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“Check out the rig on her, Billy,” the short guy whistles and leers at my body. “You sure we can’t take her with us?”

Billy. His question was directed at his blonde leader.

“What do you want?” I snap.

The three of them are crowding me. Getting closer and closer. The way they prowl around me is like a group of hyenas circling a carcass. There’s nowhere for me to retreat to and the few people around aren’t paying us attention.

“Tsk, I told you. We are here to say hi,” His mouth curls into an even wider grin revealing perfectly straight white teeth.Who knew bikers went to orthodontists…

“Well, you’ve said hi. I’d like to get back to my work now, thanks,” I try to push past them, but a set of large tattooed hands shoot out and grab me by my pitifully under-developed upper arms.

“Ouch,” I cry out as the grip pinches me. I’ll have fingertip-shaped bruises there tomorrow. Fingertips the size of bloody apricots.

“Actually, we were wanting to talk to you about Elio Marino.” The biker doesn’t let go of me, but he does loosen his grip a bit.

“I’m not his secretary,” I retort. The men chuckle, sharing dark, amused looks over my head.

A hand belonging to the guy with the greasy hair quickly wraps around my neck so my chin rests between his hairy thumb and forefinger. The fingers squeeze slowly, increasing pressure and I attempt to push down the growing panic. But the terrible emptiness in my chest swells and the blood rushes to my head. I begin to feel lightheaded and my vision blurs as I scratch desperately at the hand squeezing the life out of me, drawing blood.

At least I will have his DNA under my fingernails if they kill me. The dark thoughts provide cold comfort.

If they ever find my body.

How is no one seeing this? I want to scream for help, but I’m just gasping and gulping like a fish out of water.This would be such a shit way to die.

“We’re talking to you, not him and we are telling you it would be a really bad idea for you to marry him, princess.”

“Why - do - you - care?” The meaty hand relaxes for a moment so I can rasp out a response.

“We don’t. We’re just paid to relay the message,” the alpha of the pack grins and his sidekick squeezes my neck tighter. “All you need to know is that if you don’t stop the wedding, you won’t make it to the honeymoon.”

My eyelids flutter as I try to nod to show I understand. I’m sure that I’m about to slip out of consciousness when he finally lets go of my throat and pushes me away.

Gasping, the sounds I make are barely human. The desperate rasp as I suck oxygen into my empty lungs is like nothing I have heard before. It is the rattling, ugly sound of life snatched from the jaws of death.

“Is everything okay over here?” a woman who looks to be in her 50s stands hands on her hips trying her best to look confident and formidable. I’m filled with affection for this one stranger brave enough to check on me.

The leader of the trio turns to her and plastering a huge smile on his face switches on the charm. His performance would put even Elio to shame. “We were just checking the same thing. We heard her choking, but it turns out her water just went down the wrong hole.”

“You okay?” she asks me directly as the bikers stride out of the gym and I nod with a weak smile. Bless her, but I do not need the police being called.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Francesca

“Oh you’re home,” Massimo’s tentative and guilt-laced voice cuts through the simmering remains of my panic attack. I’m soaking wet, sitting on the daybed by the pool with my arms wrapped around my legs. Even though it’s a scorching day, I can’t stop shivering.

“You been swimming in your clothes again?” He wanders towards me.

He seems to want to clear the air and takes the fact that I haven’t run off as encouragement.

I don’t raise my chin from where it rests on my knees because I know the minute I do the bruising on my neck from the biker’s massive fist will be visible.

Making up a tummy ache, I scrambled out of the gym shortly after I heard the motorcycles tear out of the car park. I took the half-hour walk home to try and calm my nerves. Unsuccessfully.

Growing up around the mafia has meant I have seen plenty of glimpses of violence and law-breaking and I have always known there is a strong possibility I could be targeted by enemies of my family or the Marinos. Today was the first time that I experienced it.

The bikers were rough, a different kind of criminal from the ones I live my life with. My criminals come in Armani suits and are wined and dined by the establishment. Bikers are outlaws; they don’t pretend respectability. They smell like petrol and leather, and the danger they present feels dirtier.