Page 20 of Burning Beauty

His lip tilted up into a small smirk and he waved his hand between them. "Speak your mind."

"You just told me not to," she pointed out.

"Consider this your one free pass before we land."

"Fine," she snapped. "You want to know what I think? I think I belong to myself and no one else. Just because I was traded from one terrible man to another like a piece of furniture does not make me yours." She bit her lip again and thought hard about the next thing she wanted to tell him, but decided that he did give her a free pass and she was going to use it, just in case he was being truthful and he did something terrible like cut out her tongue next time she spoke her mind. "Also, you can go fuck yourself."

"Feel better?" he asked.

"No," she snarled. "I'm still on a plane with a kidnapper and I have no idea what's happened to my brother. I do not feel better, you prick."

Nic eyed her for a moment and then said calmly, "Let us hope that this is now out of your system." He sat back in his seat, picked up his phone and ignored her.

She seethed in silence, plotting his imminent death as the plane landed. She was so busy worrying about what would happen to her next that she barely noticed when the flight attendant approached to let them know they were clear to leave the plane. Maria robotically unbuckled her belt and stood with Nic, then followed him out the door and into the bright Miami sunlight.

She lifted a hand to shade her eyes and walked carefully down the steps. Nic escorted her to a limousine sitting a few yards away on the tarmac, opened the door and stood over her like a bird of prey as she slid in. He took the seat right next to her, though there was plenty of room for them to sit without touching.

When she didn't immediately reach for her seatbelt, he did it for her.

"I've got it," she snapped taking the belt from him and clipping it around her waist. "Didn't take you for a safety-first kind of guy."

"I prefer my acquisitions remain intact until I'm ready to dispose of them," his dark drawl hinted at amusement, but Maria wasn't in the mood to be amused.

"Maybe your acquisitions will dispose of you." She knew she sounded childish, but something about this man brought out the combatant in her.

He didn’t reply to her comment, so she silently seethed as the limo exited the airport and merged onto the freeway. She watched the scenery as it passed, genuinely interested in a part of the world she'd never been to before. She'd heard about Florida geography and was eager to see both the ocean and the Everglades. Maybe she would even see an alligator or two.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"My home."

"Where is that?" she asked. "By the ocean or near the swamps?"

He gave her a strange look. "It's not one or the other, my dear, it can be neither. As it happens, I currently reside in a beach front property outside of Miami."

"Is your place secluded?" she persisted. "Like really isolated, so you can do your mafia stuff in private. Do you have guards and a big wall all around it?"

He raised an eyebrow but didn't answer.

She huffed back in her seat. She was genuinely curious, but she also needed to talk. She was nervous and when she was nervous, she tended to chatter. Who was she kidding? She chattered when she was happy sad, angry, nervous. She was a talker. It helped her work through a chaotic life and still keep her sanity intact.

Maria also wanted to keep the terrifying mob boss talking, force him to see her as a person just in case he had any plans to murder her once he got what he wanted. If she made herself seem human to him maybe he wouldn’t kill her.

"What about dogs?" she mumbled. "Do you have any dogs? I like dogs."

"There are three dogs on the property, but they're working dogs. You are not to interact with them."

Maria doubted she was going to listen to that order. She loved animals of all kinds, but especially dogs. She was always bringing strays home back in Mexico. Neither her mother nor Marc had let her keep a dog, but Maria would have loved to have had one. She bet she could make friends with Nic's dogs. Maybe turn them to her side and order them to attack him if he made any moves against her.

"Do you have staff and guards and all that?"

Nic rubbed the bridge of his nose as though debating whether to answer her questions. Finally, he nodded sharply and said, "Yes, there is a housekeeper and cleaning staff in the main house. I have several guards on the estate, but they live in the guardhouse. You are not to talk to them."

Maria doubted that too. She was pretty sure she'd be having a conversation or two with the estate staff as she worked out a plan of escape.

"If you need anything you can ask Luke or Cassandra, you don't need to talk to anyone else."

"Who's Cassandra?" she demanded immediately.

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