Page 112 of Diamond In The Rough

“Yeah? But not to hear, right? Considering the trauma you sustained in a fucking explosion on the job last year.”

His eyes track over my face, his jaw hardening when my cheeks drain white. I don’t have to see myself in a mirror to know I turn pale.

“I know everything there is to know about you now, Agent Hale. Though, RICO could be a cute nickname, since Grá no longer applies.” He tilts to the side and reaches out to tap my earlobe with his free hand. “I’m surprised they sent you undercover with hearing loss. Don’t they usually put agents out to pasture once they’ve been damaged?”

“Like I said…” I grit my teeth and fight fire with fire. Anger with anger. “I was sent only to observe. To report back.”

“Yeah?” He drops his hand and continues slicing my shorts, all the way until I feel the tip of his blade against my hipbone. “What did you observe? I know you didn’t see my brother kill anyone. You didn’t see a drug deal. You didn’t even get to see me intimidate anyone.” He releases a wispy, contented sigh. “Shame. Because I do some of my best work when I convince men to give me a club instead of losing their fucking kneecaps.” He slices through the waistband of my shorts and exposes my thigh completely.

When he pulls back and grins, my blood runs cold as a fresh panic sets in.

“You observed a good family, Tiia. Bred from bad stock, sure. And living comfortably with the money extracted from unlawful activities, I admit.” He moves across and begins slicing the other leg of my shorts.

He’s undressing me.

But it doesn’t feel nice.

It doesn’t feel consensual.

“You observed Felix protecting his brothers. You saw me save a fucking plant from a woman I wouldn’t trust my goldfish with. You watched me eat pasta. And fuck you until you thought you might explode.” His jaw hardens. “You watched me give my heart to a bitch, knowing you didn’t deserve it, but taking it anyway because it’ll get you a pay raise and, shit,” he scoffs, “probably forgiveness for whatever screw-up you committed last year that ended with you losing half your hearing.”

My stomach drops as he leans forward, painful and twisting as he places his lips by my ear. “Can you hear me now, Tiia Hale!?”

I tremble in my seat and choke down the sob clawing for freedom.

“What did you want to observe?” Pulling back, he cuts through my waistband and grins when the denim falls away, exposing me and my panties to the man who could have, an hour ago, had me.

Any place. Any time.

The trust I placed in a mafioso’s hands was foolish at best. Dangerous, in reality.

“What was your target, exactly? What did your handler want you to bring back to them, giving them permission to raid our home and fuck us up the way they wish they could when my father reigned supreme?”

“I didn’t have a—” I cry out when he places the tip of his knife at the top of my kneecap and slides it down. He doesn’t break skin, but his threat remains clear. “I was just sent in to observe. I swear!”

“You’re a fucking liar. You think I’m new to this? You think I haven’t questioned the men who came before you?” He shoves up from his crouch and storms to the wall draped in tools. Saws. Hammers. Cutters. Chains. Knives. My breath comes out on a choked gasp when he selects a pair of pliers and turns back to face me. “You are not my first Fed, Tiia. But you’re the first trying on the innocent act.”

“Micah, please?—”

“You were sent for a reason! You had a specific task in mind. An explicit data set to complete.” He starts forward and slowly circles my chair. “You were given a job. Placed inside that antique store somehow knowing I’d be by.” He fists my hair and yanks my head back until I cry out. Until I look straight up at the ceiling. But then he steps closer and steals that view, replacing it instead with his handsome face.

His violently enraged, handsome face.

“You placed yourself in front of me outside CeCe’s club on purpose. Then you put yourself at Colby’s Antiques. How did you know I would come searching for you?”

“I didn’t— I didn’t!” I cry out when he tightens his fist. “You came to me. You sent your man in first, to buy a desk and start that rapport with me.”

“So maybe we were working each other,” he seethes. “I wanted intel on you, so I found your job and sent a man in to figure you out. Meanwhile,” he lifts his free hand and shows off a pair of greasy, dirty pliers, “you were working me. Placed yourself somewhere I was likely to look, sold me some stuff you knew I’d want, and acted the part really well.” He releases my hair, my head jerking forward when I no longer have that backwards force holding me down. Then he comes around and crouches in front of me. “How’d you memorize all that shit about the pirates and the Mongolian soldier?”

I clamp my lips shut, if only to stop their trembling.

But I won’t be his first stubborn victim, a person with a scrap of bravery and reason to stay silent. I doubt I’ll be the last.

He grabs my hand and separates my fingers, studying each one the way he has in the past, when we’d lay in bed after making love and his only desire at the time was to see me. Know me. Catalog my every dip and line.

He closes his pliers over my middle finger and tightens just enough to remain firm.

My heart sprints in my chest. The idea of being tortured far and away, worse than the idea of being killed.

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