“Ican’t believe the prisoner is getting out for the day. How exciting,” I grumbled, staring out the window of the bulletproof SUV currently driving along the AC strip, heading to Vito’s dress shop in La Leonora. I was being sarcastic, but honestly, being out in the fresh air and off Casa Nera grounds was pretty exciting.
Giada laughed. She sat next to me on the backseat. Her brother drove, and Sonny sat in the passenger seat.
“Well, if you make a break for it, I’ll be sure to tell your sister you abandoned her myself,” Giada murmured.
Like I needed the reminder that Lucy was locked up in Casa Nera while I was here. Even if I could escape, there was no way I could get Lucy out, so that was a no-go.
Rain hit the windows, and the wiper scraped the glass. Fall was sliding into winter, and normally, I’d be enjoying the decorations that were starting to go up and the air of excitement that filled the air. Christmas cheer was free, after all, and I loved it.
“This is stupid. I don’t need a designer dress. Who’s even attending this farce? What a waste of time.”
“While I share your sentiments about weddings, I’m tired of hearing you complain, so shut the fuck up,” Giada snapped. “You don’t have to remind everyone that this is against your will with every breath. I’m starting to wonder who you’re trying to convince.”
I rolled my eyes at her but dropped it. I was tired of complaining, too. It wasn’t going to help me, clearly.
We got out at the back of the casino and went inside. Giada looped her arm through mine, and Sonny and Elio followed closely behind.
Vito’s shop was lavish and stuffed full of extremely ornate, over-the-top dresses. His style seemed to be based on the “more is more” principle of design.
His assistant led me down a long corridor toward the dressing room while my disreputable-looking entourage sat in the waiting room. Vito wouldn’t allow them to get too close to the dresses.
I stepped into the room and the assistant drew back a curtain, revealing the half-finished dress and a set of underwear that had my eyes popping out of my head.
The underwear in question consisted of a white bodysuit that reminded me of a corset, with elegant boning to nip my waist in, a garter belt hanging from the bottom edge, and transparent lace that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. It was all cobwebs of handsewn lace, satin straps, and embroidery. It probably cost more than my old apartment’s monthly rent.
The assistant left, and I sank down on the pink velvet chaise longue. I stared at my reflection for a long time. My St. Anthony’s medal shone in the changing room lights.
“Are you a lost thing, bambina?”
“I’ve always been lost.”
Did I still feel lost? Everything I’d built for myself had come crashing down, and I was just trying to survive through it and come out the other side somehow. I’m starting to wonder who you’re trying to convince.
A soft tapping sound stole my attention from my spiraling thoughts.
I glanced around. It didn’t seem to be coming from the doorway. The sound continued. I got to my feet slowly, nerves jumping to high alert.
One wall had a gauzy curtain over it, and others were painted eggshell white, without even a window to tap on. I went to the curtain and drew it back.
Shock froze me to the spot.
There was not only a window there, but a glass wall with a set of French doors leading out to a tiny courtyard, with a chair and table. The courtyard butted up against a parking lot and a row of garbage bins. More shocking was the two people who stood in the courtyard, watching me.
Detectives Vane and Whitely. My heart all but leapt into my mouth, and my mind went completely blank.
Whitely pointed down at the door handle. There was a key inside the lock on my side. I turned it with a trembling hand. Cold air hit my face when I pushed it open.
“Miss Burke. Are you okay?” Whitely asked.
“I-I don’t know what you mean,” I started slowly.
Detective Vane tutted and clapped a hand on my wrist, tugging me out into the drizzle. “We don’t have time for you to gape like a goldfish. We can help you, but you need to listen, now.”
“Help me?” I repeated. Part of me was screaming to tell them every single thing and fall into their protective arms. Maybe they could save us. Maybe they could send Renato and all his men to prison so Lucy and I could go back home.
Maybe…Maybe not.
More likely, the dark malicious king of Casa Nera would rip me from their hands and punish me even more for breaking my promises again.
“Yes, help you. Well, you help us first, and then we’ll help you.”
“I don’t get it. What’s going on?” I tried to make my brain catch up with everything that was happening.
“We know that De Sanctis got to you. We know what he’s forcing you to do.”
“Are you offering to take me and Lucy away from him?”
Detective Vane scoffed. “I’m flattered that you think we could. No, in fact, this whole situation is an opportunity, and one we can’t afford to let pass us by.”
Whitely jumped in. “You’re going to be up close and personal with the boss. In his home, around his most trusted men. You can be our eyes and ears. You can bring him down.”
“What? Are you asking me to spy on him?”
“Exactly. Be our inside person, the one with access to the big boss, and in return, when he goes down, we’ll make sure nothing bad happens to you or your sister.” Whitely looked earnest as he spoke.
“How will you make sure of that?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just know that we’ll keep you and Lucy safe.” Whitely sounded like he believed it, but when it came down to the might of the De Sanctis family, or the cops, I knew who I believed in.
“I don’t trust you,” I told them after a moment. “I don’t want anything to do with this.”
Detective Vane gave me a chilling smiled. “You don’t really have a choice, Charlie. If you want your sister to stay out of jail, you’ll do this.”
“Excuse me?” I demanded.
“Did you know her little boyfriend, Miguel, showed up? Well, his body anyway. He was executed, and the last person he was seen with was your sister.”
“You think my nineteen-year-old sister executed someone?”
“It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what a jury thinks. We’ve got the body, we’ve got a witness putting them together, and I heard that his family is searching for him, or at least, for whoever hurt him…It doesn’t matter who gets to her, cops or Castillos. She’s in big trouble.”
“You’re unbelievable! You’re not here to help me at all, are you? You’re just vampires looking to suck the blood out an unfortunate victim.”
“We hold the line between good and evil in this city, Miss Burke. Or maybe your allegiance has already shifted. Fell in love with the bad guy, did you? How predictable,” Detective Vane sneered.
“Dolores, please!” Whitely snapped at his partner. He turned back to me. “We’re telling you this about your sister not as a threat, but a warning. Things are in motion that you don’t know about. You need to do this while you can. Get the evidence, get us our own eyes and ears inside Casa Nera, and then we’ll guarantee your safety.”
I shook my head wildly. “No. I’m not doing it. I’m not endangering me and my sister more for your case. If you could easily take down a man like Renato, you would have already done it.”
“We will do it, with your help. We’re not asking, Charlie. Unless you want your sister arrested within the next few hours…you’ll do this.” Detective Vane pressed an envelope into my hand. “Plant this in Renato’s office before lunchtime tomorrow, or we’ll take it to mean that you’re not going to help, and that means you’re our enemy.”
“Tomorrow?” I protested, trying to shove the envelope back to her.
She refused to take it. “Tomorrow, and just remember that we drop by Casa Nera anytime to arrest Lucy and tell Renato you’re cooperating with us. Let’s see who he believes.”
She waited a moment for her points to sink in and then shoved me back through the door, jerking her head in the direction of the waiting room.
“Now get your ass into that dress before the psychopaths outside realize you’re taking too long.”
When I got back to Casa Nera, I was numb. I’d reached my limit on being threatened from all directions. Lucy watched TV with Carmella in the den. Her evenings with Carmella were the only times she voluntarily left her room. She seemed to have a soft spot for the gruff housekeeper.
I went to the kitchen, foraging for something to stress-eat. Sonny watched me silently as I grabbed a box of fancy chocolates and a tub of leftover pasta. I took my haul upstairs, waving to Carmella and Lucy as I headed toward our room to eat my sorrows away.
Once alone, I fished out the envelope Detective Vane had given me from my bra and opened it. A tiny electronic device the size of my pinkie nail stared up at me. A bug, just like in the movies.
I could have laughed if I wasn’t so close to tears. They wanted me to plant this somewhere near Renato, to spy on him. A hysterical laugh escaped me at the thought of mercurial Renato finding out about a betrayal like this. Mr. Don’t Lie to Me Ever. Mr. Don’t Break My Rules or You’ll Regret It. The cops wanted me to commit suicide by angry mob boss, and I had no idea what to do about it.
I changed into the silky cami and tiny pajama shorts Carmella had found me. I still didn’t have much to wear, seeing as we’d left our bags on the bus the night of our ill-fated escape attempt.
The Casa Nera housekeeper’s taste tended to run a little too romantic and skimpy for my liking, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Before I knew it, the chocolate was gone and the pasta, too. My belly was full, and I needed to move. I needed out of this room. I tried the handle, and it turned easily again. Lucy hadn’t come back. Sometimes she fell asleep in the den downstairs, and Vinny simply kept an eye on her there. Renato’s prisoner security was flexible, I’d give him that.
Outside the bedroom, my own guard Sonny sat on a folding chair, his head back against the wall, sound asleep. It was late now, and the house was sleeping. So, there were some cracks in Renato’s security systems after all.
I closed the door and tiptoed away from Sonny.
The mansion was warm inside. Rain pelted against the windowpanes on the landing, the shutters rattling forcefully in the wind. Inside Casa Nera, the air was cozy. In our apartment in Atlantic City, the weather outside equaled the climate inside. We had leaks and drafts in the winter and humid, hellish heat in the summer. That was just the reality of living in a five-floor walk-up with no AC and busted heating.
My bare feet sank into the thick dark carpet as I quietly crept down the hall.
I headed downstairs. A grandfather clock ticked loudly in the main hallway. I decided to go in the other direction from the kitchen. I hadn’t explored much of the rest of the house, but I knew there was a gym and a pool. At the very thought, my entire body hungered to be submerged in clean, cool water. I couldn’t actually swim very well at all, but I wasn’t scared of water, as long as I could touch the bottom.
Was it weird to go poking around at night and skinny-dip in someone’s pool? Maybe. But this whole thing was weird. Normal had lost its meaning. It didn’t matter anymore. There was only what was real, and Casa Nera was painfully real.
I followed a set of stairs down to the next level. At the bottom, I was greeted by a well-lit hallway and the faint smell of chlorine. The low-level lighting lit my path as I continued forward.
A gym sat on one side behind a glass wall. It was an impressive sight. I guessed if you had all the money in the world, what else did you spend it on? Might as well have a full gym in your mansion. There was also a full-sized boxing ring sitting in the middle. The place was deserted, giving me confidence that no one would venture down here at this hour.
I veered to the right, toward the faint perfume of chemicals. I’d always wanted to learn how to swim, but it was time-consuming and expensive. Lucy had been spot-on in her harsh accusations the other night. All I did was work, and I was a joyless person. Someone who had learned how to survive and didn’t have space for anything else.
I turned a corner, pushed through double doors, and found it. A swimming pool. It was as beautifully styled as the rest of the house, though I didn’t know why I expected anything less of Renato De Sanctis. The man had shown himself to have impeccable taste. He had the air of a well-traveled, experienced man who was effortlessly in control, always. He was measured, cool and calm, and instinctively dominant in every situation I’d seen him in.
He was a lot, and so was his house. It was such an extension of the confident older man, that just by me wandering around, the thought of him lingered in my head. Really, my haywire brain was taking any opportunity to shove him to the forefront of my thoughts.
The room was pale sandstone with citrus plants spaced around the walls. It was more of an orangery than simply a pool. Beneath the blue water, an artistic mosaic was embedded in the floor, and at the far end of the room, a fountain trickled.
I walked toward the steps before I could question it. I just needed to feel the water on my feet for a second, I promised myself.
The steps descended gently into the aqua-blue water. The first touch revealed it was warmed to exactly the right temperature.
I stepped down another stair and enjoyed the way the water swirled around my ankles. I ventured further in. I wanted nothing more than to strip down to my underwear and submerge myself completely, but that would be a bad idea, considering I had no idea who might visit this pool. Was this house off-limits to lower-level made men in the family and only open to those closest to the boss? Elio said he and his sister lived here, but were there others? I had no idea, and frankly, at this point, I might prefer a random stranger stumbling across me than Renato himself. That man was a danger to my sanity.
The lemon-and-orange-scented air was humid, making the fine hairs that had escaped my ponytail stick to my neck and forehead.
A blurred shape moved out of the corner of my eye, calling my attention. The frosted glass wall that separated the hallway from the pool was translucent enough for me to make out a tall figure moving rapidly alongside it, right toward the pool doorway. My moment of peace burst like a bubble.
Crap! Someone was coming after all. Who was it? Please be Sonny, looking for me. Please be Elio coming for a midnight dip. Please be anyone but him.
I turned quickly and took a step upward. Maybe I could get out and hide behind a potted lemon tree until whoever it was left? It was a ridiculous plan, but in the heat of the moment, and feeling like I was doing something forbidden, it made sense.
I looked up when the door started to open, with only one more submerged step left to go.
And that was my downfall. Literally.
My foot slipped off the smoothly curved marble step, and I fell backward. I registered a dark shape coming through the doors just as I flew back and hit the water with a hard smack. The cool water rushed over my head, flooding my nose and open mouth.
The water hit my lungs, and I convulsed. Goddamn it. In my panic, I sucked down liquid like someone with a death wish.
Arms wrapped around me as I trashed and flailed in the water, my limbs flapping wildly beneath the surface.
“Stop fighting me, Charlotte! I’m trying to help you, for fuck’s sake.” Renato’s voice was a deep growl. Of course it would be him. The devil himself. Of course.
He held me against his body, his arms tight around my middle. I coughed relentlessly, hacking up all the water I’d swallowed. The one silver lining was that I didn’t need mouth to mouth.
He carried me to the edge of the pool, and I rested my hands on the curved lip, my breath coming in pants as my lungs worked to expel every last drop of water.
Renato kept one arm wrapped around me and moved the other to my hair, stroking my wet strands. It was soothing as hell. “You’re okay, bambina. I’ve got you,” he murmured quietly.
I swallowed hard and stared straight ahead. His body drifted against mine in the water.
“I’m fine from here, thanks.” My voice was a rasp.
“Are you?” he asked, and after a moment, his arm fell away.
I wasn’t ready for it and immediately went under. My flailing had forced us into the deep end of the pool. I couldn’t touch the bottom, and my hands lost their grip on the edge.
I sank like a stone, my body sliding down Renato’s, just as his hands landed under my arms and he yanked me up.
“Cristo, can’t you swim?” he demanded when I resurfaced and grasped desperately on to the ledge, harder this time.
Renato turned me to face him, pressing his body into mine to keep me above water. The man was in a white shirt, and it was completely see-through. I could see tattoos through the translucent material. His dark waves were slicked back with water, and clear beads dotted his olive skin and caught in his dark lashes. It was criminal how good he looked, which was fitting, I supposed.
I shook my head slowly, trying desperately to calm my racing heart.
“If you can’t swim, then why were you down here, alone at night? If I hadn’t come along…” he started.
“If you hadn’t come along, I wouldn’t have fallen,” I protested hotly.
He stared at me for a long moment and then shook his head. “Ora sai come ci si sente.”
“And what does that mean?”
He simply shrugged. “Better learn Italian if you want to understand your husband.”
Something moved inside me at the way he’d said the last word. Husband. It was nearly a growl, and my insides squirmed.
“And I’m supposed to believe you want me to understand you?”
“Everyone wants to be understood by someone. Everyone wants to be seen by someone, don’t they, Charlotte? Even you.”
His face was so beautiful wet, it was distracting as hell.
I shook my head stubbornly. “I don’t want to be seen by you.”
“Then why are you wandering around here at night? Who were you hoping to run into?”
“No one!” My voice was nearly a squeak. If it was weird to be having this conversation, with his body pinning mine to the pool wall, I forgot. There was something calming about his presence. Like nothing bad could happen to me when he was there. Well, duh, that’s because it already happened, my subconscious reminded me.
His mouth stretched into an arrogant grin. “No one. Of course not. You barge into my meeting half-dressed, looking like the forbidden ingénue, and trust me not to bend you over my desk and have my wicked way with you. You swallow my fingers like a good girl and get offended if I point out how wet you are. You talk back to me, disagree with me, tell me you hate me, and then you cling to me when I kiss you.”
I opened my mouth to clarify, but there were no words there. He seemed to sense my confusion, a triumphant smile flickering across his lips.
“You want to be seen by me. You like how it feels when I cross all the lines you’ve been taught to fear. You like the way it makes you feel when I touch you. How long are you going to fight me, little nurse?”
Then he leaned in and kissed me. There was nothing soft or gentle about the way his kiss. Nothing hesitant or unsure. He was a man who took whatever the hell he wanted, and right now, he wanted to kiss me breathless – and he did just that.
His lips slammed against mine, his tongue stroking along the seam of my mouth before ruthlessly plunging inside. I briefly tried to push him back out of pure instinct, like if a tiger suddenly licked your hand and you weren’t sure if it was going to eat you or not.
My struggle went exactly nowhere, and I soon realized he wasn’t going to eat me. But I secretly wished he would.
I stopped fighting against him and pulled him closer. He wrapped my floating legs around his waist and pushed me into the tile behind me, grinding his hips against mine. A long, thick harness pushed up at my center, pressing against my pussy. I could feel every roll of his hips and nudge of his cock through my flimsy pajama shorts.
His tongue moved along mine, making me shake. He was so hot, burning me up everywhere he touched. His mouth was warm and wet, and his skin blazed against mine through his soaked shirt. He ground his hard-on in circles between my open legs, right against my clit, and pleasure flooded me. One hand held me up under my ass, while the other rose to my throat. He gripped me by the neck, tilting my head back so he could devour me more thoroughly, his tongue plunging in and out of my mouth in long, drugging kisses that made my head spin.
Every rock of his hips sent pleasure skyrocketing through me. A peak grew inside me. Holy hell, I was gonna come just from being dry humped by this man.
“Stop – I can’t. I’m going to…” I panted out in a whisper. My words were at odds with how tightly I held on to him.
“You’re going to come, and there’s nothing you can do about it, anima mia,” he growled in my ear before taking the lobe in his mouth and sucking on it, a feeling that shot a straight, liquid pulse of pleasure right between my legs.
“There’s nothing wrong about coming for your husband. There’s nothing wrong with what you’re feeling. You’re going to come for me, and it’s only going to keep happening, so get used to the idea.”
His hand moved from my neck as my head tipped forward to rest on his shoulder. He was right; I was definitely going to come, and there was nothing that could stop it. I was so sensitive, shuddering on a precipice, and there was no escape.
He took my wet ponytail in his hand and pulled my head back so my glazed eyes met his.
“You’re going to come and let me see it. I want to see every single part of you unraveling, bambina,” he demanded, staring right in my face, his dark eyes drinking up the pleasure etched across my features. “Don’t try to hide…I’ll only find you. You already know that.”
I stiffened, a harsher drag of his engorged cock hitting my swollen clit just right. It’s just nerve endings, remember, Charlotte?
It seemed laughable to think of sex that way as Renato drove me toward a knee-shaking climax. It wasn’t just nerve endings and hormones; it was so much more.
I came hard, my whole body collapsing forward and spasming so firmly I bit my goddamn tongue. Renato stared at me as my lips parted and his name left me on an uncontrollable gasp. The moan that escaped me sounded nothing like me at all. It was completely foreign. I had the sudden idea that there was a whole side of myself that I had ignored and denied, a part just dying to be set free.
This man freed it, whether I wanted him to or not.
Renato watched me as I came, not missing a single detail. He never stopped moving against me, the water furiously lapping against our chests, until the pressure of his unrelenting hardness became too much to take and I flopped into his arms, all pretense at holding myself up gone.
“Brava, Charlotte. You did so well. You’re perfect, just perfect,” he muttered, pressing kisses along my jaw.
I was floating, not just physically, but mentally, too, until he kissed my neck and bit at the chain of my St. Anthony’s medal. “You’re not lost anymore, bambina. I’ve found you, and I’m keeping you,” he murmured against my skin.
I stiffened, reality crashing in. What the hell was I doing?
I pushed away from him and nearly went underwater again. Grabbing on to the ledge, I pulled my way along the side of the pool, feeling like a bedraggled cat desperate to reach dry land.
Renato simply watched me until I was struggling up the steps. My satin PJs clung to me like a second skin, the shorts rucked up, revealing my ass cheeks. I could feel his eyes on me as I sloshed up the steps.
“I never gave you permission to leave, little nurse, nor did you ask for it.”
“I have to get back to Lucy,” I stammered – a lie, and we both knew it. I froze on the warm tile. I really didn’t know if this man would drag me back if I attempted to leave without his permission. Worse still was the part of me that wondered what he would do next. I was sick in the head. There was something wrong with me.
He didn’t let me leave but changed the subject. “How is your sister?”
His sudden question threw me and I turned around to face him. “She’s okay. Quiet. Upset, no, devastated at the wedding news. So, a pretty normal reaction.” I put my wet hands on my burning cheeks.
“Yet your reaction is far from normal by that definition,” Renato pointed out. He was so damn close, I could see flecks of gold in his rich, brown eyes.
My laugh sounded bitter. “You only think that because you don’t really know me,” I started.
“Don’t I? Charlotte Elizabeth Burke, daughter of Mary and John Burke, both deceased, grew up between the ages of thirteen and eighteen at Mercy House Children’s Home. Only sibling is Lucy Elizabeth Burke.”
“Stop! Don’t.” I was breathless as he recited the tragedies of my past.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make me even more afraid of you.”
Renato’s eyes sharpened on me, like he was pouncing on a weakness. “Are you really afraid of me, Charlotte? The things you say to me, the way you act…it doesn’t match that sentiment.”
“And what makes you think that? You won’t be my husband, you’ll only ever be my jailer—”
“If I was your jailer, I’d have you tied to the wall in the basement. I’m not a merciful man. Nothing about what’s between us is normal – not for me, and I’ll bet not for you, either. You can’t pretend that you don’t feel it forever, little nurse. I won’t let you.”
I crossed my arms over my wet top. “I would have to be crazy not to be scared, wouldn’t I?” My tone was so uncertain.
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Renato asked, smoothing a hand through his wet hair, watching me from the water.
“I-I have to get to bed. I should never have come down here. I didn’t mean to run into you,” I said, wringing out my hair and nervously looking around, panic beating at me from within.
“I checked for you in your room before I came here, so you had no choice but to run into me,” Renato said quietly.
“Why?” I asked, cotton-mouthed.
“Because I can’t seem to stay away.”
Those words only sent my leaping pulse higher. Why was his soft confession making my heart pound so hard? He was staring at me like I was someone important to him.
Someone special.
No one had ever looked at me that way.
Then I remembered the bug in the envelope upstairs. He wouldn’t look at me that way if he knew what I was planning on doing.
“You should let us go. Just let us go. It’s the best outcome for everyone,” I muttered, my energy deserting me all at once. I was so tired I could barely keep my eyes open.
My rising emotions fizzled out flatly, the excitement in my veins from my first orgasm at someone else’s hand dying abruptly.
I didn’t stay to listen to another word. I turned on my heel and hurried back to my room, not daring to look back even once.
