Chapter Nineteen
Sunny
Fuck me. Pain throbs from my forehead, pulsing along to the steady beat of my heart. I groan, giving up any pretense that I might still be passed out. “Luka!” I call out, trying to blink away the rhythmic pulse in my head. “Let me go!”
“Hey, pudding cup,” my ex answers. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. You see, I’ve invited some friends from work around. They’re here to ... sample the goods, so to speak.” He snickers maliciously, making the silence that follows in its wake feel even heavier.
I struggle to open my eyes, and it’s immediately apparent that my situation has gone from bad to worse since the last time I was conscious.
I’m strung up, each limb secured to one of the bed posts.
I’m more vulnerable than I’ve ever been and I’m afraid.
Every inch of me wants to curl inside itself to escape the horror of what awaits me.
Several pairs of dark eyes watch me, their collective gaze locked on my body the way a predator zeroes in on its prey—when it’s ready to strike and make the kill.
“Luka, no. Please don’t do this,” I say, not beneath begging for my dignity and safety.
“We can just go our separate ways. I won’t say anything to anyone—ever.
Just let me go and we can work something out.
” Hot tears roll down my cheeks as the higher ranked mafiosos take their cocks out and start stroking themselves, relishing in my fear, in my resort to submission, bargaining, and begging.
I cringe in the depths of my very soul and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself.
I know I don’t think clearly when I’m in a blind panic and I can’t afford to lose this game.
“Luka, whatever they’re offering you, I can get you more.
I’ve made some very powerful friends. Don’t you know who you killed last night? ” I accuse.
Luka shrugs from against the wall, perfectly at ease in a room full of strangers jerking it to his hostage ex-girlfriend. “I doubt that, sugar plum,” he says with an ugly grin. “These fine gentlemen are inviting me to join the inner circle. I’m going to meet the Don and make a name for myself.”
“Do the Sons of Sin mean anything to you?” I bite back, drawing out the conversation, regardless of how humiliating it feels to be cable-tied to my own bed as a bunch of mafia psychos yank it in crisp suits.
Luka’s gaze darts to his colleagues and the mood in the room shifts palpably. Hands still on cocks, and throats clear uncomfortably. “What about them?” he asks casually, though I see his Adam’s apple bob up and down by sheer force of will.
“How can you be so fucking dumb, Luka?” I can’t help but let my head fall back as I cackle out a laugh.
“Seriously?” I ask. “You just murdered notorious Killface’s VP.
A storm is coming for you!” I don’t know where the words come from, but they feel true.
I know that Bones might be gone, but Marcus won’t rest, I know that much.
He might hate me for getting his sister involved with the mafia, but I know above all else he’ll honor her memory, authority, and power as a female Vice President in a male dominated world.
He’ll come for me because of what I meant to her. ..
My ex—a fucking contract killer—squirms in his own skin under the very calculated and unflinching gaze of the mafia. “She’s talking shit,” he reasons, gesturing at me dismissively. “It’s nothing that a bit of cock in her mouth won’t fix.”
But his lame excuse for a crude joke falls on uninterested ears.
The situation has changed. I’m no longer in their sights.
The mafiosos were not expecting a war with the Sons of Sin or a woman with half a brain it seems. “What proof do you have of these accusations, girl?” one of them asks, tucking himself away like he wasn’t just masturbating to the thought of raping me.
The rest of his men follow suit, and the air feels like ice in spite of the cheerful and homely cottagecore décor that surrounds us.
“I was sleeping with Bones, the Vice President of the Sons of Sin, Jacksonville Chapter—the President’s sister—when this asshole broke in!
” I say. “I was blacking in and out as he dragged me out the front door. I saw her fucking body on the floor as we left ... there was so much blood.” I blanch, turning my face away as I suck in another deep and calming breath in the face of the impossible.
“He shot her. I heard it. And then I saw her body.”
The mafioso who spoke to me first turns to Luka, his lip curled dangerously.
A second later he flips out a switch blade and has it under my ex’s throat, pressing it to his skin.
“Do we have anything to be worried about, Mr. Floretti?” he asks, his chin upturned as he backs Luka against the nearest wall.
“The Don will not appreciate being implicated with the Sons.”
Luka laughs against the blade at this throat, even though the movement causes the edge to nick his skin.
A bead of bright crimson trails down his throat to disappear beneath his white collar.
“Gentlemen, Georgiou,” he says boldly as he tries to discredit me and assassinate my character.
“I found her sleeping with some dark-haired whore. It was nothing. She was no one. Are you just going to believe this bitch?”
“The D’Angelo’s are Latino,” Georgiou snarls. “They don’t play.”
And then all hell breaks loose. Bullets fill the air, smashing through the window and into unexpecting and unprotected flesh.
I watch as one after one, the mafia men fall.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight and turn my face away, hoping with my whole soul that it’s Marcus coming to my rescue.
Please, help me. I think I loved her... Even in the cacophony of gunfire and the sound of dying, mutilated mafiosos, my heart stills in my chest. I loved her.
I did. I know it in my bones. Whether it was gods, Fate, the Cosmos, or Destiny . .. I was meant to meet Maria D’Angelo.
The thought progresses further, the petals of my mind unfurling in the chaos to the next logical truth.
And I killed her. By knowing me, I killed her.
My heart tangibly aches and I cry out in pain and regret, sobbing into my pillows as silence finally rings clear.
But I can’t stop crying. I know I should open my eyes, survey the situation, and see if I can escape and maybe find Killface, but the pain is suddenly too much.
It’s raw and real and the blade of my remorse only presses deeper into my heart with each breath I draw.
Does it even matter what happens to me now? She’s gone...
“Hey, sunshine,” I hear a familiar voice say, and immediately after I feel the comfort of her hand against my tear-streaked cheek. “Are you okay, baby?” she asks me, a slight wobble in her voice. “It’s okay. I’m here now.”
“This can’t be real,” I breathe, my mind racing with denial as possibility pokes at the fringes of my broken reality. “You’re dead,” I say. “I saw you on the floor. There was so much blood, and you weren’t moving. I called out to you...”
Bones gently strokes my hair, before pressing a light kiss to my nose.
“It’s me, Daisy Girl. I’m here,” she soothes.
“The asshole shot me, but it went clean through. I came as soon as I could.” She presses her forehead to mine, and her hot tears splash my cheeks to mingle with mine.
“I’m so sorry, beautiful. I’m so sorry.”
I finally open my eyes and see Maria’s face hovering over mine, her heart in her eyes as she gazes at me with a soul stricken by grief. “It’s really you,” I say, allowing an intrepid smile to my face. “You’re here. You’re alive.”
“It’s really me,” she confirms. “Now, let’s get you out of here.”
My heart sings and my soul soars, the switch from utter despair to complete bliss giving me mental and emotional whiplash.
I came this close to losing everything, to seeing my world crumble and burn.
But my dark queen came for me. She kept her promise.
“You said you’d be my bodyguard,” I joke, coughing as my dry throat tickles uncomfortably.
Bones pulls a pocketknife from her belt and leaning forward, she cuts my right hand free.
I wiggle my fingers in relief, sighing as I flex my wrist just in time to see Luka rising up behind Bones, a gun leveled at the back of her head.
“Maria!” I cry out, pointing instinctively, my eyes widening with terror.
Bones smiles at me and then pulls out her nine-millimeter handgun, raising her left arm like the Terminator, her aim centered squarely on his heart in an instant.
The sound of a gunshot echoes in my ears and I forget to breathe.
Bones still has her head. I frantically search her face for an explanation, my gaze analyzing her expression for seven millionths of a second before I look down and then up again, expecting to see red blossoming from somewhere under her clothes at any second.
“Maria?” I whisper, my heart hammering so hard in my chest that I’m breathless and full of fear all over again. “Maria ... please. Talk to me!”