As if I could trust him to keep his word. No, he was a killer. If I closed my eyes, I could clearly remember the scene back in my penthouse kitchen. The bodies. The blood. The…stillness. Not only the bodies of my father’s two men but a stillness in the penthouse itself, as if the rooms understood that murders had taken place and death somehow changed my home forever.
I’d seen dead bodies before, but they were cadavers. People who’d donated their bodies to science. Seeing murdered people should’ve left me a sobbing mess, but maybe I was too terrified to cry. Or maybe too numb to break down. I felt too much fear of what would happen to me next. The rest of me was focused on overcoming my numb lethargy and somehow surviving this.
Right now, I couldn’t rely on anyone else to save me. I felt very alone and vulnerable. Those weren’t things I was used to feeling.
All my life, it had seemed as ifeveryoneknew who my father was. Giovanni Accardo, don of the Accardo Crime Family. Most people feared him. Some people admired him. But to me, he’d always been Papa, Dad,Babbo, and I didn’t speak Italian.
Maybe I was a clueless idiot, but I hadn’t understood what my father was—reallyunderstood—until I was in high school. To me, he’d always been my father: careworn, sometimes gruff, sometimes kind. The man who always seemed proud of me for the things I’d done, even way back to me playing soccer as a kid. He’d show up at games, always wearing a suit. One of my early memories was of my team playing some Saturday morning game. It started to rain, and my father still stayed to watch. Sure, he had one of his men holding an umbrella over him, but he still stood out there. When I got into NYU or when I did really well on my MCAT exam, I swear he was prouder than I was.
But there was no denying that I was in trouble right now because of who my dad was. It didn’t take a detective to connect the dots. I didn’t know much of anything about my father’s business, his enemies, or anything connected to the “mafia.” If this man had kidnapped me in the hope that I knew some kind of secret, he was going to be disappointed. But I was afraid of how much he’d hurt me before figuring out that I knew nothing. I wasn’t some superhero or badass. My emotions kept swinging back and forth from paralyzed by fear to the point of being numb to outright heart-pounding, terrified panic.
Unable to help myself, I glanced at my kidnapper again. My memory had always been good, but tonight it had turned into a liability. The moment he’d kicked in my bedroom door was seared into my memory. When I’d seen the gun, I’d been certain this stranger would kill me.
Then he hadn’t.
I wasn’t going to complain, but when he’d stared at me, I’d seen confusion in those green eyes for an instant. Confusion or surprise—maybe even shock. He seemed to recognize me, and then his eyes flashed with anger that I didn’t understand.
Those eyes… If they hadn’t been behind a gun, they might’ve had me hooked. Beautiful green eyes. Green eyes were rare, but this man had a stunning pair. Gorgeous, but they made me feel like a deer watched by a hungry wolf.
He definitely wasn’t Italian. Maybe British? His words had the slightest hint of the Bronx or maybe Brooklyn. I’d grown up on Staten Island and was terrible at differentiating New York accents.
My kidnapper’s hair was a dark brown, but his skin was fair, not to mention those fierce green eyes. He was clean-shaven and could probably break concrete on that jawline. Ruggedly handsome too, but that would’ve been easier to appreciate when I wasn’t afraid for my life. That face was wasted on a murderer.
I couldn’t figure out what he was exactly. A member of a rival gang? Somebody working on his own? He looked too well-put-together to be a common thug. He was tall, athletic, and wearing a dark suit that didn’t hide his powerful build. His tie was a dark, rich purple, and he wore a dark blue overcoat that looked a little like a trench coat. Suit or no, he’d moved like a dangerous predator stalking through the jungle. I’d be seeing that stare as hard and cold as diamonds in my nightmares for as long as I lived.
If he noticed my furtive glances, he didn’t react. He kept his attention laser-focused on the road, his mouth set in a grim line.
The car ride felt like it took forever—at least an hour with heavy traffic—but I barely remembered any of it. It was as if none of it imprinted on my memory. Ididremember the George Washington Bridge into Jersey and heading south on 95.
Eventually, he left the freeway and took surface streets until he pulled into a cheap motel in the middle of a city I didn’t recognize. Either we were still in Newark or somewhere south of it.
Wherever we were, I’d never stayed in one of these cheap hotels before. The kind you found clustered around freeway exits or in rundown city blocks near half-empty strip malls. Places that I imagined smelled like mildew and unwashed pillowcases and were infested with vermin.
He parked the car near the office. I didn’t say anything, wondering if I could be brave enough to make a break for it if he gave me the chance. My heart told me yes, but my brain told me no. My kidnapper had killed two of my father’s men without any remorse. He would end me without blinking.
He turned off the engine and looked at me with those intense green eyes that seemed to impale me. It was as if he could see straight into my mind when he looked at me, and that was terrifying.
“I know this isn’t the kind of place you’re used to, Princess,” my kidnapper said with the shadow of a smirk—or was it a sneer?—on his lips. “You’re going to have to be a big girl and suck it up for the night.”
The back of my neck grew hot with shame that I shouldn’t feel, and I turned away from him before I did or said something foolish.
He expected me to complain. He kept calling me “Princess” to insult me. It was clear he really didn’t like me. In a way, that was deeply frightening. I kept telling myself that if he’d been sent to murder me, he would’ve done it in my penthouse. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t hurt me—or even kill me—if his plans fell through. But there was a small chance that I somehow got out of this unscathed. Physically, at least.
I would take it.
“It’s fine,” I replied coldly, still looking away from the intensity of those eyes. Did he really believe I was so spoiled that I’d dare throw a tantrum over the place my kidnapper chose to dump me?
His gaze remained on me for a long, uncomfortable moment. The silence drew out, becoming painfully long and fraught. My body felt hot, and my heart was pounding. They weren’t good feelings. Definitely not an “I’m so turned on” feeling. It was more of a “did I do something wrong and now he’s going to shoot me?” feeling.
I risked another glance at him, brushed a stray strand of hair from my face, and did my best to sound casual. “Why are you staring at me?”
His smile widened. Did wolves smile? Maybe right before they ate you? Seeing him, I could believe it.
“You need to come with me into the office,” he replied. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
“Oh. Yeah, of course…”
Why couldn’t I have been kidnapped by a stupider man?
