Page 17 of Ruthless Desire

They pound again, harder this time, the ancient wood rattling in its frame. "NYPD, Miss Quinn. Open the door, please."

Please. As if I have a choice in the matter. As if this is anything other than a thinly veiled demand wrapped in bullshit politesse.

I'm moving before I can second guess myself, before the self-preservation instinct screaming in the back of my head can persuade my leaden limbs to make a break for the fire escape. I'm Natalie Quinn, artist and fuck-up extraordinaire. I've faced down worse demons than a couple of beat cops. I can handle this.

The chain on the door clinks like a warning as I slide it free, a metallic rasp that sets my teeth on edge. I plaster on my best "nothing to see here, officer" smile and crack the door, keeping my body firmly wedged in the gap.

"Morning, detectives. What can I do for New York's finest on this lovely shithole of a day?"

The taller of the two, a barrel-chested slab of beef with close-cropped hair and a perma-scowl, looks like he wants to laugh in my face. Or maybe just bitch slap the smirk off it. "Cut the crap, Miss Quinn. We're here about a string of homicides that have recently come to our attention. Homicides that all seem to circle back to you."

Homicides. The word lands like a sucker punch to the solar plexus, driving the air from my lungs. I feel my smile crack and shatter, the mask of bravado slipping to reveal the terror beneath.

"I... I don't know what you're talking about. I haven't killed anyone." The denial sounds weak even to my own ears, a mewling kitten in the face of a lion's roar.

The shorter cop, wiry and weasel-faced, pipes up from behind his partner's bulk. "Maybe not directly, sweetheart. But your pussy seems to be the common denominator. Justin Thatcher, David Nowak, Aleksandr Volkov... that’s just the greatest hits list, or are there more notches on your lipstick case?"

Bile scorches the back of my throat as the names hit me like a hail of bullets. Justin, David, Aleks... faces and shared fluids, blurred snapshots from my various benders. Not exactly loves of my life, but they didn't deserve to die. Not like that. Not because of me.

"I think I'm going to be sick," I manage to choke out before promptly ejecting the meager contents of my stomach all over Officer Beef's shiny black shoes. The world tilts and wavers, my knees giving out as I cling to the door frame for dear life.

Someone pushes past me, their radio crackling to life in a burst of static and code words I'm too fried to decipher. Weasel Face guides me to my piece of shit couch none too gently, shoving a wastebasket between my knees to catch the next round of heaving.

"Not the first reaction to a couple o' silt sacks getting snuffed, but points for originality," he sneers, handing me a wad of fast food napkins to wipe my mouth with. "Now that we've established you're a murder magnet, you wanna tell us what the fuck is going on here?"

I shake my head weakly, the room still spinning like a tilt-a-whirl on cracked out speed. "I don't... I don't know. They were just hookups, I swear. One and done, no strings attached. I never thought..."

My voice cracks, my lips numb and heavy. Never thought my dirty deeds would come back to haunt me like this. Never thought I'd be staring down the barrel of multiple homicides, executed with surgical precision to send a message.

A message that couldn't be clearer if it was scrawled on the walls in blood: Natalie Quinn is mine. And anyone who touches her, anyone who even looks at her with hunger in their eyes, is signing their own death warrant.

Oh, fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

Dante. It all circles back to him, the spider at the center of this poisoned web. The dark lordling who staked his claim with lips and teeth and cruel, clever fingers, who left his mark on me in ways that can never be scrubbed clean.

This is his handiwork, his love note written in viscera and violence. A declaration of ownership, brutal and brazen and drenched in innocent blood.

"We can protect you." Beef's gruff voice cuts through the static in my head, his expression softening a fraction as he takes in my shell-shocked pallor. "But you gotta give us something to work with here, Quinn. Help us get this sick fuck before he gets you."

I let out a brittle laugh, the sound sharp as shattered glass. "You can't protect me from him. No one can." The words taste like ashes on my tongue, a bitter admission of defeat. "He's not just some random psycho, Detective. He's Dante fucking Corleone."

Weasel Face sucks in a sharp breath, his eyes going wide. "Corleone? As in, the Corleone crime family?"

I nod, numb acceptance settling over me like a shroud. "The one and only. Heir apparent to an empire of blood and sin, and my own personal nightmare made flesh."

Beef and Weasel exchange a loaded glance, an entire conversation passing between them in the span of a heartbeat. I can practically see the gears turning behind their eyes, the calculations of risk versus reward, justice versus self-preservation.

"Shit," Beef mutters, scrubbing a hand over his stubbled jaw. "This just got a whole lot more complicated."

"You think?" I snap, fear sharpening my tongue to a razor's edge. "He's obsessed with me. Thinks I'm his fucking soulmate or some twisted shit. He's not gonna stop until he owns every last piece of me."

"So what are we supposed to do, just hand you over to him?" Weasel snarks, but there's an undercurrent of genuine fear beneath the bravado. He knows as well as I do that Dante Corleone is not a man to be fucked with, not if you value your kneecaps. Or your life.

I push to my feet on watery legs, my chin lifted in a defiance I don't truly feel. "I'm not asking you to fight my battles for me, detectives. I know better than to pit the NYPD against the Corleone machine."

Useless, anyway. Dante owns half the city's finest, has their balls in a velvet-lined vise. Even if these two wanted to help me, their hands are tied. Can't pin a damn thing on one of society's "shining stars".

"Just do me a favor? When you find my body, make sure they don't put 'dumb slut who got in over her head' in my obituary? 'Starving artist' has a nicer ring to it."

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