Page 40 of Corrupted Heir (Mafia Kings: Corrupted 1)

Fallon

They kept talking. I could hear the voices pass back and forth across the table, but it was just sound. Not words. I had no room in my brain for their words.

Dominic had lied to me. My father had lied to me. It felt like the entire world had lied to me. And two men had just had guns pointed at my face. The man I’d nearly slept with an hour ago had turned out to be a murderer. A thief. An animal. And my father had known it all along.Thiswas the favor. This was the reason he’d lit up when I’d made some stupid comment about marriage. This was how he’d used me to settle whatever he owed this family.

I looked up at Dominic then at his father. They didn’t look like killers, or maybe they did. I’d always gotten the feeling there was something dangerous about Dominic. Apparently, I should have trusted my instincts and ran as far away as I could.Is this what I get for listening to my vagina?

Now, I was trapped. I was just supposed to marry this man like my life, my choice didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

“Fallon!” Dominic shouted at precisely the wrong moment.

I flew to my feet, slammed my hands down on the table, and glared at him.

“You’ve been sitting here for twenty minutes looking like a zombie,” he said.

Twenty minutes? I’d figured it was much longer.

I could feel myself coming apart. I was like a funnel cloud, spinning faster and faster.

“Isn’t that exactly what you wanted? A mindless zombie who will do whatever you want?” I goaded him.

“Do you think—” Dominic began, but his father held up his hand, and he stopped talking.

I spun around to face the man who’d interfered with the fight I desperately needed, but I snapped my mouth shut, biting back the words I’d been about to spew out. I didn’t know this man. It was one thing to spar with Dominic. But this man, Vincent Luca, was just as dangerous as his son, if not more. I had no way of knowing how short his fuse was or what he was capable of.

I turned to the front door, but I already knew what happened if I tried to go through it. A cold shiver shot down my spine, remembering the glint of the guns that had been pointed right at me.

But still, I felt like a caged animal, and so I did what any caged animal would do. I ran for the nearest way out.

There was no escaping the apartment, at least for the moment, but I needed to get away from the table, from the men who were holding me captive. I strode down the hall, past the bathroom on the right and the bedroom on the left. Finally, in the room beyond it, I found a neutral space, a guest room, perhaps. A guest? Ha! More like a prisoner, but I strode inside nonetheless and slammed the door shut.

The bed, covered with an ivory bedspread and a half dozen pillows, was the only furniture in the room aside from a dresser and a bedside table. I supposed it was better than a stone-floored jail cell, but it was still a prison.

My legs threatened to buckle, but I forced them to carry me across the room to the window. Dominic’s apartment was too high up for me to jump, but maybe I could wave my arms around like a lunatic and get someone’s attention. Would they help me? If I convinced them to call the cops, would it do any good?

But like he could read my mind, Dominic threw open the door.

“What are you doing, Fallon?” he asked as his gaze swung back and forth between me and the window. But he made no move to stop me.

My shoulders sagged. Of course, he didn’t bother trying to stop me. What good would it have done if I convinced someone to call the cops? They’d just drag me kicking and screaming to the chief of police. My father. Who would then just serve me back to the Luca family on a silver platter.

“Unless you’ve come to tell me I’m free to go and I never have to see you again, I want you to leave.”

“Fallon, I—”

“Don’t talk to me,” I snapped, but the dangerous light that flashed in his eyes sent a cold shiver down my spine. This man wasn’t just “Dominic” anymore. He was the son of the don of the Luca family.

Instead of him lashing out in any of the terrifying ways I could suddenly imagine, he turned and walked out of the room, closing the door with a quiet click behind him.

Abandoning the window, I plopped down on the floor. I was still wearing the stupid black dress I’d put on just hours ago. I was still panty-less because he’d ripped the scrap of black lace off me. My traitorous clit pulsed in memory, but I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands and shoved the memory away.

This was like some terrible nightmare, but instead of being trapped by monsters, I was trapped by something far worse. Something that paraded itself around as a decent human being. There was nowhere I could turn for help.

I stared down at my hands. They were bare now, but in a week, there would be a ring on my finger. In my mind’s eye, I could see it there, wrapped around my tanned skin like a noose, glinting at me, laughing at me as it choked the life out of me.

I squeezed my eyes shut and looked away, tucking my hands into the skirt of my dress like I could hide them from what was coming. I stared up at the window, looking out at the sky that had begun to lighten to a dismal gray in the early light of dawn. Tiredness tugged at my eyelids, but I fought it. Asleep, I’d have no defense againsthim.But then again, what was he going to do? Walk in here and take away my freedom? Turn me into a prisoner?

So I laid my head down against the plush carpet. The bed was right in front of me, but it felt wrong somehow, like I’d be declaring my acceptance if I used it. I turned away, rolling to face the window, and stared up at the lightening sky. The faintest orange hues had begun to infuse the dismal gray, but I closed my eyes to shut it out and let sleep drag me down into an abyss where there was no Dominic. No Vincent Luca. An abyss where I was still free, and no man, no matter how powerful he was, got to dictate what my life would be.

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