Page 13 of Syndicate of Sin Bundle

9

roxie

It was one a.m., and yet again, Ben wasn’t home.

I didn’t care though, definitely not tonight because, tonight, I was drunk off half a bottle of Afterglow. I’d wanted to make myself feel good, and I couldn’t get all of Cristian’s little promises off my mind. It’d be easier with him, but I loathed the man for putting me in this position.

Hell, I didn’t even know him. All I knew was the family my grandparents had been terrified of, led by Cristian Ricci’s grandfather, who’d come around every other Thursday night to have a chat with my grandfather out in the garage.

There had been times he came back into the house with piss running down his leg.

As I stared up at the bland white ceiling and wondered what I had done to get here today, my bedroom door rattled. I found myself sitting up in bed, knowing that it couldn’t be Ben home so soon. But maybe it was Cristian back in my house, trying to scare me or get in my bed.

Maybe I’d welcome him because fuck Ben.

I tossed the bottle of wine onto the bed and let it spill out, ruining our blankets.

Instead, I sat back in bed and thrust a hand between my legs, wondering what it would be like if he actually stepped into my room and touched me the way my body was aching for him to. It was so freaking wrong, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Earlier, when he had touched me, it had made me tense up, made me want, need, desire him.

When my door rattled again, I hopped up in a tiny nightshirt to rip the door open. I expected to see Cristian in the hallway, but it was two men, dressed in black suits, that I didn’t recognize.

Almost instantly, one grabbed me by my throat and shoved me into the bedroom. “Stay in there. We’re looking for Ben.”

My eyes widened, heart pounding against my chest. “I don’t know where he—”

It happened so quickly, the sound of a gunshot ringing out through the apartment.

Holy fuck. Holy fuck. Holy fuck.

I ducked and covered my head, trying to make myself as small as possible. More gunshots, and the guy who had pushed me into the room suddenly rushed into the hallway. I gazed at the window, knowing that I could jump onto the fire escape … but that damn thing was so old and rusty that I didn’t know if it would break when I stepped onto it.

It was either that or be killed. So, I made a run for it when, suddenly, the man who had pushed me into the room dropped dead on the hallway floor. I let out a scream and threw the window open.

“Roxie!” Ben said from behind me, a gun in one hand and blood splattered across his work suit.

I turned around, relieved that it was only him but freaked the fuck out that he had just murdered two men in cold blood.

I stared at him. “Who were those men?”

“Ricci family.”

My eyes widened. “You killed two men from the Ricci family?! Are you fucking crazy?”

He snatched my wrist in his hand and pulled me out of the bedroom to the front door. “Roxie, we have to go now.” He jerked me so quickly that I was stumbling and tripping over my own two feet to keep up.

I stared at the two mobsters, shot dead in our hallway. My heart thumped against my chest, and I shook my head, unable to believe that Ben had gotten us into this mess. We would forever be in the Mafia’s debt, would even be killed by them when Cristian found out about this.

“Ben, are you fucking stupid?” I said, tugging him back. “We can’t leave!”

After searching their pockets, he grabbed a pair of keys and hurried into the hallway, refusing to let me go this time.

“We have to go,” he said, voice final. “He’s going to fucking find us the longer we stay here.”

I pulled my nightshirt down my body, so the neighbors wouldn’t see anything special as he tugged me down the hallway. Everything I’d ever loved and cared about was in that apartment. I couldn’t just leave it there.

What were we even doing anyway? Why’d he kill those men? Would I ever get to see my family again—Mom, Dad, my brother? Anyone? If we had to be on the run for the rest of our lives … I wouldn’t.

Instead of taking the elevator, Ben dragged me down the emergency stairs to the garage. I stopped dead in my tracks when we passed our shitty car and he hurried to a shiny black SUV instead.

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