"Are you guys a mob or something?"
"Or something," Nicolas, the asshole, answered again, not looking up from the screen of his phone.
I wasn't sure if I should cry, laugh or demand to be let out in the middle of nowhere. The longer we drove, the more I realized that we were no longer driving through the streets of Redmont. The darkness outside was an indication enough that we were literally in the middle of nowhere.
Oh my God. What if they would killed me and dumped my body somewhere in the forest? What if no one ever found me and my mother and sister spent the rest of their lives wondering what happened to me?
"Are you going to kill me?" I finally asked, not bothering to look at Nicolas. Or any of them, really. I stared straight ahead through the windshield, at the dark road stretching ahead of us. "Because if you are, can you just tell my mom I was somewhere, living happily with a man who had more money than he knew what to do with. I know you don't owe me anything, but just... She has a weak heart."
I took a deep breath when I felt the first bout of tears in my eyes.
"S—She, uh... She doesn't need to know you killed me,” I continued. “Just… please. If you're going to kill me, tell her I'm fine. Or tell someone to keep texting her occasionally. That's it."
I could feel his gaze on the side of my face now, but I refused to look at him. I didn't want him to see the tears. Or the fear at the knowledge that I might die tonight.
"Please," I whispered. "I'll be quiet if you need me to be quiet. I'll… I don't know. I'll cook and clean or something. But if you do decide to kill me, just tell her. Don't let her wonder. Don't?—"
"I'm not going to kill you." His voice cut through my rumbling. And was it just me or did his voice deepen somehow? "I have no plans to kill you. Not tonight. Not ever"
"But you might," I said, finally turning toward him. I was ready to plead, to beg if needed. What I wasn't ready for was the murderous look on his face. And this time, something told me it wasn't aimed at me. "You might decide one day that I shouldn't live and then you'll do it.”
I took a deep breath, squeezing my eyes shut, and hoping that the darkness of the car hid the wayward tear sliding down my cheek. But when his thumb brushed my cheek, catching it, I knew that fate was a fucking bitch for letting him seeme like this.
He already had an upper hand. Why couldn't it let me keep at least a shred of pride?
I pulled back as much as I could and opened my eyes only to find something akin to anguish written in every line of his face.
"Look,” I said quietly. “I'm not some great catch. I’m not someone a lot of people would miss. I'm not from here, and I don't have anyone in the country who would look for me. I mean, apart from my friend Anna, but she's visiting her family up north right now and probably won't even notice I'm gone for at least a couple of days.” I swallowed. “I have insurance. If you kill me, could you at least make it look like an accident so they can send my body back to my family?"
"Goddammit, woman," he suddenly roared, wrapping his hand around my throat, pulling me closer. "I. Am. Not. Going. To. Kill. You. Not now. Not tonight. Not tomorrow, and not ever. You're not dying, and I'm not sending your body anywhere. I might be a monster. I might be part of the mafia. But I would never harm a woman. Understood?"
"You're the Italian mafia." It wasn't a question anymore.
The man I’d been lusting over was the Italian mafia. And the way he carried himself, the way theothers deferred to him, told me that he wasn't some low-level nobody. Na-uh, this guy was high up. Romance books have taught me one thing well. Never fuck with the mafia. No matter what.
That's why he thought I knew who he was.
The shooting...
"Did you kill a lot of people tonight?" I asked, my unfiltered questions popping out freely without me being able to stop them. I mean, there was no use now, was there? I was deep in shit. And considering that I took a week off work, chances were no one would try to look for me.
"They were my enemies," he answered calmly.
Too fucking calmly for someone who had killed another person tonight. I mean, that was his job, in a way, wasn't it? Killing people, trafficking... Ah, fuck me.
"Are you planning on selling me?" My voice wobbled, fear I haven't felt before ripping through me. I would rather die than get trafficked. I would rather be killed right here and right now and for my family to never receive my body, than be trafficked. "Oh my God, no," I shook my head, pulling away from him. "Anything but that. Anything. I am thirty-one, and no one wants a thirty-one yearold, right? I?—"
"You're thirty-one?"
Out of all things he could have asked, or said, that's what he's going with?
My eyebrow arched, my eyes rolled into the back of my head. "Is that really what you're focusing on right now?"
"I mean…" He shrugged, looking me up and down. "I thought you were twenty-five at most." Okay, he gets green points for that. "But age is just a number, right?"
I narrowed my eyes.. "Riiiiight. How old are you?"
"Twenty-five."