AUDRA
The door clicks shut behind him, and the penthouse suddenly feels too quiet. Too big. I stand there in the middle of the bedroom, still naked, his cum slowly leaking down my thigh, and his last words echo in my head like a gunshot that won't stop ringing.
I love you.
I didn't know how to respond. The words lodged themselves in my throat, heavy and unfamiliar. So I just said I know, like some idiot in a movie. But hell… I feel something for him. Something huge and terrifying and completely different from anything I ever felt for Pete.
Gabe sets my blood on fire. Whatever this is between us, it's hot.
Electric. All-consuming. The kind of connection that makes my skin hum and my heart race even when he's not in the room.
When he touches me, I forget how to breathe.
When he looks at me like I'm the only thing that exists in his violent world, I feel alive in a way I haven't felt since I was a reckless teenager riding bikes and dancing on tables.
He makes me feel seen. Wanted. Claimed in the best and worst ways.
But love?
I sink down onto the edge of the bed, pulling the sheet around me. My thighs are still slick with him. My body is still tingling from the slow, sweet way he took me this morning, like I was something precious he wanted to savor, not just fuck.
Do I love him?
And what about the stalking?
He watched me for months. Sent gifts that appeared like magic. Paid for my car repair. A man like Gabriel D'Amato could have taken whatever he wanted. He could have had me dragged to this penthouse the night he first saw me. He could have killed Pete and simply claimed the widow.
But he didn't.
He waited. He watched from a distance. He sent me that red Gucci purse like a secret offering. He gave me and Pete an invitation to a masked ball he knew would blow our minds, even though the thought of seeing me on another man's arm must have gutted him.
It's actually kind of… sweet? A soft, slightly hysterical laugh escapes me. Sweet. Can a mafia boss be sweet?
Audra, remember when you ran away from an MC leader?
Yeah. Razor. The man who smiled while talking about selling me to the highest bidder. The man who liked them young, too young.
Gabe isn't Razor.
He's darker. More dangerous. More powerful. But he hasn't forced me. Not really. Even when I ran, he let me go. He sent gifts instead of chains. He waited for me to come back on my own terms.
That doesn't make any of this okay. The stalking.
The surveillance. The way he inserted himself into my life without me knowing.
But it also doesn't feel like the same kind of evil I escaped before.
I press my face into my hands, groaning softly.
This is insane. My husband is barely cold in the ground—killed because he dug too deep into the wrong people—and here I am, naked in another man's bed, feeling something electric and terrifying for the very kind of man that ended his life, the kind of man I swore I'd never go near again.
But Pete's steady love never made me feel like this. Never made my body burn, or my heart race, or my soul feel like it was finally waking up after years of sleepwalking.
Gabe does.
And that scares the hell out of me.
I stand up on legs that are still a little shaky and walk to the bathroom.
The huge mirror reflects a woman I barely recognize, flushed skin, marked neck, wild hair, eyes that look brighter than they have any right to.
I touch the bruise on my throat where his mouth was this morning. Gentle this time. Reverent.
I love you, he said this morning, and again before he left. I believe him. The question is… what am I going to do with that? I turn on the shower, letting the hot water beat down on my shoulders while my mind keeps spinning.
Whatever this is, it's overshadowing everything else right now. The grief. The guilt. The revenge I still want. For the first time in years, I feel awake. Alive.
Dressed in nothing but the sheet wrapped loosely around my body, I slip out of Gabe's bedroom and pad quietly down the hallway toward the guest room I used two weeks ago.
Sneak is the better word. I'm moving on tiptoe, heart beating too loud, praying neither Esther nor my mom pops out of their rooms and catches me looking like a well-fucked fugitive.
I make it to the guest room without incident, exhale in relief, and close the door behind me.
My stomach rolls violently the second I'm alone.
A wave of nausea hits so hard and fast that I barely make it to the bathroom before I'm on my knees, heaving into the toilet.
Nothing but water and acid come up, but my body keeps convulsing until I'm shaking and sweaty.
When it finally passes, I rinse my mouth with cold water from the sink, splash some on my face, and stare at my pale reflection. Stress. It has to be stress. Or maybe I really am coming down with something after everything that's happened.
I pad back into the bedroom and open the closet. My old clothes are still hanging there exactly as I left them, faded jeans, a couple of worn shirts. But there's more now. New things. Expensive things. A small, reluctant smile tugs at my lips as I run my fingers over the hangers.
Gabe.
Of course, he restocked my wardrobe while I was on the run from him. The man is nothing if not thorough.
I pull on a pair of my old jeans for comfort, then hesitate before choosing one of the new shirts.
It has a discreet designer label I've only ever heard of in passing, something soft and silky that probably costs more than my monthly car payment used to.
When I slip it on, the fabric feels like a caress against my skin.
It drapes perfectly, cool and luxurious.
I catch myself smoothing my hands down the front, enjoying the way it moves with me.
It feels… good. Too good. I'm still adjusting the hem when the door bursts open without warning.
Louie—one of Gabe's regular guards—steps inside, gun already drawn and pointed straight at me. A silencer is screwed onto the barrel.
"Not a peep." He snarls and motions with the gun. "Move."
My heart slams into my throat. Ice floods my veins.
I raise my hands slowly, the luxurious shirt suddenly feeling ridiculous against the terror spiking through me.
On lead legs, I move into the hallway, bare feet silent on the marble.
He keeps the gun trained on my back, close enough that I can feel the threat of it.
I think of my mother and Esther. Where are they?
Are they safe? Or are they being taken too?
In the antechamber, the scene hits me like a physical blow. Blood. Everywhere. Six bodies lay sprawled across the floor in unnatural positions. The metallic smell is thick enough to taste. My stomach lurches again, but there's nothing left to throw up.
One of them?—
Oh no.
Oh God, no.
Brick lies closest to the elevator doors, on his side, eyes open and glassy, with a large hole that took most of the back of his head out. That's the only way they could have gotten him. From behind. Cowards.
Blood pools beneath him, dark and glossy. Real panic crashes over me now, sharp and suffocating. Brick was supposed to be guarding us. Gabe trusted him. And now he's dead on the floor like the others.
Louie prods me forward with the barrel of the gun, forcing me past the carnage toward the private elevator. My bare feet slip slightly in someone's blood. I bite back a whimper.
"Where are you taking me?" I whisper in a cracking voice. This is all too familiar. Flashbacks hit me from all angles. The way I was abducted from my work. The drive. Pete. The warehouse. His fingers.
Louie doesn't answer. Just shoves me harder toward the elevator. My mind races. Gabe just left. My mom and Esther are somewhere in this penthouse, maybe already hurt, maybe worse. And I'm being marched at gunpoint by one of Gabe's own men through a slaughterhouse.
The elevator doors are already open, and another man is standing inside, holding his side where blood is dribbling out.
He seems vaguely familiar. I think he's been on duty here before, too.
Louie pushes me inside, following close behind, gun never wavering.
As the doors begin to close, I catch one last glimpse of Brick's lifeless body.
Whatever game is being played here, the pieces are moving fast. And I have no idea whose side anyone is really on anymore.
The doors slide shut with that soft, expensive ding, and the world narrows to just me, Louie, the other man, and the gun pressed against my spine. My bare feet are sticky with someone else's blood. I can still see Brick's open eyes staring up at nothing.
My stomach heaves again, and bile tickles the back of my throat.
This feels too familiar. Too much like the last time, the cartel's hands on me, the certainty that I was about to watch the man I married die.
I was calculating then too, mind racing for any opening, any weakness.
But this time the fear is sharper. Personal.
Because the man who just left me with a kiss and an I love you is somewhere out there, and I don't know if he'll even know I'm gone until it's too late.
Louie's breathing is steady behind me. Professional. The other man's is hard and labored. Both are Gabe's own guards. That makes it worse. If these two have turned, then how many more have?
The elevator starts its smooth descent. My mind scrambles for something—anything—like it did the night I set the fire in the kitchen.
I was cold then. Calculating. I can be that again.
I have to be. I glance sideways at the panel.
The casino level light is already glowing.
It always stops there first unless Gabe overrides it.
Maybe I can use that. There will be people, more of Gabe's men. The car slows. The doors begin to open.