Page 23 of Beautiful Devil

My littlegattinacan run, but she can't hide.

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Almost an hour later, I give Marco a nod to indicate that the girls are making their way to the exit. Getting up, we turn to head out the back way. We walk around the corner and slip into the Escalade just before Gia and Elle can spot us.

They stand a little down the street from the main entrance of the club, and after five minutes an Uber pulls up. We follow two cars behind as the Uber heads in the direction I now know to be Elle’s apartment.

Just under fifteen minutes later, we stay back a little and watch as Elle exits the Uber alone. Luigi turns his head to look at me as I give him a nod. Making a sharp left, he takes a shortcut to get us back to Gia’s apartment block before her.

We pull up across the road, and fortunately we don't have to wait too long before seeing the familiar headlights. She gets out stumbling, and when I notice the drunken happy smile on her face, my dick twitches back to life.

Fuck’s sake.

Luigi waits a second to make sure the Uber is out of sight and nobody else is around before nodding his head, giving me the all-clear. Exiting the car, I walk briskly across the street and silently make my way up the stairs to where she’s standing by her door.

Catching sight of me out of her periphery, she turns and says, “Oh, my God, you scared me. What the hell are you doing here?”

She looks around, presumably to make sure I’m not here to harm her. She’s clearly in for a rude awakening.

“You took something of mine,gattina,” I say as I slowly pace toward her.

The fear she clearly felt a minute ago disappears and is instead replaced by what I suspect to be intrigue.

She doesn’t waver, though – doesn’t cower or turn away from me as she voices, “I don’t think so, asshole. I don’t even know you. How could I possibly take something from you?”

There’s my feistygattina.

As she looks down into her purse to find her keys, I see my opportunity and take her wrists, bringing her body flush to mine. Before she even has a chance to scream, I lift the chloroform-soaked rag, covering her mouth and nose. She tries to speak and mumbles incoherently, but as she slowly drifts off in my arms, I answer her, hoping she hears me.

“Youare what I want. Your husband stole from me, and you, my littlegattina, are his payment.”

Immediately, she slumps into a heap in my arms. Picking her up, I run across the street just as Marco opens the back passenger door for me. As I gently place her sitting up in the middle seat, Luigi ducks out of the car and runs across the road to retrieve the keys she dropped. He's back in the front seat of the Escalade in a flash and grinning like the fucking Cheshire Cat.

Pulling out of Gia’s street, we head back to my place. Marco wanted to take her to the warehouse like we do with all of the other fuckers who cross me, but I was adamant in my refusal.

I may be a lot of things – one of them being a heartless bastard – but I refuse to harm or lay a finger on women or children if I can help it, and this is one of those times where I can help it. Although the thought of Gia waking up in my warehouse, tied to a chair and scared out of her mind would be a sight to see, and for whatever reason makes my dick twitch, I won't expose her to that side of my world…yet.

Lost in thought about tying Gia up, I don't realize Luigi is talking to me until he looks at me through the rearview mirror and repeats, “What do you want me to do, boss?”

“About what?” I say with a little too much bite to my tone.

I'm aggravated at myself for getting so wrapped up in thoughts of Gia that I missed what one of my men said to me.

Swallowing hard, he locks eyes with me in the rearview mirror again and then looks back at the road. “What do you want me to do about the tail?”

What the fuck is he talking about?

I must have said that out loud, because he answers me.

“The tail that’s following us. I noticed them as soon as we left Ms. D’Amato’s apartment.”

Turning around in my seat, I look out the back windshield and sure enough, I see a blacked-out Suburban riding our ass.

Spinning back around, I bark, “Lose him,stronzo. What the fuck do you think I want you to do?”

No sooner than those words spill out of my mouth than Luigi takes a sharp left turn, causing Gia’s limp body to fall directly on me, giving me a whiff of her amazing, intoxicating scent.

She smells like cherry blossoms and a hint of vanilla. It reminds me of a warm summer day when I was a little boy and I used to walk through Hyde Park with my mom. The warm breeze would blow the cherry blossom branches, carrying that sweet scent with the wind, directly in our faces.

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