38. Chapter 38
Jasmine
Swallowing down the bile creeping up my throat, the man holds a gun between my shoulder blades as he pushes me to the back of the building with a grip on my shoulder. When my feet go from yellowing tile to smooth, gray concrete, I look up at the sound of laughter.
Standing around the room are two men dressed incredibly similarly to the one currently holding me hostage.
One wears a red tracksuit and is actually sporting proper footwear, while the other’s tracksuit is green.
On their arms are two redheaded women, petting the men’s chests like they’re something special.
One of them looks at me with a smile and a black eye. The other has a sneer across her face.
“I know you,” I say to the smiling one, and she blows a bubble with the gum she’s chewing.
“Ruby De Luca.” She nods at the other woman. “This here’s my sister, Angela. Your boyfriend broke her heart, but thank goodness we got these good guys here. Mark and Matty said they’d kill him for hurting her.”
The woman with the death glare clings to the man beside her. “Looks like she got over him fast enough.”
“It wasn’t easy,” she says. “He left me in that hotel room and offered me the minibar as though that was a replacement for him. Thank goodness Marky here showed me how a real man should treat his woman.”
He grips her breast and begins sucking her neck. Charming, Mark. What a catch.
I look away to see another man standing in the room with us. In place of a tracksuit, he wears a black suit with a white shirt and a solid-colored tie in a hideous shade of green.
“Todd.” His name is a whisper on my lips, and I hate that I can hear the fear in my voice, knowing he does, too.
His smile spreads as he steps toward me, and I blink my eyes, resisting the urge to cry. I haven’t given anyone the benefit of my tears in a very long time, and I’ll be damned if I ruin my record on the spineless, cruel man in front of me.
Todd’s eyes roam over me, and where I feel empowered and beautiful when Dario’s move in the same way, this man puts me on edge. When his gaze returns to mine, his lip curls in disgust, mimicking the way I feel. “What does he see in you?”
A shrill laugh comes from Angela. “I wondered the same thing. Why would he want her when he had someone like me?”
She whimpers when the man whose arm she’s on, Mark, I presume, yanks her hair and tugs her head back.
“And now you have me, ain’t that right?” His tone is syrupy in all the wrong ways, but she runs her hands up his chest as though he’s turned on.
“That’s right, baby. You’re so much better than some dumb Caruso.”
“Show me how much better, baby.”
He pushes her to the ground. She begins unbuckling his pants, and I tear my gaze away, not wanting to see the private act she’s about to perform in front of an audience.
A grip on my chin forces me to face Todd. “Do you not want to watch her suck his cock? Do you want to act like you don’t enjoy getting off in public while watching others?” He leans in and whispers in my ear. “I know the filthy girl you can be.”
My head jerks away from Todd when he nips at my earlobe, causing him to laugh. “All those sweet noises you make, they came over our feed so fucking perfectly. I gripped my cock so many times listening to your moans and thinking about how good that fat cunt of yours probably feels.”
Todd runs his hand down the front of my body, causing me to squirm as he roves over my breasts and stomach, traveling south to my core. I’m prepared for the bullet in my back because if he touches me there, I will lose all sensibilities and murder this man.
Todd must not have a death wish today, because he stops at the waistband of the jean shorts I’m wearing. “Actually, I think I’ll wait until your boyfriend gets here before I make you mine.”
The rope burns as it cuts into my wrists.
I’ve been tugging against them, trying to break myself out of the chair they’ve tied me to as Todd and the other men in the room have been fussing with one another.
The tracksuit fellas want to know when Dario is on his way, and Todd keeps assuring them he’ll be here.
As much as it pains me, I agree with him.
Dario will come for me. My concerns start to get the best of me.
Will he get here before it’s too late? Will he realize how long I’ve been gone? Will he know that something is wrong?
My mind shifts to Tank, reminding myself he knows where I am.
I told him I would be in here for only ten minutes, and it’s been what, fifteen?
Surely he will come searching for me soon, and when he sees me like this, he’ll let Dario know.
I attempt my telekinesis trick with Tank again and pray this time it works.
“Why are you doing this, Todd? What is so special about me?” I ask, breaking up their conversation and attempting to give Dario the time he needs to get to me.
“Not a damn thing,” he scoffs. “But for some reason, Dario Caruso wanted you the second he saw you. I think he liked the chase, and I have to say, I enjoyed watching you turn him down. Then you got comfortable. You were joining him for outings and going to that stupid club of his.”
Okay… sounds like Todd wasn’t accepted as a member, and the little man got a little jealous. “So you’re after Dario, then?”
He laughs, a slimy sound that sends a shiver down my back. “The Matarazzos are after Dario.”
“So what’s in this for you?” I ask, sounding genuinely curious.
Black Tracksuit steps in my direction. “Money, of course. That’s all his type wants is money. But he’s not gonna see a fucking cent if the pretty boy doesn’t show up.”
Aww, they think he’s pretty. Me too, boys. Me too.
“Okay, so let me make sure I have this straight. You,” I say, pointing to the man in the green tracksuit that does him no favors, “are paying Todd to capture me because your girlfriend Pamela fucked him?”
“It’s Angela,” she hisses, taking a break from sucking on the disappointing dick that seems to be having trouble staying hard. No wonder she misses Dario.
“I don’t care,” I say to her, then turn my eyes back to Green Tracksuit. “But Todd doesn’t get his money unless Dario shows up, so that you can do what?”
Red Tracksuit snickers, “Umm, kill him. Duh.”
I nod. “Right…” My word draws out. “And you’re killing him because Pamela...”
“Angela!” she and her sister scream at me.
I truly do not care. “Because she says he broke her heart?”
The three men in tracksuits and two redheaded women stare at me as though this all makes perfect sense, so I attempt to clarify.
I turn my eyes to Green Tracksuit. “You do realize that if Dario hadn’t broken her heart, she wouldn’t be with you, right?
So, in him leaving her, she was able to move on and be with you.
You’re wanting to kill a man for hurting your girlfriend, when she wouldn’t even be your girlfriend if it wasn’t for him hurting her. ”
The three brothers turn and stare at each other. After several seconds, Red Tracksuit speaks. “We got other reasons, too.”
“What are those?” I ask, both genuinely curious and trying to buy time for Tank to get to me.
“Let’s just say we’re helping some friends of ours.” He answers smugly.
“By getting rid of Dario?”
Green Tracksuit guffaws. “By getting rid of all the damn Carusos.”
I glance between the brothers. “And if you help these friends of yours get rid of the Carusos, what do you get in return?”
Red Tracksuit holds up a finger for each thing he names. “Their weapons. Their money. Their women.”
I snort. “Their women? Even though you’re doing all this in the name of love for her?” I gesture to Pamela. Angela. Whatever her name is.
“I don’t mind sharing,” she says around a wad of chewing gum while twisting a finger in her hair. When Tank saves me from this place, Dario and I are going to have a long talk about his past standards regarding women.
I turn my gaze to Todd. “And you get weapons, money and women, too?”
He shrugs. “I just want the money I’m owed.”
“What exactly are they paying you for?”
Todd throws his hands up like it’s obvious. “Leading them to Dario Caruso.”
“Why were they so sure you would be able to do that?”
Todd braces his hands on the arms of my chair and leans down to get in my face.
I attempt not to gag at the smell of beef and cheese.
“Because you weren’t supposed to be here, you stupid cunt.
Megan was supposed to go on maternity leave, and as her superior, I was going to take on her clients for the next six weeks.
I was going to have a direct line to the Caruso family and know precisely which warehouses Dario Caruso would show up at and when.
But then that fucking bleeding heart had to decide she wanted to be a permanent mommy, and you were hired in her place. ”
“And I took over the Caruso files,” I state, piecing things together.
Todd nods. “I tried to be nice at first, going as far as flirting with you and taking you out to lunch. I thought maybe I could convince you to let me help and take over their files as you eased yourself into your new position. When that didn’t work, I thought I would attempt to seduce you, but I didn’t realize you were such a frigid bitch who only spreads your legs for billionaires.
I finally decided the best way to get to the files was to get rid of you completely. ”
“So you followed me and tried to paint me in a bad light every time I was with Dario?”
A disgusting smile lights up his face. “You made it so damn easy with that sleepover the two of you had, so thank you for that.”
My stomach rolls knowing I walked into Todd’s trap. “You’re the reason I was fired,” I whisper.
“Oh,” Todd says jovially, “I can’t take all the credit. Your boyfriend knows what an uptight cunt you are, so he asked for you to be removed from his counsel to get over that pesky ethical wall you refused to climb. I just helped get you removed from the entire office.”
My mind thinks back to everything that’s happened over the past several months. “All the warehouse break-ins. That was you?”
He stares at me with his smug smile. “Yup. I figured I had a chance Dario would be the one to show up, but if not, they were gonna pay me for the other Carusos, too.”
“But then the warehouse raids stopped. They thought they had found the man who did it.”
Todd shrugs. “Sucks for him. They only stopped because Dario killed Old Man Jorgensen, and everything got locked up for two weeks. Nobody could get in or out of the building, so I couldn’t gain access to the files.
Then, the Carusos decided to hire you, and their file was pulled entirely.
No more warehouse takeovers after that.”
“So that’s when you decided to break into my home?”
His expression turns smug. “Thanks to your little homecoming trip, I was able to sneak into your place and bug it so I could find out where the two of you would be going. Tried finding the files, but you must have them locked down tighter than Fort Knox.”
I don’t confide in him, but I thought the entire Caruso file would be safer stashed in Dario’s office at Angelo than in my home. I only ever took home the documents I needed to look over for whatever I was working on.
My mind races as it attempts to process everything Todd confessed.
The mention of Dario murdering Mr. Jorgensen should be what I’m fixated on, right?
I should be terrified knowing I’ve been in bed with a man who hasn’t only killed one man, but multiple.
But he killed them for me. He was protecting me.
He refuses to let a single person who does me wrong suck in one more breath. Aww.
Then there’s the disgusting knowledge that Todd was in my home multiple times. He overheard everything I did with Dario. Every conversation I had with my friends. If Dario doesn’t choke the life out of this man, then I’ll do it my damn self.