I came to, and the first thing that hit me was a migraine from the chloroform hangover.
I didn’t move. Waking up as a captive and waking up next to an angry, violent lover were very much the same.
I relaxed my body and kept my breathing slow. I listened for any sound—voices, TVs, footsteps, traffic outside; any clue that could tell me where I was.
I lay across a cushioned surface that felt much like a leather couch, and some cloth was draped over my body. I felt the tulle of my dress still wrapped around me, but the knife that should have dug into my ribs was gone.
My kidnapper had wrapped me in a blanket and laid me on a couch? Left me dressed? It seemed they’d be playing nice once they knew I was awake.
With just the sound of cars in the distance, I knew we must still be in the city, but whoever was with me, they weren’t giving much away. No one talked or walked around, and I couldn’t smell anything except . . . a hint of metal mixed with aftershave, like he’d washed away the blood of his kills but couldn’t completely shake the scent.
Rome.
My eyes shot open.
There he sat, leaning forward on a brown leather chair. The ski mask dangled from his large hands, and his head hung low as he looked at the ground. His brown hair fell over his forehead, damp like it’d just been scrubbed clean.
“What”—I cleared my throat at the pain of talking as his eyes sliced up to meet mine—“In. The. Actual. Fuck, Rome?” I winced as I pushed up on my elbow to sit and noticed that my wrists were zip-tied together. “Are you kidding me?” I lifted them in front of me and wide-eyed him.
“Take a minute to relax, woman. I’m going to explain.”
“Relax?” I screamed and then gripped my throat. The burn was excruciating.
He jumped up and grabbed a glass of water from a slatted end table next to the couch. “Drink this. It’s just the drug you inhaled.”
“Just the drug I inhaled? Do you hear yourself?” The shock was wearing off, and the rage was setting in. I snatched the water with my two bound hands and chugged it down. I was going to need all the strength the water could give me in order to kill the man standing in front of me.
“I needed to get you out of there quietly and quickly, okay? If it hadn’t been me, it would have been the Russians. I figured out their plan in just enough time to do what I had to do to get you out.”
“You made me breathe chloroform!” I choked at the burn. “My throat is in hell right now, and I could have died. Did you know—”
“That chloroform isn’t very stable within the body at high doses? Yes, I’m aware, Katie,” he said with absolutely no remorse.
“So you were willing to risk my life. And Dante’s?” My voice went up a notch at the thought of Dante smiling at me for one second and then—
“Dante needs to learn to take in the surroundings and not your ass.”
“Oh, get real, Rome. We aren’t even dating. Don’t act like a man can’t eye me up.” I wondered if I could stomp a heel into one of his boots.
“We’re past dating. You chose me up on that balcony, woman. And you sank your claws in so far, I’m convinced you can feel my bones.”
“We aren’t past anything. Not after you freaking kidnapped me!” I pointed my finger at him. “You could have killed us.”
He scoffed and sat down next to me on the couch. I fell over into him, unable to keep my balance with my hands tied. Some of the water sloshed out of the cup.
I stared at it and then glanced up at him before I poured the cold liquid right on his junk.
“What the fuck, woman!” He jumped up, sputtering and wiping at his crotch.
I dropped the cup on the floor but kept my stare on him. “I don’t take kindly to being dragged around unconscious, nor to being drugged.”
Something danced within his eyes. He backed up and sat down in the leather chair, spreading his arms over the back of it, and smirked at me. The ski mask still swung from his hand, mocking me. “You know I’m the best at what I do, right? I wasn’t going to hit you with chloroform knowing the dosage could be off and kill you. We have ties to pharmaceutical companies around the world. The drugs I use now are much more refined. You breathed in a chemical that purely knocked you out but wasn’t at all harmful to your body. I wish I could say the same for what you do to me.” He mumbled the last bit to himself as he looked toward the ceiling.
“I’m not harmful to you,” I shot out. It was a defensive mechanism now because my mind was running through what he’d said. He’d utilized expensive drugs he probably shouldn’t have to get me here. For what?
“You’re the most toxic chemical known to man, Katalina. You’re a beautiful woman who is smart and happens to know it. You know you’re powerful, but I wonder if you really know how powerful. It makes you dangerous, unstable, and extremely volatile, especially since the whole damn city seems to be looking for you.”
“I don’t get the charade. I don’t get any of this. I don’t even have that much on Georgie. You’re being dramatic and over the damn top.” I wiggled my wrists. “Argh! Get me out of these.”
“Things are happening, and I’m not exactly sure who’s involved. So this gives me a little time to work it out.”
“What do you mean ‘who’s involved’? You couldn’t tell Bastian and Mario? They aren’t involved with their sworn enemies, Rome. This”—I held up my hands and waved at my face—“is fucking ridiculous.”
“It’s not. I need a day or two to get everything straight. And I need you to sit patiently while I do that.”
“When have I ever given you the idea that I’m patient, you idiot!” I yelled, wiggling around on the couch in fury. “I’m the last person to sit around and do nothing. What info do you have? Let’s call Bastian and work through this.”
“He could be involved. I’m not disclosing anything to him.”
“He’s going to figure out you took me.”
“And by that time, I’ll know if I can trust him.”
“How do we figure that out?”
“We don’t need to figure out anything.”
“Argh!” I screeched and pounded both of my fists into my legs. “You’re all idiots, you realize that, right? It was ridiculously easy to slip past you all tonight to get Georgie alone. I’m good at finding clues, I’m good at getting people to trust me, I’m good at figuring out the missing equations. You need me. You all do. And without me, you’ll fail. You’ll miss something. And I’ll squeal. I’ll find a way to run to Bastian. You know I will.”
“Katalina, why can’t you just cooperate?”
“Because I wasn’t born to do that, and you and I both know it.”
“This time, I need you to let me be the boss, Cleo.”
“Not going to happen, Rome.”
“So be it.” He sighed and got up to set his ski mask on a black storage cabinet near the door. Above it was a weathered slab of wood with metal hooks. Each hook held a set of keys. “Which room do you want?”
“Which?” I hesitated and then blurted out, “I’m not staying here.”
He hummed. “You’ll stay with a man you barely want touching you, but refuse to stay with me.”
“I was fine with Bastian’s touch,” I shot back, ready to argue with him about anything at this point.
“My room will be fine for you. I don’t have all the bells and whistles of Bastian’s, but I have a bed. You need to sleep.” He took one keychain and spun it around his finger as he smiled at me. “Maybe to work out some of the anger too.”
“I don’t need to work out anything. I can control my anger. I need you to untie me”—I twisted my wrists, and the zip ties dug in, not budging at all—“so I can strangle you.”
“Katalina.” He tsked and walked toward me. “I just saved your life. Keep a low profile for me, huh? Just for a few days, maybe a week.”
One thing I’d learned in all my years of being on my own was that I was forgettable and useless if I wasn’t kept in the loop. If you were useless, you were dispensable, and that was never a good thing to be in the family. Rome needed to share what he knew.
Fuck him and his waiting. I made a beeline for the kitchen. It was just ten steps away.
One step, and Rome’s eyes widened.
Two steps, and I figured I’d grab the closest knife in the block.
On the third step, Rome lunged and his hands shot out. He still wore all black and moved like a damn ninja.
I reached forward on the fourth step, sure I could outstretch and outmaneuver him.
He swung one big arm around my waist and hauled me up. “Why do you always want to fight me?”
I thrashed around like a maniac in a ball gown.
And wasn’t I? I was fighting for freedom from my lover. If that didn’t sound twisted enough, he’d bound my arms and was dragging me back to his room like I was his captive.
“You’re not keeping me here,” I said firmly when I lost the energy to wail into the air.
He hoisted me up onto his shoulder like a caveman taking his food back home. “It’s happening, Katie, with your consent or without it. It’ll be more comfortable with it, though.”
We finally made it to the end of the hall, and Rome pushed open his bedroom door. For some reason, I expected there to be chains, weapons, knives, and all-black everything. I’d never ventured into the place he slept in all the years we’d known each other.
The shaded grays and black-and-white decor humanized him and made me wonder if he wanted the normality that some his age had. Did he decorate this space to escape the life of the family?
“Put me down,” I mumbled as I looked around over his shoulder. He must have heard that my interest had shifted because he let me slide down his body and stepped back so I could take in the space.
“You decorate this place?” I asked, pointing to a picture of a woman and a man at a table, him lighting her cigarette.
“So what if I did?” he shot back, his voice gruff.
“I like it. Sort of Italian romance meets the ’50s meets modern design. I wouldn’t have expected that.” I shrugged and ran my hand across the photograph that hung over his dresser. “You know them?”
“Nah. Just a photo I used to love,” he murmured, staring at it. He shook his head, and a lock of his dark hair fell over his brow. He spun away and ground out, “It’s not important. Forget about the pictures. You stay here if you’re going to cooperate.”
“And if I decide I’m not going to cooperate?” I lifted an eyebrow and sat down on the bed that sported a faux fur comforter. It warmed me immediately. I wondered how many times he’d actually slept in it, how many times he’d had someone else sleep in it too. Jealousy came swiftly. “I don’t necessarily want to sleep where you’ve slept with others.”
One side of his mouth kicked up, and a dimple I rarely saw dented his cheek. He pulled the keys from his pocket and inserted one into a barely visible slot between the wall and a photo. “If you’d like”—the wall popped forward, presenting us with a secret entryway—“you can sleep in there.”
Curiosity killed the cat, but I figured I had one or two lives to spare. I gravitated toward the hidden door. As I curled my fingers around it, I looked up at him. “You’re not going to kill me in here, are you?”
“I should, but I’m a masochist for the pain you’re undoubtedly going to inflict on me in the future.”
“Is it sad for me to admit I’m the same way with you?” I whispered.
Rome’s finger dragged across my collarbone. “We’re speeding toward a train wreck, you know? And I can’t seem to stop. I want this with you. I’m fighting for this with you. It won’t end well, though.”
“Why?”
“I’ll always put the family first, and I’ve been bred to trust no one.”
My chest tightened. “You don’t talk about your upbringing.”
“Not much to say.”
“Bastian said your father—”
“Was a liar. I took his life for it. I’d do it again.” The darkness in his eyes deepened, and he glanced down like a memory weighted his gaze. “He gave me that chain. And now it reminds me that each part of the family is connected, but it only takes one link to break us all.”
I nodded, knowing the strength of the mob but also how fragile it was. “It’s not your responsibility to hold us all together.”
“It is. I’m the monster. I protect us. I save the family before I save anyone else.”
I sighed. “We’re aiming toward the same goal.”
“Yeah, but when I’m with you, the monster quiets. I’m starting to think his loyalties are different to mine.”
She shook her head. “Worry about protecting the family, Rome.”
His tongue ran over his teeth. “That includes you, Katalina.”
“I’ll never be one of the family. An untouchable, sure. But not part of the family.”
He kissed me then, and this time it was soft. His lips were gentle as they rubbed over mine, and his hand on my jaw soothed away my worries. I melted into him because it was where I’d always belonged, the one place I felt most secure and most scared. No one wants to lose their safe haven, and Rome had the ability to rip mine away from me. My heart warred with itself. Would I be a part of the family he always protected or become a detriment to them all?
I wondered if one day the man who kept me standing would destroy me.
Until then, I took in the taste of him, absorbed the feel of him, and clung to the hope that maybe we could make it in the family together.
He pulled back and leaned his forehead on mine. “My blood is your blood, baby. I promise you that.”
I nodded because I wouldn’t argue with him now, not after a kiss so tender.
“I’ll show you the room.” He stepped back, breaking our connection, and motioned for me to step forward. “I need you in here for a few hours while I gather information.”
I opened my mouth to argue with him.
He cut me off. “If I get the info I need, I’ll share it with you first. No one else.”
“You expect me to believe that you won’t call Bastian?” I jutted a hip out, trying to look menacing even though my hands were still zip-tied and I was in a damn poofy, over-the-top dress.
“Our relationship should be built on trust,” he tried with an eyebrow raised.
I blew a raspberry and started to walk down the dark hall of the secret entrance. “You don’t trust anyone, Rome.” That was the problem between him and every single person in his life. His father had broken him, and maybe his ex-fiancée had too.
I heard his footsteps behind me, and we came to a dark oak door. I turned the knob, not waiting for him to give me permission, and walked into a room lush with leather and rich, luxurious creams. A king-size bed sat on one side, while a large desk topped with four computer monitors stood on the other.
“Room for you and your lovers?” My stomach rolled with jealousy.
“No. A panic room of sorts. You’re the only one who has been in here.”
The muscles coiled in my neck relaxed. “So, what? You want me to stay here? Instead of a panic room, it’s a prison cell.”
“Don’t be so damn dramatic. You have everything. There’s a bathroom over there and—”
“There’re no windows!” I turned toward him and glared at how ludicrous he was being. “You need to start talking, or I’m going to start freaking out. What do you think is going on?”
“I think you’re too volatile right now for me to share that with you.” He stalked toward his computers and started unplugging them.
“Are you kidding me?” I screeched and ran over to bang him on the back with my two fists. It felt like I was pummeling a brick wall. “Untie me now. Forget Bastian. I’m calling Mario.”
He turned around with wires in his hand and a big-ass smile on his face. “You’re in no state to argue, Katie.”
I was in a hidden room with a killer who could dispose of a body very easily. The only people who would miss me were Brey, Vick, and maybe him.
He was right. I wasn’t in any position to argue or tell him what to do. I should have been begging, strategizing, anything. Most people would have been scared at this point. But I wasn’t ever scared that Rome would physically harm me, even though I’d seen him break my former boyfriend’s bones. Instead of the fear I should have felt, I only felt frustration.
“I’ll argue all I want. This is stupid!” When I stomped my foot to emphasize my point, he stared down at it. Before I knew it, he’d burst out laughing. Rome, my serious lone wolf, bent over and laughed his ass off at me. “Are you kidding me right now?” I pursed my lips so I didn’t join him. I probably looked ridiculous standing there with my hands tied in a ball gown and heels.
The whole thing was preposterous.
A giggle slipped out, and he glanced up with tears streaming down his face. “I can’t believe I got you commanding me even tied up and at my complete mercy.”
Our laughter grew and grew. I tried to stop, but it would just explode from me again and again. “Oh, my God. I can’t stop.”
He shook his head and didn’t turn toward me. “If I look at you, I’ll never be able to quit.”
That had me sliding to the beige carpeted floor and rolling with laughter.
He grabbed me by the waist and sat me up against the footboard. He studied me as if to make sure I was comfortable giggling there, then sat next to me, shoulder to shoulder.
We let the joy bounce around the walls. I took in how relaxed I was in the middle of his panic room, a room that would basically be my prison cell if I agreed.
I wanted control of everything. I felt it deep in my bones, yearned for it everywhere I went. The world had been cruel to me, and I, in turn, wanted to be cruel to it.
Yet, sitting on that floor next to him, I didn’t really want anything more at all. I sighed. “How long do you expect me to stay cooped up here?”
“Just a day or two. I’ll be back every few hours.”
“What if you’re not? Why here instead of out there?”
“I don’t trust that someone won’t come looking, and I need you hidden until I iron out the details.” I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but he held up a hand. “Katalina, I’ll tell you once I have the facts.”
“I don’t like being at anyone’s mercy, Roman.” I admitted to him the one thing he had to know by now.
“Because you’re clawing your way around the world, Cleo. Sometimes, you need to let someone else rip it apart for you. It’ll be a nice change, huh?”
“And this is for me, not to get rid of me?”
“Don’t insult me, woman. I could have done that easily tonight more than once.”
I nodded. Outmaneuvering Rome wasn’t ever in the cards. He’d been trained by his own father, and I knew from the stories that he’d been the best.
“Maybe so.” I said what I had been told so many times. “You’re not your father, though, Rome. Would he have holed me up here?”
“I don’t know what he has to do with this.” He eyed me curiously.
“I’m trying to figure out if what you’re doing is smart or stupid. Is it easier to kill me or go looking for whatever information you think is out there about whatever you won’t tell me?” I shrugged my bare shoulders.
Rome glanced at them and got up to grab a throw off the bed so that he could wrap me up in it. Just as he was closing the front of it around me, he whispered, “My father would have killed you. Probably long before tonight.”
“Why?” I breathed out.
“He didn’t like complications. He hated them, actually. Instead of a woman potentially messing with my heart or his, she would be dead.”
“Sounds ruthless.”
He set the edges of the throw over my chest after I was tucked into it like a caterpillar in a cocoon. “Ruthless doesn’t always get you to the top. He got cocky, cocky enough to step out of line with the family.”
“I’m sorry you lost him, Rome.”
“Why? His death is a good reminder that even those people who have been steady all your life can be the ones to completely change. He taught me a lot—nothing good, really, except to trust myself and no one else.”
“Not everyone will change like him.”
“Sasha lied too. Everyone does. If you’re a survivor and life puts enough obstacles in front of you, you’ll do what you have to.”
“Or you’ll sacrifice yourself for the one you want to survive more than you.” I believed what I said deep in my bones. “I’m a testament to that.”
“You’re a warrior, Katalina. Your father would be proud of you.”
I picked at my nail and let his words linger. “He wasn’t, Rome. He wouldn’t be now. I’m still trying to fit in. I’m still trying to do something he believed I wasn’t meant to do. To him, I was born for something bigger, better than what I was doing then and what I’m doing now.”
“You were born for something bigger. And you’ll still reach the place you want to be, even if it’s not where you are now.” He slid his hand over my jaw and turned me to meet his eyes.
I looked over his face, his dark eyebrows that were normally dipped in a frown, the strong jawline and his scruff. I found myself yearning to feel it over my skin again.
“If I reach that place, will you be there with me?” I murmured, not sure I wanted his answer.
He leaned in and took my mouth instead. He tasted of the only thing I ever really wanted: my own destruction and salvation twisted together in my love for him. He’d either bring me to my knees or save me from myself.
Did he feel the same about me?
We lost ourselves in one another for maybe a minute, maybe an hour.
When I finally pulled away from him, I’d decided one thing. Trust was only given when you gave a person a reason to put their faith in you. “You got seventy-two hours, Rome. I’ll stay here until then.”
The left side of his mouth kicked up. “You don’t have much of a choice, Kate-Bait.”
“I think you’ll listen to me either way,” I threw back, not really sure at all.
He chuckled and got to his feet, then grabbed my biceps and lifted me too. “Whatever helps you sleep better in my bed.” The man winked at me like all of a sudden we were on joking terms. Rome, the underboss of America’s most ruthless mafia, wanted to play.
And I couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across my face, because this side of him warmed something in me that had been cold for a very long time. “Pretty sure the thing that’s going to help me sleep at night is you getting me out of these zip ties.” I waved them in front of us.
Towering over me, he crossed his arms in that black hoodie of his. “I don’t think I will.”
“Rome!” I whined.
Then I saw his eyes track down my body, and it immediately heated. I searched his face and saw him lick those soft lips. My gaze turned greedy. The sweatshirt material covered the tattoos I was obsessed with but not the contour of his muscles. It stretched over his biceps like the seams were about to break. Rome could never get something baggy over those muscles. He was too big, big in all the right places.
I took a step back when he took one forward. “Maybe I need to take advantage of the position I have you in for tonight.”
I lifted my chin. “Maybe keeping me tied up will get me to the high I’ve been searching for. I can’t seem to hit it lately.”
He shook his head. “Baiting and taunting me, huh?”
“I’m not doing anything of the sort.” I turned away from him and sashayed around the room in the dress I knew he loved seeing on me even if he hated any other man seeing me in it. “I’m just speaking the truth.”
“You know damn well I get you off every single time I touch you.”
My nipples tightened at the deep timbre of his voice. “Is that so?” He came toward me, and I backed up against the wall. “What if I’m faking it?”
He pushed his body up against me, and his length against my stomach alone had me whimpering. “You couldn’t fake with me if you tried. I’m the detonator to your bomb, woman. You ignite every single time, and I love watching you explode in beautiful chaos around me.”
“Light me up, Rome. I better feel the damn fireworks.”
His hands went to the sweetheart line of my dress. Before I could protest, he ripped it down the middle. The dress tore down to the skirt and left my chest exposed to him. “I’m going to burn this material,” he mumbled almost to himself before he took one of my breasts in his mouth. He sucked so hard, I had to swing my arms up over his head to rest on his shoulders so I wouldn’t collapse from the pleasure and pain of him.
“Rome,” I panted, “I’m here all night, you know, and the next night and, well, seventy-two whole hours.”
He licked up the swell of my breast, and I shivered. “I need to be working.”
“Work on me.” I held his gaze for a second before he shook his head and kissed me again.
I lifted my arms back over his head and to his front, then yanked his black sweatshirt up and ran my hands over his abs. I wrapped one leg around his hip so I could get him closer to my core, where I wanted him always. I wanted to be connected to him forever on another level, away from the mess the world pushed upon us.
I shoved his hoodie over his head when he pulled away long enough for me to do so. Then we were back on each other, out of control, lost in our own little panic room. We may have both been broken, shattered apart by what the world had done to us, but our fragments were beautiful flying around in that room together.
My hands trailed down to slide into the waistband of his pants, but he grabbed my wrists and slammed them up over my head. “I want to see you first. Don’t act this time. Show me if I can’t get you to orgasm.”
His other hand went under the skirt that was still bunched around my hips. My leg was wrapped around his waist, but my body immediately gave in to riding his fingers as they slid into my slick center.
“Jesus, Rome.” I breathed his name, not sure I could hold out long. My body was a victim to everything he did to me, a prisoner to his touch and an addict to his attention.
His chin scruff scraped at my neck as he bit the sensitive spots and then licked them better. He pressed his thumb against my clit and said low into my ear, “Show me you can’t, baby. Show me I’m nothing to you.”
My head slammed back into the drywall as the violence of my orgasm overtook me. My pussy tightened around his fingers, and he swore over and over as I rode his hand hard, milking every ounce of the feeling I got from him. He crashed into my lips and finally let go of my wrists above my head. I brought them down hard on his neck, hoping for just the right angle and momentum.
The zip ties snapped off from the force, and he chuckled into our kiss. “Always a warrior, Cleo.”
I bit his lip and yanked at his hair, wrapping my other leg around him. His hand immediately went to my ass so he could carry me to the bed. We fell into it, equally ravenous for each other now.
“I want you in me,” I panted as I scooted up the bed and shoved the remains of the dress off me.
“I’m not here to disappoint, Katalina.” He followed me up the bed as he got rid of his pants. Then he moved between my legs. “This is my place now, got it?”
I smiled at his possessiveness. “Only yours?”
“Damn right.” He didn’t enter me gently. Like a thunderbolt, he crashed into me, reminding me that he had the strength to break me.
I took just as good as he gave when I spun him so he was on the bottom and I was on top. My hands on his chest, I rode him. “And this is my place, right?”
“It’s your home, baby. I’m always your home.”
His words shot through my heart, through my soul. Like lightning in the darkest night, he lit me up for that moment.
And during that whole night of lovemaking, I embraced the fact that our lightning may only strike once. I had to capture the beauty of it before it disappeared.
