Page 5 of Merciless & Mated

“Hold still for one fucking second.”

Her response to that was a swift punch to the face I wasn’t expecting. She bolted once more, actually making it to the doors.

Note to self: Gianna Mancini is a fucking hellion.

“Fucking Christ. Federico, cover me.”

The gunfire ceased with one well-aimed bullet on his part, the body of our last assailant collapsing over the railing and landing with a damp thud. I took off after the Mancini hellcat. She might be feisty, but few people could outrun me for long.

I locked my fingers into those blonde waves and yanked her to a stop, wrestling her straight to the ground where she wouldn’t be able to pull any surprise moves on me again. “Do you want to get out of here or not? You keep kicking up a goddamn fuss and their backup is going to get here before you can get anywhere. Also, you hit me again and your ass will be so red you won’t be able to sit for a week. Am I clear?”

“Fuck you.”

Might as well start now. I smacked her ass without regard for my strength and she yelped, her struggles renewing.

“Let me go,” she ordered.

“Absolutely not. Your father came to the Gallos and we came for you. You belong to me now.”

CHAPTER 3

GIANNA

If the stench of motor oil and concrete dust hadn’t been enough to choke me into silence, the knowledge that my father had sold me to the Gallos certainly did the job. At least I had gotten a couple good hits in first.

I hated every single one of them. From Darius and Bianca all the way down to their spineless little bootlickers. I counted my father among them. He loved me, so he said, but he had also been waiting for an opportunity to hand me over to someone who could give him more authority.

If the man above me was in the Gallo ranks, I would hate him just as much as the others. My ass still stung, a smoldering burn not nearly as hot as my hatred. What was worse was the way his scent—bourbon and smoke, like the cherrywood we burned to flavor expensive cocktails—was unraveling the painful tension in my muscles and coaxing dead embers to life in my belly. Of course the universe would make evil smell delicious. Fucking rude of it.

My eyes watered as he hoisted me up by my hair. “Please. Let me run. You never have to see me again.”

“Absolutely fucking not. You’re not running from me again.”

He dragged me along with him, keeping a firm fistful of my hair and making sure I was tipped over so he had full control of my movements and I couldn’t even see where we were going.

“Mario,” he said. “Let’s get the fuck out of here before they bring in more guns.”

A second later he tossed me into a van and climbed in next to me. The door slammed shut and I swallowed against the swell of panic in my throat.

The van was packed, five men, myself, and the two women I’d been held with. No one bothered with seatbelts as they peeled out of the lot. Gunfire cracked in the air, the bullets embedding themselves in the back of the van. The other women screamed but I only ducked my head, too used to the sound, having grown up where I had. One of the men hung out the window, firing back. I closed my eyes, willing myself not to tremble. The man who’d dragged me into the van set an arm over my shoulders. Was he…trying to comfort me?

There was no possible world in which I could relax about any of this. Either I was going to an unknown fate with the ones who’d abducted me, or I was going to the horror story that was the Gallo compound.

Even if I got away, I wouldn’t be able to go home. That knowledge sat like an anvil in my gut. Did I actually belong to the man next to me, or was I going to be transported and handed over to Bianca Gallo? I couldn’t decide which I would prefer. She had a reputation for cruelty, but then I supposed most people in this life did.

I wasn’t the first of my family to be sold for advancement, and I knew I wouldn’t be the last. It was the way for families who could never seem to grab enough power. Selling their daughters and omega children to whoever could let them taste that power. I was unlucky enough to be born both.

The man to my right turned toward me, blue-gray eyes intense, the subtle hint of bourbon and smoke twining around me. I stayed stock-still in the way that prey often did, hoping the predator would forget they were there and move on.

My liberator and my captor.

We passed a certain point in the city and our pace slowed, like we had moved into the heart of enemy territory and the people who had taken me didn’t dare follow.

“Names?” one of the men asked the other women.

All I caught were their squeaked-out surnames—Conti and Russo. Both families that held territory under the Gallos along the river. Had the fourth omega they’d been waiting for been a Barone? That would cover all of the families besides the Gallos themselves that held riverside territory and bridges.

The van swerved into the ambulance bay of an urgent care facility, and the side door swung open.

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