Chapter 4
AJLA
"Where are you taking me?" I asked no one in particular for about a hundredth time as we drove through the streets of Redmont, rain peppering the windshield. I’d joked more times than necessary that if I ever got kidnapped, they’d return me immediately.
But now that I was in that situation, I didn't think they were planning on returning me at all.
Or if they were, they definitely weren't talking about it.
The man who made my blood boil and, much to my chagrin, my ovaries sing, Nicolas fucking Moretti, sat on my right, holding his hand to his chest without even looking at me.
The one that held me when I tried to escape sat on my left, also ignoring me.
The third was currently driving, periodically looking into the rearview mirror as if I was capable of doing anything wedged between these two baboons with my hands tied.
That's right. The moment we got to their car, they tied my hands.
I was honestly surprised they hadn't blindfolded me too, but I guessed they weren't planning on letting me out any time soon, so there was probably no need.
Not like I could run from them. God knows I've tried, and look where that got me.
I took another glance at the dried blood on his hand, smirking when I remembered the look on his face after I stabbed him.
Not gonna lie, I’d been shocked as well.
But I guess when you're stuck between fight or flight, you kinda choose both and pray for the best possible outcome. Did it piss him off even more? Oh, absolutely. But he’d been an asshole when he knelt in front of me, threatening me not just with his words, but also with his presence.
Gone was the man who’d looked at me like he wanted to get me naked, flushed, and under him.
In his place was this cold, violent version I didn't like at all.
And yet, every so often, he glanced my way and it was still there.
The fireThe craving burning in his dark eyes, even though he clearly wanted to hide it.
"You look a little too young to look that serious," I said the first thing that came into my mind because I had no self-preservation instincts.
My gaze lingered on the two deep lines between his eyebrows.
Lines that only grew deeper when he looked at me.
"Also, did you know that this is technically kidnapping? "
"You don't say." Nicolas replied in a dry tone that irked me more than I cared to admit, earning a chuckle from the driver. "What gave us away."
"Oh, I don't know," I said, playing along. "Maybe the part where you took me against my will. Also, these." I lifted my hands, showing my makeshift handcuffs. Who the fuck carried zip ties around?
Mobsters, that's who, Ajla.
Yeah. Okay. Mobsters. But they weren't actually part of some mob, right?
I studied the man driving, and the obviously expensive suit he wore. I didn't know much about fashion. The most expensive thing I owned was a pair of boots I’d bought for a hundred bucks, and only because I knew they’d last me for l years. But even I could tell these weren’t cheap suits.
No, definitely not.
And this car probably costs more than my annual salary.
"Are you guys a mob or something?"
"Or something," Nicolas, the asshole, answered again, not looking up from the screen of his phone.
I wasn't sure if I should cry, laugh or demand to be let out in the middle of nowhere. The longer we drove, the more I realized that we were no longer driving through the streets of Redmont. The darkness outside was an indication enough that we were literally in the middle of nowhere.
Oh my God. What if they would killed me and dumped my body somewhere in the forest? What if no one ever found me and my mother and sister spent the rest of their lives wondering what happened to me?
"Are you going to kill me?" I finally asked, not bothering to look at Nicolas.
Or any of them, really. I stared straight ahead through the windshield, at the dark road stretching ahead of us.
"Because if you are, can you just tell my mom I was somewhere, living happily with a man who had more money than he knew what to do with.
I know you don't owe me anything, but just.. . She has a weak heart."
I took a deep breath when I felt the first bout of tears in my eyes.
"S—She, uh... She doesn't need to know you killed me,” I continued. “Just… please. If you're going to kill me, tell her I'm fine. Or tell someone to keep texting her occasionally. That's it."
I could feel his gaze on the side of my face now, but I refused to look at him. I didn't want him to see the tears. Or the fear at the knowledge that I might die tonight.
"Please," I whispered. "I'll be quiet if you need me to be quiet. I'll… I don't know. I'll cook and clean or something. But if you do decide to kill me, just tell her. Don't let her wonder. Don't—"
"I'm not going to kill you." His voice cut through my rumbling. And was it just me or did his voice deepen somehow? "I have no plans to kill you. Not tonight. Not ever"
"But you might," I said, finally turning toward him. I was ready to plead, to beg if needed. What I wasn't ready for was the murderous look on his face. And this time, something told me it wasn't aimed at me. "You might decide one day that I shouldn't live and then you'll do it.”
I took a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut, and hoping that the darkness of the car hid the wayward tear sliding down my cheek. But when his thumb brushed my cheek, catching it, I knew that fate was a fucking bitch for letting him see me like this.
He already had an upper hand. Why couldn't it let me keep at least a shred of pride?
I pulled back as much as I could and opened my eyes only to find something akin to anguish written in every line of his face.
"Look,” I said quietly. “I'm not some great catch. I’m not someone a lot of people would miss.
I'm not from here, and I don't have anyone in the country who would look for me.
I mean, apart from my friend Anna, but she's visiting her family up north right now and probably won't even notice I'm gone for at least a couple of days.” I swallowed.
“I have insurance. If you kill me, could you at least make it look like an accident so they can send my body back to my family? "
"Goddammit, woman," he suddenly roared, wrapping his hand around my throat, pulling me closer.
"I. Am. Not. Going. To. Kill. You. Not now.
Not tonight. Not tomorrow, and not ever.
You're not dying, and I'm not sending your body anywhere.
I might be a monster. I might be part of the mafia.
But I would never harm a woman. Understood? "
"You're the Italian mafia." It wasn't a question anymore.
The man I’d been lusting over was the Italian mafia. And the way he carried himself, the way the others deferred to him, told me that he wasn't some low-level nobody. Na-uh, this guy was high up. Romance books have taught me one thing well. Never fuck with the mafia. No matter what.
That's why he thought I knew who he was.
The shooting...
"Did you kill a lot of people tonight?" I asked, my unfiltered questions popping out freely without me being able to stop them. I mean, there was no use now, was there? I was deep in shit. And considering that I took a week off work, chances were no one would try to look for me.
"They were my enemies," he answered calmly.
Too fucking calmly for someone who had killed another person tonight. I mean, that was his job, in a way, wasn't it? Killing people, trafficking... Ah, fuck me.
"Are you planning on selling me?" My voice wobbled, fear I haven't felt before ripping through me.
I would rather die than get trafficked. I would rather be killed right here and right now and for my family to never receive my body, than be trafficked.
"Oh my God, no," I shook my head, pulling away from him.
"Anything but that. Anything. I am thirty-one, and no one wants a thirty-one year old, right? I—"
"You're thirty-one?"
Out of all things he could have asked, or said, that's what he's going with?
My eyebrow arched, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. "Is that really what you're focusing on right now?"
"I mean…" He shrugged, looking me up and down. "I thought you were twenty-five at most." Okay, he gets green points for that. "But age is just a number, right?"
I narrowed my eyes.. "Riiiiight. How old are you?"
"Twenty-five."
Twenty. Five.
Did he just say twenty-five?
"Wha—"
"We're here," the driver announced, stopping the car and turning off the ignition, while I was still stuck on the fact that the guy sitting next to me, the guy that kidnapped me, is six years younger than me.
Six. Years. And there I was, lusting after him, looking at his plump lower lip while he stared down at his phone.Oh my fuck.
I was lusting after a younger guy. A guy that was in Primary School when I was in the middle of College. A guy that looked like a freaking model, while I looked like a swamp monster on good days.
The doors opened on both sides, and as Nicolas tugged me out with him, only one thought kept flickering through my mind.
I was a cougar.