Page 30 of Consumed By the Mafia

She told herself not to jump the gun and went to leave the bedroom, nearly crashing into Ryoma as he came striding inside at that exact moment. She threw herself back to avoid a painful collision, the heel of her sneaker catching on the loose cuff of her borrowed pantleg, and Ryoma’s arm around her waist was the only thing that kept her off her ass. He silenced her startled outcry with his lips, hauling her upright and reaching behind him to push the door up to the frame.

Not clicking it shut.

Then he eased his grip and, lips a hair’s breadth from hers, he murmured, “Take this and call Cris. Marchesi’s full of shit. I don’t trust it.”

She blinked, choking on too many responses, and registered the weight of a phone being placed into her palm. The burner phone he’d been using since the accident. She opened her mouth to question him, aware that she should probably tell him the other thing, but Peter’s voice carried down the hall.

“Hurry up! We gotta get out of here!”

Ryoma scowled, stepping back and twisting to turn away.

Abigail scrambled to catch hold of his waistband, since he still didn’t have a shirt, tugging intensely. “I’m not defenseless. You don’t even have a shirt! You call him, while you change. I’ll stall. I have a gun, too, remember.” She tucked his phone backinto one of his pockets pointedly, smiled at his disapproving frown, and pointed deeper into the room. Toward the closet. “Hurry up now, lover.”

He grunted, but she caught the subtle upward twitch of his lips as he moved past her. “I want something better.” She felt a tug at her back and by the time she realized what he was doing he was lifting her shirt and sliding her gun into the rolled-up waist of her pants. “Here. Your shirt’s loose enough, he won’t see it. Easier access.” He let the shirt fall, kissed her hair, and continued into the room.

Abigail exhaled, attempting to process the thing that felt like an offering of trust. She pushed herself forward, stepping from the room and retracing her steps down the hall.

Peter was leaning against the frame to the entry for the sitting room, arms folded across his chest. Something about the stance, with the close-cut dirty blond hair he’d had for as long as she’d known him, made him look like a bully. She might have even thought he looked intimidating, except it was hard to be intimidated by a man she’d learned to think of as trembling in fear and prone to vomiting in revulsion.

She came to a stop close enough to talk quietly, but far enough not to look conspiratorial, and made a point of leading at a conversational volume. “What was your name again?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. His words were lower, intended not to carry, and rougher than she was used to from him. “You’re a real mess, ain’t ya?” His gaze darted past her, but no alarm showed on his face. “Just keep playin’ dumb. I’ve got a plan.”

Her stomach rolled.Don’t tell me…Abigail lowered her voice obligingly. “You realize they know who I am. Acknowledging you know me is dangerous now.” She wouldn’t warn him more than that. She had too many angles to consider to be solely worried about a grown ass man.

Peter straightened, anger darkening his brown eyes. Without warning his arm lashed out, the backside of his hand cracking against her cheek with enough force to send her stumbling back. “Maybe it ain’t even an act. Maybe youaredumb. Could explain a few things.”

Abigail caught herself on the opposite wall, blinking rapidly to clear the starbursts that had popped up over her eyes. He really hadn’t held back. “You—why did you—”

Peter reached out again, his fingers grazing her shirt as a gun settled level with his face in her peripheral vision. He froze, eyes widening.

“Bad move,” Ryoma said. “But then, you knew you were a dead man the second you walked through that door, didn’t you?”

Peter’s chest heaved with a hard breath. “Wh-what the hell? I—We’re on the same side, you know?”

“We’re supposed to be.” Ryoma lowered the barrel of his gun until it was pointed in the general direction of Peter’s lower body. “But Abby here is under my protection, Boss’s orders, and you aren’t supposed to be here at all. We both know that. So you’re gonna tell me what you’re really doing here, where and why you found the balls to betray the boss, and who you’ve thrown in with instead.”

Abigail raced through her knowledge—or what she thought was her knowledge—of Peter Marchesi. Hoping to find an answer that didn’t involve the need to shoot the man. Very quickly she realized that every potential explanation had a glaring gap, namely a missing chunk of information. Even if he was really there to rescue her from the evil mafia group he himself had fallen in with, she was certain her presence hadn’t been announced to the entire organization so soon. Let alone her exact location.

Peter made a disbelieving sound. “Youknowwho I work for! I told you why I’m here, man. We gotta get—”

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” Ryoma said, his voice dropping to a darker, more dangerous tone. He stepped closer and pressed the muzzle of the gun into Peter’s thigh. “Talk, right now, or I drag your stupid ass downstairs. You’ve never sat in on my interrogations, but I promise you, there’s a reason I’m allowed to run lead on so many. I’ll get my answers, and you will never lay another fucking finger on this woman.”

Holy shit.He wasn’t even threatening her—in a twisted way he was actually protecting her—yet Abigail could feel the dangerous aura wafting off him.

Peter shook, his bravado failing him. “Y-you don’t have permission…”

Ryoma’s head tilted slightly to the side. “Don’t I?” Without moving his gun or looking away from the other man, he said, “Baby girl, would you grab my phone and read Cris’s response out loud for all of us?”

Peter’s eyes widened. Probably at the personal address.

Abigail exhaled her nerves and reached for the pocket she’d noticed he kept the phone in. She pulled it out and easily found the conversation with Cristiano, noting the text Ryoma had sent out and the response that had followed. In fact, the response had only just come in. Ryoma hadn’t yet read it. She wasn’t sure if she should take that as a sign of how in synch the men were or something to be concerned about. Regardless, she read Cristiano’s words out loud as requested. “Not sanctioned. Do what you have to do. I’m on my way.”

Peter made a distressed sound.

“See?” Ryoma said. “Permission granted. Now, you have five seconds to make the smart choice.”

ten

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