Marked For Love (Mob Romance) (11 page)

While she wouldn’t say that it had brought them closer, per say, it allowed her to talk to the man in a way she’d previously thought impossible – and allowed him to listen.

On their eighth day in Rome, she finally finished her tale, and for at least a full minute, Vicente stared at her as he appeared to consider. Grace took the opportunity to sneak a peek at him – the sculpted muscles of his chest revealed by the tight t-shirt he wore tucked into expertly tailored, dark wash jeans. She remembered the way his mouth had tasted like hers – how he’d kissed her so insistently he’d drawn blood, and she wanted it again.

“He will pay.”

The young woman was jerked back to the present by Vicente’s low, accented tones. For a moment, she just stared, sure she’d misheard him.

How could he
possibly
still think her father would pay, knowing what he now did?

She struggled for words, incredulous. “How the hell do you figure? He hasn’t got any money!”

“You said yourself that he did, upon occasion.”

“And when he does, he doesn’t spend it on things he doesn’t think are worthwhile.” The admission hurt as it left her, but it was something Grace had come to accept a long time ago. “I’m not an
investment
to him. He’s barely spent ten dollars on me in his entire life, let alone five hundred thousand.”

“He
will
pay.” Vicente reaffirmed, his gray eyes flashing in assurance. “A parent never realizes how much their child means to them until they lose her.”

Somehow, this man still wasn’t listening to her. Giving him her body had allowed her to speak with him on the level, but it hadn’t gotten him to empathize with her.

“What if he doesn’t, Vicente?” The words slipped from her before she could stop them, harsh and cutting even to her own ears. “What if he doesn’t pay for me? Then what? “

The dark-haired man stared at her from where he sat on the edge of the bed, his expression inscrutable. “You had no problem saying it last week, so why not say it now: I die. Your boss, whoever he is, has me killed to send a message. Is that right?”

“…It is.” The words were uttered without a shred of commiseration. Vicente’s strong features were neutral as his gaze met hers.

“How?”

He blinked, arching a brow at her unexpected inquiry. “’How what?”

“How will they kill me?” It was a question she’d been struggling with ever since she’d been captured, and now that it had finally left her lips, Grace wasn’t so sure she really wanted to know the answer. She waited for Vicente to speak with bated breath.

The man ran a hand through his raven locks, exhaling hotly before looking to her again. “I will kill you.” Grace stared into his eyes, trying to swallow her horror. “Most probably with a bullet between your eyes.”

An almost violent shiver traversed the length of her form. How he could speak of it so casually, as if it didn’t matter whether or not she kept on breathing. Though she didn’t expect him to pour out his undying love for her, the man was obviously attracted enough to her to fuck her – but not enough to stay his hand.

“Why you?” She managed, crossing her arms over her chest as she fought to maintain her composure. She had once had a very healthy fear of this man and she found it returning at the cool resignation in his gaze.

“Because I’m good at it.”

“Good at what?”

“Killing people.” Grace’s stomach roiled in uncertainty at his unflinching words. “I have killed more men than you will ever know, and I have done it without flinching.”

Though she had never seen him actually shoot a gun, Grace didn’t doubt him for an instant. There was something about the way the man carried himself – his seriousness, the way his dexterous fingers wove around one another when they were empty that spoke of danger. She’d seen Matteo and Gio defer to his commands – though she didn’t understand them – without question.

It was obvious that he was someone important.

“Who are you?”

At her inquiry, the man before her smiled, the gesture utterly devoid of humor. “Someone you will forget, in time, Grace. Once your father sends for you, I’ll be nothing but a distant, horrifying memory.”

She stared at the man’s handsome visage, utterly perplexed. “You think you’re horrifying?”

“I know I am.”

His certainty was breathtaking. “How do you know?”

Vicente fixed her with another, thin smile. “Because it’s the only thing that’s kept me alive.” With that, he rose from the bed, turning in preparation to leave. Grace’s heart leapt into her throat. That was it? Now that she was finished telling him everything about her past and her father, he meant to leave her alone again with her thoughts?

She didn’t think she could bear it.

Reaching out before he could think twice, Grace wound her fingers around his wrist, her expression taut. “Wait!”

Vicente stopped in his tracks before slowly turning to face her, his eyes taking in her grip on his arm a moment before rising to burn into her own. The lust she saw there stole her breath. “Do not take liberties with me, Grace. The first time, I was gentle with you. If you persist, you may not be so lucky the second time around. His hand raised to encircle her throat in a grip as sudden as it was firm, and when he squeezed gently, she found herself gasping for breath. “I could hurt you.”

Even as warning bells sounded in her head, Grace felt an unexpected flood of warmth between her legs and her eyes widened. She didn’t think any man had dared to touch her this way. Though Vicente’s grip on her was indeed frightening, there was also something oddly arousing in it.

He
could
crush her windpipe.

Or he could just hold her in place, with his fingers wrapped firmly around her neck, as he fucked her into insensibility.

The thought made her eyes slide closed as she took a shuddering, shallow breath. With his opposite hand, Vicente reached up to take a section of her dark hair between his fingertips, sifting through it before her gaze. “Your father will pay, Grace...Once he is fully aware that you are in
my
grasp, he will realize that there is no other option.

**

He was screwed. Utterly fucking screwed.

For what must have been the tenth time that day, Ignacio Trellis listened to the recording sent to him a week prior.

Every time he played it, it sounded graver and graver.

“
Fuck
…” The epithet left him on a low hiss as Grace’s voice issued him the ultimatum for the umpteenth time: pay Giorgio Acconci what he owed, or be the cause of his only daughter’s death.”

Fucking Giorgio Acconci.

Ignacio should have known not to get tangled up with the Italian mafia. The mother fuckers were crazy. He’d known it the first time he’d met one, and watched the man carve out his rival’s eyeball with a carving knife.

Their breed were violent, senseless, no-account criminals; but Ignacio loved the money they brought into his business, and so he dealt with them.

He’d had a bad streak. Almost a year of loss after loss, betting larger and larger amounts in a bid to pay off his debt. Sure, he’d always had cash in his pocket from his side hustles, but that was what he needed to keep his clients coming back for more.

Giorgio Acconci was bad news. Even as distant as his connection with the man was, Ignacio knew that. He was supposedly head of one of the most powerful Mafia branches in the world – and if he had stepped from his pedestal to go after a small fry like Ignacio, he must mean business.

Of course, that much had been made very clear when he’d taken Grace.

If only the fuckers had stayed in Boston. He could have had some boys fuck them up and take back his daughter before things had escalated. As it stood now: He had two choices:

He could go heavily into debt and give up everything he owned to pay back Acconci and save his daughter, or he could flee everything he’d ever known, stay under the radar, and trust that the crotchety old man wouldn’t have the balls to kill her.

He was on the fence.

It wasn’t as if he wasn’t fond of his daughter. She had definitely helped him out when he needed to bring in new clients. Grace had, naturally, inherited his good looks – though her mother came out in her when she was pissed.

Italian horse fuckers had probably had her seven ways to Sunday now, and though the thought riled him, it didn’t get him in a rush to pony up every cent he had in his possession.

Half a million dollars was a lot of money, and if he weighed the cost benefit analysis…well…had Grace really brought in half a million dollars’ worth of business for him? She was a good kid. Smart. But Ignacio always looked out for number one. In the end, all he really had was himself.

This cunt Acconci…he asked a lot – and he had the balls to take Grace right from under his nose. It was the principle of the thing that infuriated Ignacaio more than the kidnapping itself. Grace was
his
daughter. Acconci had come onto his turf to shit in his cereal, and he wasn’t happy about it in the slightest.

Sighing, he rewound the message and played it again, frowning deeply.

She sounded scared. Really scared.

The question was: Who was more terrified? She or him? It made sense that the most cowardly person be allowed to walk. Cowardice was a hard road in this day and age. Brave people got killed. The brave were stupid. Sometimes running from a fight was your only option. He should know. He’d been running from his goddamn sham of a marriage for years.

Who was to say that after Acconci offed Grace he wouldn’t come after the father as well? Now
that
was a terrifying thought. Rubbing sweat from his brow, Ignacio wet ham-like lips nervously. He was barely fifty eight – far too young to die.

He wasn’t finished living yet.

Biting his lip, he played the message again, trying to drum up enough sympathy for the daughter he barely knew to save her life.

**

He watched her sleep.

Vicente had been doing it since they’d arrived in Rome and now it was like a compulsion. He couldn’t stop himself. The moment it was his watch, and Giovanni and Matteo slept soundly in their respective rooms, he quietly entered her bedroom and stood over her, watching her chest rise and fall placidly in sleep.

Grace Trellis was not what she should be.

Not with a family like the one she had been subjected to. At the beginning of her tale, he’d been incredulous, even skeptical of the truth in her words. But as the days had gone on, he’d come to realize that to fabricate a story of the nature she described, the woman would have to be incredibly twisted.

And if there was one thing Grace wasn’t, it was twisted.

She was emotionally scarred, yes, and bitter, but she still had the ability to think straight.

The ability to fear.

It was what made them so very different.

Still, despite all she’d told him, Vicente maintained his belief that her father would save his life. The man was, without a doubt, a miserable human being. His daughter offered some form of redemption – the only form he would get in this lifetime.

He just had to realize it.

Grace had amazing fortitude. Where he’d previously assumed that she might be spoiled by a father grown fat from Giorgio’s money, the woman he’d discovered was quite the contrary. She was used to getting by on her own hard work. The prospect of being involved in criminal activity didn’t titillate her – it frightened her.

What she wanted from her father was proof – proof that he cared for her – even the slightest iota. That it had come to something like this was disturbing in and of itself, but Grace accepted that the man wouldn’t even fight for her in a way so much like her namesake that it was startling.

Which was why he’d lied to her.

When she’d asked him how she would be killed, he’d given her the most merciful version he could possibly come up with. The truth of the matter was that, if the kidnapping didn’t get Ignacio’s attention, Giorgio would try to capture it in other ways. He might send him couple of Grace’s fingers.

Or her tongue.

The truth was that only when they had nothing else to send would the Don chalk it up as a loss and put her out of her misery. Thankfully, he’d never had to watch such a thing being done to a woman. Men usually valued their women – especially when Giorgio Acconci was involved.

Grace’s father wouldn’t let that happen to her. There was a strength in her that the man would miss – even now, he couldn’t bring himself to abandon her completely. Matteo had hacked the man’s email account and found that he’d listened to his daughter’s message over fifty times.

Crouching next to the bed, he gazed upon her sleeping features. Worry lines present throughout the day were smoothed in slumber and her lips were slightly parted. Tasting those lips…it had been like nirvana. Every time he’d laid eyes upon her since he’d touched her, it was all he could do not to strip every piece of clothing from her body and have her again.