went into the office, but when most of the company went to remote work, my world just narrowed further.
So, while I was lucky enough that I got to live alone in the city, I wasn’t overly attached to my apartment itself. I wouldn’t mourn leaving it.
The books, though.
The books would break my heart to have to leave behind.
But… but this didn’t have to be forever, right? I could pack the essentials and leave. Keep paying my bills. Let my apartment sit empty while the mob kept an eye. Eventually, they would believe I was never coming back and stop watching.
Then I could come back and pack things up, bring them to whatever new situation I figured out.
Decision made, I rushed into my closet, finding the busted old rolling suitcase, duffle, and weekender bags.
Suddenly, I was thankful for my life on the road with my father. I knew exactly what I needed to be able to function on the run without weighing myself down or feeling entirely deprived.
So in went the toiletries, medical kit, medications, and supplements.
Then there were the types of things that weren’t necessary but made life more tolerable: a tablet, laptop, comfort items like my squishy pillow and a soft blanket.
You needed a lot fewer clothes than you’d think.
Which left room for reusable coffee and water bottles, the book I was currently reading, and one or two sentimental items—just in case.
I went to my fridge, emptying out anything that might spoil. I took out the trash.
The rituals helped me focus, to keep the anxiety at bay.
Once I was sure everything was clean and turned off, I made some coffee and sat on my phone, trying to find a place to rent temporarily where I wouldn’t be found.
I was a city girl through-and-through, but I was looking for places in the woods.
The kind of little cabins in the middle of nowhere that were hard to find even if you had directions.
That was a place I could disappear for a while.
Would I likely go half-crazy secluded like that with nothing but my spiraling thoughts and creepy night sounds to keep me company?
Yep. But if it kept me alive long enough to track down my father, then that was what I needed to endure.
I checked my bank account, wondering how long I could rent the cute little one-room cabin I’d found way deep in Upstate New York and still pay my bills at my apartment.
I booked it for two weeks, figuring I could likely get an extension. Or, if not, find another place. And moving around was probably a good idea anyway. Just in case.
With that handled, I remembered to walk around, closing all my blinds, opening up my under-sink cabinets, and checking that the thermostat would keep things above freezing.
It was still early fall. But the weather swings had been crazy all year, and I didn’t want to risk frozen pipes.
I moved my bags beside the door.
I wouldn’t be able to get into the cabin until the next day. But I couldn’t stay. I could just take the long way. Sleep in my car, if necessary.
But I had to get out of the damn city as quickly as possible.
I reached for the doorknob, pulling the door open, then yelping.
My heart shot up into my throat as my belly sloshed around ominously.
Gavino glanced at me, then down at my luggage set by the door.
“Going somewhere?”
Oh, God.
This could not be happening.
Not this quickly.
It had only been, what? Two hours, tops.
How could he get my address so quickly?
He’d even had time to shower and change into black slacks and a charcoal-gray knitted polo.
He almost looked like he belonged at a business meeting or somewhere in academia, not in the mob.
Where was his all-black suit like the big guy who’d shown up at his apartment?
The suspicious bulge of a gun hidden in his waistband?
He seemed ready to take a leisurely walk down the city streets, then go sit at an outdoor cafe with a newspaper and espresso.
I was so distracted by taking him in that I hadn’t noticed him taking two steps into my apartment until he was already in. The door closed behind him with a quiet click.
There was nothing quiet inside me then. The thump of my heart was a drumbeat that was almost loud enough to mask the screaming of my thoughts.
Gavino half-turned back, sliding the lock on my door, making me swallow hard.
Why was he locking the door? Was he expecting my neighbors to try to come running? Because they heard me crying for help? Because he was going to… do things to me? With knives and spoons and—
I choked back the bile as it rose up as I took a step backward, then to the side.
I had to get to my bedroom.
Lock the door.
Then fly at my window.
There was a fire escape out there if I could get my ancient, swollen window to budge. Then I could make a run for it. Without my phone, purse, wallet, clothes, anything.
But I’d be alive.
That was what mattered.
I took another step.
So did he.
Then again, a tense little dance.
My heart was threatening to burst out of my chest.
But Gavino’s lips curved up ever so slightly.
He was enjoying this.
Getting his kicks off on my fear.
And any man who could find your fear amusing or appealing was dangerous beyond comprehension.
I didn’t sidestep this time.
I turned and ran.
I had the home-field advantage.
But he had the longer legs.
Just as I burst over the threshold of my bedroom, his hand closed around my good wrist, making a startled cry escape me as I tried to yank it away.
As I did, though, he just lifted my arm up higher.
Then I felt it.
Something cold and hard sliding around my wrist. And closing.
Unlike me, Gavino knew what he was doing.
He cinched the handcuff tight. Not enough to bruise, but enough that I knew there would be no getting out of it.
“Remember these?” he asked, that smile I saw him fighting back breaking free. And it did interesting things—appealing things—to his handsome face that I hated myself for noticing.
Then I watched, too dumbstruck to move as he lifted the other bracelet… and attached it to his own wrist.
What the hell was going on?
“Now,” he said, toeing out of his shoes, “I’m fucking exhausted. So, I’m going to take a nap. And since you can’t be trusted, you will stay right next to me. Then, when I get up, we are going to have a little chat about your father.”
He was moving then, taking me with him to the bed, giving me no choice but to climb on when he did, both of us resting on our backs, staring at my ceiling fan. That was embarrassingly dirty. Not that I should have cared what the guy who’d just handcuffed me to him thought.
But, well, I kind of did.
I turned my head on the pillow, glaring at his profile until he looked.
“I could scream.”
“I have duct tape in my pocket,” he said, eyes closed, looking perfectly at ease. “Don’t make me use it.”
“I could suffocate you in your sleep.”
His eyes opened.
His head turned on the pillow.
His lips twitched up ever so slightly.
“You could try.”
With one wrist in a handcuff and the other in a cast, we both knew my chances of success there.
“Now take this,” he said, grabbing a book from the stack on my nightstand and handing it to me. “Keep yourself occupied, and be quiet so I can sleep.”
I clutched my book to my chest, watching him as he closed his eyes, his breathing slow and even.
I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh. Or cry. Or climb him like a tree.
Wait.
No.
Not that last one.
I was just… delirious with fear.
That was the only explanation for that random, intrusive thought.
The only problem with that argument, though, was that I wasn’t. Afraid, that is. All the panic that had assaulted my system when I’d first seen him, when I’d fled from him, had evaporated.
In its place was an unexpected sort of calm.
And a feeling of safety I couldn’t begin to explain. Not even to myself.
So I didn’t try.
I brought up my knees, rested the book there, and started reading.
While the mafia capo slept peacefully beside me, our wrists cuffed together.