Chapter 3
Vincenzo
I sense her just before a heavy object lands right below the back of my head, sending white hot pain searing behind my eyes. Growling through the discomfort I turn, capturing her arms as she raises the steel bar to do it again, this time directly in front of my face.
My hands squeeze hard. “Stop.”
Anna’s tears and red eyes as she glares almost gut me. This was not what I had planned for our first conversation since rescuing her, but I have to remember I’m just the enemy to her. A DeLuca, a rival of old man Cassone’s, her father. Even though he’s long gone.
I hold her firmly. “Drop the bar.”
She shakes her head, her eyes filled with mistrust and hatred.
My voice lowers. “Don’t make this worse than it needs to be. Drop it, princessa.”
She swallows causing my gaze to shift to the length of her neck and the rapidly beating pulse at the sensitive base between her neck and shoulder.
Her nipples pebble beneath her thin gown causing my cock to shift against the seam of my pants.
No matter what’s happened, the chemistry is still undeniable. “Let go, Anna.”
Her voice cracks. “I’ll drop the bar, but I don’t want you to touch me. Get your hands off of me, Vincenzo.”
Christ her voice shakes so bad it makes my stomach turn.
I release her in an instant while taking the bar from her grasp. Anna has been through far too much to go through anything more again.
Knowing restraints of any type is a hard limit for her causes my jaw to lock.
I swear under my breath, determined to rein this back in, take control of the situation and get her to listen to me, to explain what’s happening here, but reconciliation of any type is hardly what the little hellcat has in mind.
The minute her hands are free, she steps back and drives her foot right into my fucking groin causing me to groan in agony while trying to stop her from racing out the door.
I grip her shoulder from behind, grabbing her mid stride, grasping her waist and tossing her onto my shoulder as I kick the door shut and haul her ass back to bed.
I dump her unceremoniously onto the mattress, barely able to speak with my balls buried into my stomach.
“Stay there, and don’t fucking move,” I groan.
Anna glares at me with defiance before I walk to the door grimacing through the throbbing of my dick while looking back to make sure she stays exactly where I put her.
I lock the door and return to the bed, sizing her up as she slinks under the covers and cowers closer to the headboard as though the distance between us will protect her. “You think I want to hurt you?”
Her dark brown eyes meet mine head on. “I know exactly what you want. A billion-fucking- dollar reward. That’s enough to get you to lie to me, kidnap and pretty me up for the buyers?
Let me guess, Bastian Gallini is on his way to pick me up, finish what his brother was too fucking weak to do?
Hand me over to the dirtbag, I don’t give two fucks anymore. ”
Anna’s disdain cuts deep. So deep that for a moment I don’t even have a response.
She really thinks I’m capable of hurting her when nothing could be farther from the truth, but now’s clearly not the time to get into that because her mistrust of me is far too deep-seated and my fucking dick and the back of my head hurt like I just got hit with a fucking tank.
“Go back to sleep, Anna. I’ll have someone bring you something to eat. Try not to hurt them or it will be the last drink or meal you receive for a while, and that’s a fucking promise.”
I close the door, locking it behind me, already half filled with remorse at the tone of my voice and what I said, but I won’t have the very staff protecting her used as targets as she tries to make her escape from the only safe place there is for her on earth right now.
I head into the master suite of my penthouse right next door to her bedroom and toss the steel bar onto the couch before heading into the bathroom, placing a washcloth under cool running water, and ringing it out to put at the base of my head.
Mother fuck that little woman has a swing, and the force of that foot took perfect aim.
I swear my dick’s going to be on fire for a week.
I can imagine Delz, the Cassone daughters’ personal bodyguard and now employed by Massimo Roselli, teaching her that move.
And if my dick weren’t throbbing so fucking bad, I’d admire him for teaching her so well.
That’s definitely not today.
The buzz at my door tells me the fucking inquisition has arrived.
Not that I didn’t expect it, but it hasn’t even been twelve hours since I brought her here.
Nicolo walks in as I open the door, closing it behind him before following me into the great room to the small bar in the corner.
I lay the washcloth down on the black marble and pour us each a glass of Dalmar from the crystal decanter and put the top on before handing him a glass.
He gestures to the rag I had on my neck as he takes the amber liquid from my hand. “What’s wrong?”
I toss back a sip of the scotch. “The little wildcat was waiting for me when I walked in. Thought she was still asleep. Decked my ass with that closet pipe laying on the couch.” I leave out the fact that she also gave me a solid wallop to the balls, because there’s only so much I want to tell my younger brother about her little attack.
Nicolo’s eyebrow raises and he fails miserably at keeping that fucking smirk off his face.
He does manage to rein it in pretty quick though; I’ll give him that.
He takes a pull of his drink and folds himself into the corner of the tan leather couch he always seems to sit on when at my place. “Any word from Massimo?”
I take a seat on the matching stuffed chair next to him and set my glass on the solid mahogany side table that sits between us.
My eyes meet my brother’s as I contemplate his question.
“Massimo knows what everyone else was made to think and what we want the world to fucking know. She was here at the casino. Anna overheard me talking on the phone about the billion-dollar bounty on her head and got wigged out. She got into a car. We had our men scouring the highway for the license plate and found it by the side of the road. She was gone when we got there. The same story the soldiers gave Addie before they took her home.”
Nicolo inhales a deep breath and adjusts a cuff link. “Massimo Roselli bought that?”
I shrug. “It’s almost the truth. She did overhear me talking to him about the billion-dollar bounty.
She had no clue I was talking to Massimo and not the sick Gallini brother who put it on her head.
She did run from me, and even now she thinks I’m the fucking enemy.
” My throbbing dick is a testament to that.
“I did send soldiers to find and protect her. The only thing not true is the car wasn’t empty. ”
His dark brown eyes meet mine. “And that you took what doesn’t belong to you. His sister-in- law. Who is under his family’s protection. Massimo Roselli is no joke. Toughest fucking boss around, aside from you.”
My eyebrow lifts.
He raises a hand to ward off my ire. “Just listen, Vincenzo. I know you’ve got a thing for this woman, but what if all the rumors about her dad agreeing to give her hand in marriage to Barcelo are true?
What if she’s officially now the property of Bastian Gallini since his brother is dead and he knows she’s alive?
It’s not going to sit too fucking well if they find out she’s alive and sitting pretty in your penthouse in Atlantic City.
We’re all fucked then, and we’ve already got the Sarones breathing down our neck. ”
I don’t usually pull rank with Nicolo. There’s never a reason to, but in this I will.
“I’m not giving her back. She’s not going back to a Gallini after what his fuck of a brother did to her, and Bastian will do a whole hell of a lot more trying to even the score.
Massimo can’t know. He’d try to bring her back under his protection and that’s the first place the Gallinis are going to hit. ”
There’s a reason the Gallinis headed to Jersey City first. “If they know she’s alive, they also know Massimo has been lying about her being dead for the last six months, and they’re going to want a pound of flesh from the Rosellis too.
She’s safer with us. They must be watching and waiting, just biding their fucking time. ”
“You’re the boss.”
I set my glass down again harder than intended. “I am the boss, and I don’t like your fucking tone. And she’s staying where she’s at until I can come up with a plan. In the meantime, what’s the update on the Sarones? Fuckers try to hit our club, and we still don’t know who they’re working for?”
He takes a long pull of his drink completely unfazed by my mood.
“They’re cracking more and more every day, but I have to say they’re showing some pretty amazing stamina, impressive really.
One of them did say something last night that was interesting while I was at the warehouse.
He said we could do whatever we wanted to him, but he wasn’t giving up family. ”
I take a drink of the Dalmar. It hits just right after a night like last night and a day like today.
It’s not every day that you rescue the enemies’ family, and then kidnap her yourself, or lie right to the face of another crime family boss who is bound to come unfucking glued when he learns the truth.
Or almost get knocked out and kicked in the nuts for your trouble.
But not one of those things matters because if Massimo had kept a better handle on her and her friend Addie, they wouldn’t have been traipsing all the way from Jersey City to Atlantic City on their own, with no fucking protection when the Gallini fucks are looking for payback for the loss of their brother in the worst of ways.
I should be focused on the Sarones or even the Gallinis but right now all I can think about is what to do with my sexy little captive.
The one who’s riveted my dreams since I carried her half dead out of Barcelo’s hideout.
To all the world thought dead. At least until she decided to start living outside of Massimo’s reach and came to Atlantic City to play.
In the DeLuca X Club, with me.
I underestimated Anna Cassone twice now at the most crucial of times, but that won’t happen again.