Page 219 of Kissing the Villain

Luca found me.

I tried to run past the van, but the driver swerved, cutting off my path. Before Aiden could reach me, the back door opened. A man got out of the van. I tried to run away from him, but he scooped me into his arms.

The door slid back into place.

Another man grabbed me from the back seat and covered my mouth. His skin stunk of cigars, and for a moment, I hoped it was Luca, even though I had defied him. I struggled, kicking my legs, and two men pinned me down on the bench. The man moved his hand to put a damp rag over my mouth.

“We have Salvatore’s wife,” a man said into a cell phone in broken English.

I struggled against their grip, fighting the scented cloth assaulting my senses. Before my eyes slammed shut, I heard Aiden call out my name over the pounding in my ears.

Aiden was alive.

I found him.

And I would never see him again.

78

LUCA

My cell phonebuzzed across my desk, lighting up with Aiden Wellington’s name. With an annoyed groan, I tapped the button to send him to voicemail. Our newly minted Knight only called to complain about an issue with a job, and I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his shit.

I thought we had broken him over the past nine months. When I’d admitted him into our organization, after enduring the nine circles of Hell during his Initiation, I had expected him to stop being a thorn in my side.

No such luck.

He left a voicemail, then called again, grating on my last fucking nerve.

What the fuck does he want?

I opened my desk drawer and dropped the phone inside. The phone vibrated again. His insistence piqued my interest, but I had more important business to deal with—like saving his sister’s life.

I leaned back in my chair, resting my dress shoe on my knee as the vein in my neck pulsed. The men on the other line were grinding my ass into the pavement for one fucking favor.Now that everyone in the criminal underworld knew I had a weakness, those motherfuckers were out for blood.

Bastian and Damian sat in leather armchairs across from my desk, listening to the heads of each crime family offer suggestions about our issue with the Albanians. We were on a secure line that the FBI could not touch. I never made a habit of speaking over the phone, but these were desperate times.

“I will pay ten million dollars to whoever brings me the heads of the fucking Albanians,” I shouted into the speakerphone on my desk.

“Ten plus a free shipment, no questions asked,” Vince Alteri said sternly.

Vince was the boss of the Alteri crime family in New York. The Mafia Don had given me the best deal of the bunch. While everyone else was content with raking my ass over hot coals, I respected him for throwing me a bone.

“Done.” I loosened my tie, already feeling ten million dollars lighter. “As for the bounty on my fiancée’s head, I will pay triple to make it go away.”

Alex hadn’t accepted my proposal yet, but word had already spread that we were getting married. Money ruled my world, and my family had tons of it. A few million here and there meant nothing if it kept my girl safe.

“You know the rules, Luca,” Stefano Marchese said.

He was an old friend of my father who ran a small operation from his mansion on the Long Island Sound.

“The man who set the bounty has to lift it,” I growled. “Yes, I know. And if I could locate the motherfucker, I would force him to cancel the contract.”

“Let us handle the Albanians,” Vince Alteri said.

“I need assurances,” I countered.

“I will tell my men to ignore the bounty for Alexandrea,” Vince promised. “You have my word.”

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