Page 5 of Obsession & Oath

“You’re not touching that phone.”

I shrug, unaffected. “Fine, you can go to the nearest bodega for me. I need triple-max tampons and?—”

“Enough!” he snaps, a delightful shade of red coloring his cheeks. Men are so sensitive, honestly.

I quirk an eyebrow at him. “What, you’re going to let me just bleed out on the bed?”

The red of his cheeks quickly turns to a nauseating shade of green. “I…no. Fine. Make the call.”

He stands and walks over to the bedside table, pointedly looking at my face and absolutely nowhere else. He sighs as he hands me the receiver, attached to a spiraling chord, before punching in the number.

After a moment or two, a bored voice picks up. “Yeah?”

“Hi, I was wondering if you might be able to bring some sanitary products to room…” I trail off and look at the man expectantly.

He holds up his fingers.

“Seven,” I continue.

The receptionist sighs as if I’m inconveniencing her. “Yep. Anything else?”

“Yes,” I hold the man’s gaze. He’s just started to frown. “Please! Please help me, I’ve been kidnapped. My name is Carmen–”

The phone is immediately wrenched from my hand, and I start screaming. Loud. Dramatically. Enough for anyone to hear through the thin hotel walls. Enough for the receptionist to have caught it before he smashed the receiver back down.

I smirk triumphantly in the face of his anger. “Oops?”

“You’re going to regret that.”

* * *

I’m moved three times after the incident at the hotel.

Each time, I manage to get a message out.

I don’t see Alex or Martino or whatever his name was again until I’m a few days in at the third location. I have a plan underway to slip a note into my clothes for the dry cleaner to find.

But I don’t get that far.

Not when the stupid asshole appears at the door with a smug little expression on his face, muttering about retribution and payback. He cuffs me, blindfolds me, and manhandles me out of the room and into the back of the car.

He’s promptly becoming the second person on my list of people to be murdered for this. If only I could care enough to find out his name.

I’m half-expecting to find myself in a fifth grimy little room when my blindfold is removed again, having been carried and jostled and talked about like I was nothing more than an inconvenience.

Good. Maybe if I’m too much trouble for them, they’ll just let me go.

So, it’s a pleasant surprise to find myself sitting in a very clean, noticeably large conference room.

For a brief second, I feel oddly self-conscious. It’s been days, if not weeks, of being carted around Manhattan. No one has offered me a change of clothes and there’s only so much you can do when there’s someone stationed at your bathroom door.

But the thought quickly evaporates from my mind when I see the group across from me.

Leon Natali, don of the Prince’s Guild, sits at the head of the table. Hands clasped in front of his face, and staring at me with thinly veiled contempt. Broad shoulders barely contained within his perfectly tailored suit give him an aura of durability.

Everything about him screams professional murder machine. Man of war.

Everything except the bags under his eyes.

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