21 years old
December 2012
I’D FOUND BLISS IN A rolled-up dollar bill and white powder.
Sometimes, it was euphoric—blood-pumping, heart-racing, top-of-the-world euphoria. Like sex, without the emptiness.
Sometimes, it was a means to an end. One line, and every insecurity, every bruise, faded to memory. One line, and I’d be free.
Other times, it was a cold draft of air and the squeak of a steel door as it slammed shut before me.
The echo resounded off the cell walls and into my ears like pinballs. I swallowed as the deadlock bolted into place.
Stepping forward, I gripped the bars. “Surely I get a phone call?”
The twentysomething Latina officer rested her hands on her gun belt, and, with dark brows lowered, looked me over from my head to my toes. “You’re out of luck, princess. If I have to look at that monstrosity of a dress”—she nodded toward my red and gorgeously lacy McQueen—“for another minute, I’ll have a headache for the rest of my shift.”
I tried to bite my tongue but failed. “Blame it on my dress all you like—we both know the ache will be from that spinster bun on the back of your head, cogliona.”
Gaze narrowed, she took a step toward me. “What did you just call me?”
“Woah,” interrupted another female officer, putting a hand on her partner’s shoulder. “Let’s go, Martinez.”
Twentysomething’s glare intensified before she stalked off, her partner following behind.
I turned around to pace but stopped short when I saw I wasn’t alone. A redheaded prostitute past her prime sat in the corner, watching me through mascara-caked eyelashes. Her foundation was a few shades darker than her pale skin tone, and her fishnet tights were covered in holes.
“They didn’t take your shoes.”
I glanced at my red Jimmy Choos.
“They’re real nice,” she said, picking at her nail polish.
My gaze fell to her bare feet, and I sighed, dropping to sit on the bench adjacent from her.
They hadn’t taken my shoes because I wouldn’t remain here for long. I was sure I had only minutes until a head honcho in an ill-fitting suit escorted me to somewhere with a couch and coffee—somewhere comfortable, so I would feel more open to gush all the Cosa Nostra’s secrets.
Disgrace.
Worthless.
Unlovable.
I sawed my bottom lip between my teeth as anxiety brewed in my chest.
“How much did they cost?” my cellmate asked, at the same time a door down the corridor opened and shut. The echo raised the hair on my arms.
I heard him before I saw him.
And instantly knew he was the fed they’d sent for me.
His voice was professional and disinterested, though an elusive timbre intertwined each word: an abrasive edge, like a deep, dark sin one kept locked in the pits of their soul.
His next word—Gianna—touched the back of my neck, a brush of steel wings against sensitive skin. I wiped the feeling away with a hand, pulling my hair over one shoulder.
“Probably too much,” I finally responded, oddly breathless.
The prostitute nodded like she completely understood.
She was beautiful—behind the makeup, the drug abuse dulling the sheen in her eyes, and the years of servicing New York’s finest men, I was sure.
A kindred soul if I ever saw one.
The fed’s voice drifted to my ears once more, this time closer as he spoke to Martinez. I couldn’t hear what was being said over the commotion in the other cells, but I could tell her voice had softened and her Hispanic roots were coming to the front, her words rolling in a sensual way.
I rolled my eyes. A workplace romance.
Cute.
However, I didn’t believe he was taking the bait. I could feel his disinterest against my skin, hear the cold tenor in his voice.
A shiver ghosted through me.
For the love of God, he was only a fed. I’d dealt with Made Men since birth.
I leaned back with an indifference I didn’t feel and twirled a long strand of dark hair around my finger.
The room grew smaller, the walls closing in like they had too many times before.
I inhaled slowly. Released it.
Turning my head, I looked out of the cell.
Martinez stood in the hall, staring at the fed’s back as he came in my direction, a look of pure unrequited adoration in her gaze.
I guessed there was something kindred in us all.
Steel bars trailed his image as he passed each cell, his eyes averted. His stride was effortless. The set of his shoulders, the relaxed carriage of his arms at his sides—the stance oozed confidence and devastation, as though brick and mortar and female hearts could turn to ash at his single command.
His gaze flicked up and caught mine, heavy and emotionless, as if he was looking straight through me.
My heart turned cold in my chest.
Our exchange lasted only a second, but the glance stretched into slow-motion, stealing a breath of air from my lungs. I crossed one leg over the other, baring a generous amount of thigh. Like a warm blanket, a sense of security wrapped around me. As long as they were looking at my body, they’d never see what was behind my eyes.
Nevertheless, the first place he looked as he reached my cell was straight into my eyes. Heartless. Invasive. Blue. His gaze burned, as if I was standing in front of an open freezer on a summer day, hot and cold air meeting like tendrils of vapor around me.
As he stood in front of the barred door, with a dangerous presence that touched my skin from several feet away, I was sure he was the one locked up. It simply didn’t make sense the other way around.
A dim light in the hall flickered above his head.
His dark hair was shaved short on the sides, faded with an expert hand. Broad shoulders and crisp black lines, his suit molded his toned body. Control. Precision. He exuded it, like the colorful stripes on a venomous snake.
But his face was what grabbed one’s attention first. Symmetrical, and flawlessly proportioned, not even his cold expression cut from stone could mar it. The second look showed the type of body women groaned over, and the third revealed intellect in every move he made, as though everyone else was a chess piece, and he was musing over how to play each one of us.
My heart leapt as the cell lock unbolted, and I pulled my attention from him to the concrete wall in front of me.
“Russo.”
Nope.
No way.
If I went with him, I’d end up sold into a human trafficking ring and never be heard from again. Fed or not, with those eyes and presence, this man had seen and done things a normal Made Man hadn’t envisioned.
I remained silent.
I was going to sit here and wait for the fed in the ill-fitting suit.
His gaze flicked to the prostitute.
“Name’s Cherry,” she supplied with a smile. “But you can call me anything you’d like.”
Some women didn’t know what was good for them.
He ran his thumb around his watch, once, twice, three times. “I’ll keep that in mind,” was his dry response.
My skin flared as I received the full weight of his stare. His eyes coasted down my body, leaving a trail of ice and fire in their wake before they narrowed with disapproval. And just like that, the apprehension from the way he’d looked into my eyes like I was a human being, not a body, drifted away, and he was now only a man.
One who judged me, wanted something from me—
“Stand up.”
—told me what to do.
Frustration flickered, lazy and hesitant, in my chest.
I wanted to wait a full three seconds before I complied, but after the first two, I had the sudden and distinct feeling I wouldn’t make it to three.
Complying, I got to my feet and stopped in front of the unlocked door. I stood in his shadow, and even that felt cold to the touch.
I hated tall men, how they were always looking down on me, always looming over me like a cloud blocking out the sun. Large men had ruled since the beginning of time, and at that moment, as I grasped steel bars and looked up into blue eyes, I’d never felt a stronger truth.
Impatience stared back at me. “Don’t know your name, or just forget it?” His refined and slightly rough voice blazed a path down my spine.
I lifted a shoulder and, as if it made any sense, said, “You’re not wearing an ill-fitting suit.”
“Can’t say the same for you,” he drawled.
Oh, he did not.
My eyes narrowed. “This dress is McQueen, and it fits perfectly.”
His expression told me he couldn’t be paid enough to care as he opened the door, sending a cold draft of air to my bare skin.
“Walk,” he ordered.
The one-word demand grated on my nerves, but I’d made my bed and now I had to sit on it. My heart drummed in my ears as I stepped out of the cell, beneath his hold on the door, and headed down the corridor.
Catcalls came from all directions.
My skin felt soft to the touch, but twenty-one years had hardened it beneath the surface. Their words, jeers, and whistles bounced off into the abyss, where bruises went to die.
Adrenaline poured into my bloodstream. Harsh lights. Stale oxygen. The squeak of an officer’s shoes.
Coming to a fork at the end of the hall, I slowed. I was so distracted with my predicament and this man behind me that when he said, “Right,” I went left.
“Your other right.” I couldn’t miss the annoyed edge in his tone, like I was an airhead not worth his time.
My cheeks went hot with frustration, and words tumbled from my mouth, like they often did. “It would be nice to know where I’m going ahead of time, stronzo.”
“I didn’t realize you needed time to process a simple direction,” he responded, and then that deep, dark timbre came to the surface. “Call me an asshole again, Russo, and I promise, you won’t like it.”
The bite of his words touched my back, and just then, I hated the man a little for knowing Italian.
I stepped into the lobby, the front doors within view. I longed to be on the other side, but in all honesty, I would rather stay here than go anywhere with him.
The expected fed in the ill-fitting suit was supposed to try to gently coax the Cosa Nostra’s secrets out of me, which, at the worst, would include a too-highly-placed hand on my thigh, but he’d never physically hurt a woman. I swallowed, my eyes following the man I’d gotten instead as he walked to the front counter. Large and unyielding. Cold, and most likely unresponsive to any female wiles.
What tactics did he use while interrogating? Waterboarding? Electrocution? Was that even a thing?
Apprehension twisted in my stomach.
Badge, after badge, after badge blurred in glints of gold and silver before my eyes, and it was making me feel a little sick.
I walked further into the room and stopped beside the fed.
“Why am I not handcuffed?” I asked, watching two officers escort a shackled prisoner out the front doors.
He tapped a finger on the counter in a rhythm of three—tap, tap, tap—and side-eyed me, his stare filling with a trace of dry amusement. “Did you want to be?” His words were laced with deep insinuation and intimacy, and I suddenly knew two things: He was an asshole, and he had handcuffed a woman in bed.
My heart rate quickened from his unexpected response, and, to hide it, I feigned a bored expression. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m married.”
“So I can see, with that rock on your finger.”
I glanced at my ring mechanically, and, for some silly reason, felt miffed that he held no concern his prisoner wasn’t restrained. I could totally be a threat to him and the public.
“I could run, you know,” I said, planning to do no such thing.
“Try it.”
It was a dare and a warning.
A cold shiver erupted at the base of my spine. “Would you feel good about yourself? Catching a girl half your size?”
“Yes.”
There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his reply.
“See, that is the problem with you feds. You love to throw your authority around.”
“Weight,” he corrected dryly.
“What?”
“The saying is to throw your weight around.”
I crossed my arms and took in the busy lobby. My eyes narrowed. I swore every woman in the vicinity had slowed their movements to watch him. A middle-aged officer old enough to be his mother stared while she pushed a clipboard toward him from the other side of the counter.
He signed the papers and then handed them back to the non-blinking officer. I bet women did wonders for his ego every day.
A wave of unease pressed down on my chest as someone set my faux-fur coat and purse on the counter.
Electrocution can’t be a thing.
“Put your coat on,” he ordered.
I paused to grit my teeth because I already had one arm in the sleeve.
He grabbed my sequin crossbody handbag from the counter and eyed the faux peacock feathers like they might carry malaria. I’d made the purse myself, and it was beautiful. I snatched it from his grasp, slipped it on, and headed to the front door.
Stopping abruptly, I turned and waltzed back up to the counter, taking my heels off as I went. “Can you make sure my cellmate—goes by Cherry—gets these?”
The officer watched me with a blank expression.
I returned it.
She peeked over the counter, at my bare feet and white-painted toes, and then straightened, her starched uniform rustling. “It’s been snowing for the last hour.”
I blinked.
“You want to give an opioid-addicted prostitute”—she tilted the shoe to look inside—“Jimmy Choos?”
I brightened. “Yes, please.”
She rolled her eyes. “Sure thing.”
“Great,” I exclaimed. “Thank you!”
Turning around, my gaze met a cold one, which I was sure could frost a lesser woman. He nodded curtly toward the exit.
I sighed. “Okay, Officer, but only because you asked nicely.”
“Agent,” he corrected.
“Agent what?” I pushed the door open. Snow dusted the parking lot, glittering beneath the four-globe lamp posts. The December air grabbed my bare legs with bitter fingers, the cold fighting to pull me into its embrace.
He observed the scene over my head, eyes narrowing as he looked at my bare feet. “Allister.”
“Which car is yours, Agent Allister?”
“Silver Mercedes on the curb.”
I braced myself, and said, “Do you think you could unlock it?”
Before he could respond, I was running to his car, the cold biting into my feet and his dry stare burning a hole into my back.
He didn’t unlock it.
I hopped from one foot to the other, pulling on the passenger door handle while he walked toward me, not the least bit in a hurry.
“Unlock the door,” I said, my breath misting in the air.
“Stop pulling on the handle.”
Whoops.
The door unlocked, and I slid into the seat, rubbing my feet on the carpet for warmth.
His car smelled like leather and him. I was sure he wore custom-made cologne to match the suit, but it was worth the money. It was a nice smell, and even made my mind a little hazy until I blinked the feeling away.
He sat in the driver’s seat and shut the door, and I ignored the way his presence threatened to swallow me whole.
We left the precinct in silence—a tense yet almost comfortable silence.
Digging in my purse, I found a piece of bubblegum. The crinkle of the wrapper filled the car. His eyes remained on the road, but he gave his head the most subtle shake, conveying just how ridiculous he thought I was.
He was late to the party.
I popped the gum in my mouth and swept a gaze over the car’s immaculate interior. Not a single receipt. Beverage. Speck of dust. Either he’d just killed a man and was trying to cover his tracks, or the fed had some OCD tendencies.
I always was a bit too curious.
I crushed the wrapper in my hand and moved to drop it in his cup holder. The gaze he shot me was deadly.
Looked like it was the latter.
I dropped the wrapper in the recesses of my purse.
Crossing my legs, I blew a bubble.
Popped it.
The silence grew so deafening I reached for the radio, but, once again, the look he gave me changed my mind. I sighed and sat back in my seat.
“Tell me how long you’ve been married.”
My eyes narrowed on the windshield in front of me. This man didn’t even ask questions—he just told you to tell him what he wanted to know. However, the quiet gave too much room for thought, and I responded, “A year.”
“Young age to get married.”
I glanced at my cuticles. “Yeah, I suppose.”
“You’re a native of New York, then.”
“I wish,” I muttered.
“Don’t like home?”
“What I don’t like is you trying to small talk to coax things out of me. I don’t have anything to say to you, so you might as well take me back to jail.”
His arm brushed mine from where it rested on the center console, and I shifted away from the touch, crossing my legs the other way. Was his car small, or was it just me? The heater ran on low, but my skin was burning up. I slipped my coat off and tossed it onto the back seat.
He side-eyed me. “Nervous?”
“Feds don’t make me nervous, Allister. They give me a rash.”
I ignored the touch of his stare as it swept from the loose curls in my hair, down the red lace over my stomach that revealed a diamond navel piercing, to my bare feet.
“If you dressed a little less like a hooker, the cop who pulled you over might not have searched you.”
I pulled the bubblegum off my finger with my teeth and gave him a smile. “If you looked a little less like an anal-retentive asshole, you might get laid every once in a while.”
The corner of his lips tipped up. “Glad to hear there’s some hope for me.”
I rolled my eyes and turned my head to look out the window.
“It must have been a special occasion tonight,” he drawled.
“No.”
“No? You usually have that much blow on you on just an average day?”
I lifted a shoulder. “I might.”
“How do you pay for it?”
“Money.”
I blew a bubble.
Popped it.
A muscle in his jaw tightened, and a small amount of satisfaction filled me.
“Is that why you married your husband?” His gaze met mine. “Money?”
Anger stretched in my chest, and I refused to even respond. But, after he voiced his next question, I couldn’t keep it in.
“Are you at least a faithful gold-digger?”
Gold-digger?
“Like I ever had a choice in the matter! Vaffanculo a chi t’è morto!”
The look he gave me seared, dark and hot.
I pressed my lips together.
Dammit.
He’d barely begun a conversation and he’d already gotten me to admit I didn’t exactly have a choice in marrying Antonio.
“Your mom never wash your mouth out with soap?”
I didn’t reply. I’d tell him my mamma was the best, and he’d easily deduce my papà would rather lock me in a room for three days than bother with having to listen to me.
“Stupid move, speeding with drugs on you.”
I scoffed. I wanted to ignore him but couldn’t stop myself from replying. To be ignored felt like a cut in one’s chest, and it made me sick to think I’d ever make someone else feel that way. Amusing, as I’d just told this man to go screw his dead ancestors. Italians were creative with their insults.
“It was three miles per hour over the speed limit.”
His finger tap, tap, tapped on the steering wheel. “Who taught you to drive? Doesn’t the Cosa Nostra like to keep their women dumb and docile?”
“Obviously not, because my husband taught me.”
I wouldn’t admit Antonio gave me freer rein than any other man in the Cosa Nostra gave their wife. Antonio gave me many things. And maybe that was why it was hard to despise him for what he took away.
“And how is he going to react when you’re released to go home?”
“How is your mamma gonna react when you get home past curfew?”
“Answer the question.”
I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore the anger brewing inside me by pulling down the sun visor and fixing my hair in the mirror. “Are you asking if my husband hits me? No, he does not.” Hits was plural, so, technically, it was the truth.
His gaze singed my cheek. “You’re a bad liar.”
“And you’re annoying me, Allister.” I slammed the sun visor closed.
The atmosphere grew heavy and claustrophobic, his presence, large body, and smooth movements closing in on me.
“Does he love you?”
He asked it indifferently, as if it shared the same merit as my favorite color. Nonetheless, the question hit me like a blow to the stomach. I stared straight ahead as the back of my throat burned something fierce. He’d found a weakness, and now he was going to poke at it until I bled. Hatred tasted acidic in my mouth.
I would take electrocution over this any day.
I suddenly loathed this man, for getting into my head with his stupid questions and for baring parts of me I didn’t let anyone else see.
I blew a bubble.
Popped it.
That was when he’d had enough.
He pulled the deflated bubble straight from my mouth and threw it out the window.
I stared at him, fighting not to lick the unsettling heat of his touch from my lips. “That’s littering.”
His gaze sparked of indifference.
Agent Allister didn’t care about the environment.
No surprise.
He placed his hand back on the wheel, and I suddenly wondered how severe his OCD tendencies were—if he would go home and scrub my spit off his fingers with bleach or not. However, I quickly grew bored of thinking about the fed and turned my head to glance out the window, at the orange glow of passing streetlights and the flurries falling like tiny shadows in the night.
“How many times?”
A vague question, but by his tone, I knew we’d come full-circle and he was talking about my husband hitting me.
“Every night,” I said with insinuation. “He makes me scream so loud I wake the neighbors.”
“Yeah? You like fucking a man so much older than you?”
Deep irritation flared inside of me. I reached for the radio, turned it on, and coolly responded, “I’m sure he has more stamina than you.”
He didn’t even deign to reply. I heard only a second of some AM politics talk show before he turned the radio off. What kind of monster chose that over music?
We didn’t sit in silence for long before he filled it. “Your stepson is older than you,” he commented. “Must be strange.”
“Not really.”
“I imagine you have more in common with him than his father.”
“You imagine wrong,” I responded, bored of this conversation and bored of this man. This was the worst punishment. I’d never touch coke again.
“You lived under the same roof as him for a year. You’re close to the same age. If you don’t have more in common mentally, then surely physically.”
I laughed. Nico and me? Not in a million years.
Unfortunately, at the time, I hadn’t known it would only take one.
“Do you take my file home with you at night, Officer?”
He didn’t respond.
An awareness tickled in the back of my mind as the streets grew more and more familiar. A cold sensation settled in my stomach, and as we turned onto my street, a heavy and distinct feeling consumed me. Anger. Deep and loathing. He’d let me believe he was the honorable fed when, really, he was nothing but another man in my husband’s pocket.
He pulled up to the curb in front of my home and put the car in park.
Resentment poured off me, mixing with the scent of leather and cologne. I was sure he could feel it when he turned his head to look at me. His gaze was as dry as gin, though a light brewed inside as if someone had thrown a lit match in the glass. Blue. The look grabbed me by the back of the neck and pulled me underwater.
I inhaled slowly. Released it.
A sudden feeling that I’d met this man before overwhelmed me. Though, the thought soon faded. It would be impossible to forget his face, no matter how much I wanted to forget his presence.
“You pried into my personal life,” I growled, grabbing my coat from the back seat.
“You wasted my time, therefore my right.”
Disbelief filled me. No other man of my husband’s would have asked me the questions this one had, and then gone on to call it his right.
Venom coated each sweetly-spoken word like candy. “Tell me, Agent Allister, when did you realize you weren’t human?”
The subtle glow of amusement lit in his eyes. “The day I was born, sweetheart.” It disappeared in a flash. “Unless you’d prefer to go back to jail, get your ass out of my car.”
I gritted my teeth but opened the door and stepped out. The frigid breeze tousled my long dark hair against my shoulders. A blanket of snow covered the street, and I welcomed the burn in my bare feet. Turning around, I eyed him with the most disdain I could muster.
“Go to hell, Allister.”
“Been there, Russo, and I’m not impressed.”
A strong statement, but I believed him.
His eyes were what nightmares were made of, ice and fire, and filled with secrets no one wanted to know. He could only pass as normal because of his too-handsome face—otherwise, he’d be locked up somewhere, the world seeing him for what he really was.
Dirty.
His parting words were short and apathetic. “If you get caught with blow on you again, I won’t save you. I’ll let you rot in a jail cell.”
He wasn’t lying.
Next time, he didn’t save me.
