Page 13 of Married to the Mafia

Her heart beat a little faster, imagining the directions that scenario could go. He wasn’t as visually terrifying, objectively, as the intruder she’d had the night before. But he had a masterful glare. He was a figurehead of a mafia family that she suspected had reach beyond the New Jersey border, though she’d never been able to find concrete evidence of that theory. Regardless, he had to have some kind of danger to him. Was his danger strictly digital? Could he wipe her off the face of the internet? Probably he could, but was he likely to raise a hand—or a weapon? That she had no answer to.

The bigger issue was that her mental visual quickly took a detour. Instead of picturing Michele De Salvo the tough mafia invader, her mind conjured up something somehow more dangerous. An unsolicited, inappropriate visit from a man with dark connections and questionable purpose, crawling into her bed and touching more than just her chin. Those fingers pressing around her neck, his blue eyes glowing in the dark of the room as he lowered his head.

Brandi swallowed hard and pulled her blankets tighter over her. Dammit. This was no time be losing herself in pleasurable fantasies.

Still, she wondered what he might be like … would he choke her, eat her out, pull her hair? Was he a quick, self-pleasure focused, utter disappointment type of partner? There were so many things she was curious about, but the look that had heated his eyes in the seconds before he’d climbed from the car that day had at least assured her of one thing. He wasn’t without desire altogether.

Fuck. She needed to get herself under control and get to sleep. She wasn’t sure how long she’d even been just lying there, lost in lusty thoughts about her employer, but her body was hot and she would much have preferred to dig BOB out of the bottom drawer. Brandi let her eyes pop open and rolled her head to the side, blinking at her phone display.

Almost two-thirty in the morning.

Maybe, if she could be fast—

A brief, whisper of a ping sounded from down the hall. If she had been asleep, she would surely have slept right through it. Had surely slept through it the night before. But she was not asleep this time, and the recognition that her alarm had just been disabled—again—jolted her wide awake and upright. Her heart crashed in her ears like war drums. For a precious moment, she froze.

It was too dark to see anything beyond the crack in her doorway, and she realized she should have shut it completely. Should have dragged a barstool from the kitchen island into the bedroom and jammed it shut. The thought hadn’t occurred to her, and it was too late now.

Brandi pushed herself up against the headboard and finally thought to grab for her phone, fully charged and within reach. Her fingers closed around the device when a voice from her future nightmares assaulted her ears.

“Toss that on the floor, sweet Brandi.”

Mouth going dry, her gaze flicked up, seeing a looming shadow of thicker darkness that was harder to identify than the rest of her room. She really needed a nightlight, too. One for every conceivable space in the condo. Not that a light would help her now. Unable to speak, Brandi moved carefully, making it as visible as she could manage that she was unplugging her phone from the wall and not tapping the screen in any way. It lit up when the plug was removed, of course, and she wished like hell she could just scream for it to call out. Knowing she couldn’t, she gave it a gentle toss and watched it bounce off the side of the bed to land face-down on the hardwood floor.

Her unwelcome guest made a thoughtful sound. “Shame about your phone.” He stepped forward and she lost sight of it beneath his boot seconds before a jarring, distinctive snapping sound filled the space.

Brandi sucked in a breath. “I did what you asked!”

He tsk-tsked and the bed dipped with his weight. “You ditched me today, and now I need to know exactly how bad you’ve been, sweet Brandi.”

Brandi pulled her legs as tight as she could manage, ignoring how uncomfortable it was. “Not as bad as I should have been. You can’t possibly think there’s a woman in the world who likes being stalked, let alone for something that doesn’t have shit to do with her.”

“Hm.” He stood and ripped the comforter from the bed in a single sweeping movement.

Brandi screamed, as much because she was startled as because she was genuinely petrified.

He latched onto her legs by the ankles and dragged her down the mattress, then shifted himself in order to kneel on her thighs and pin her flailing arms over her head. The position had him hovering over her in a way she very much despised, and she could smell his breath when he spoke. “No more screaming, or I’ll have to stuff that big mouth with something else. And I don’t have a gag in my pocket.”

She nearly vomited right on the spot. Instead, she clamped her lips shut and leveled an entirely ineffective glare at him.

He chuckled. “That’s better. Now, I’ll ask questions, and you’ll give me direct answers. Nod if you understand.”

Fuck you. But she nodded, because she understood how powerless she was.

“Such a smart girl.” He adjusted his hold, wedging both her wrists into a single meaty grip and freeing up one hand to stroke his fingers down her cheek. His touch sent a cold chill down her spine. “Where is your car?”

“I don’t know.”

His amusement vanished like a tangible shift in the wind. His free hand went for her throat, but instead of properly choking her, his fingers arched up and pressed in on the back sides of her jaw in an unyielding grip. Pain burst in her head, radiating from her jawbone like a blaring alarm, and tears immediately pricked her eyes. She barely bit back a whimper at the sudden intensity.

“Don’t play games with me, sweet Brandi. What did you do with your car? Did you think you could hide from me by getting rid of it?”

She strained against his grip of her arms. “No,” she gasped. “That’s not—” Her jaw hurt so much, and he was making her talk? It felt like he was going to break the bone! “Stolen. It was stolen.”

Her intruder eased his grip on her face, stroking his fingers down her neck as if to soothe her. “Stolen?” he whispered. He sighed. “Do you see what happens when I’m not keeping an eye on you?”

You motherfucker. The carjackers didn’t even lay a hand on me! She held the words back, though the anger went a long way toward chasing off the pain that was not so slowly fading.

“Did you go to the police?” he asked before she could respond to anything else.

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