Page 5 of The Maddest Obsession (Made 2)

My skin felt soft to the touch, but twenty-one years had hardened it beneath the surface. Their words, jeers, and whistles bounced off into the abyss, where bruises went to die.

Adrenaline poured into my bloodstream. Harsh lights. Stale oxygen. The squeak of an officer’s shoes.

Coming to a fork at the end of the hall, I slowed. I was so distracted with my predicament and this man behind me that when he said, “Right,” I went left.

“Your other right.” I couldn’t miss the annoyed edge in his tone, like I was an airhead not worth his time.

My cheeks went hot with frustration, and words tumbled from my mouth, like they often did. “It would be nice to know where I’m going ahead of time, stronzo.”

“I didn’t realize you needed time to process a simple direction,” he responded, and then that deep, dark timbre came to the surface. “Call me an asshole again, Russo, and I promise, you won’t like it.”

The bite of his words touched my back, and just then, I hated the man a little for knowing Italian.

I stepped into the lobby, the front doors within view. I longed to be on the other side, but in all honesty, I would rather stay here than go anywhere with him.

The expected fed in the ill-fitting suit was supposed to try to gently coax the Cosa Nostra’s secrets out of me, which, at the worst, would include a too-highly-placed hand on my thigh, but he’d never physically hurt a woman. I swallowed, my eyes following the man I’d gotten instead as he walked to the front counter. Large and unyielding. Cold, and most likely unresponsive to any female wiles.

What tactics did he use while interrogating? Waterboarding? Electrocution? Was that even a thing?

Apprehension twisted in my stomach.

Badge, after badge, after badge blurred in glints of gold and silver before my eyes, and it was making me feel a little sick.

I walked further into the room and stopped beside the fed.

“Why am I not handcuffed?” I asked, watching two officers escort a shackled prisoner out the front doors.

He tapped a finger on the counter in a rhythm of three—tap, tap, tap—and side-eyed me, his stare filling with a trace of dry amusement. “Did you want to be?” His words were laced with deep insinuation and intimacy, and I suddenly knew two things: He was an asshole, and he had handcuffed a woman in bed.

My heart rate quickened from his unexpected response, and, to hide it, I feigned a bored expression. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m married.”

“So I can see, with that rock on your finger.”

I glanced at my ring mechanically, and, for some silly reason, felt miffed that he held no concern his prisoner wasn’t restrained. I could totally be a threat to him and the public.

“I could run, you know,” I said, planning to do no such thing.

“Try it.”

It was a dare and a warning.

A cold shiver erupted at the base of my spine. “Would you feel good about yourself? Catching a girl half your size?”

“Yes.”

There wasn’t an ounce of doubt in his reply.

“See, that is the problem with you feds. You love to throw your authority around.”

“Weight,” he corrected dryly.

“What?”

“The saying is to throw your weight around.”

I crossed my arms and took in the busy lobby. My eyes narrowed. I swore every woman in the vicinity had slowed their movements to watch him. A middle-aged officer old enough to be his mother stared while she pushed a clipboard toward him from the other side of the counter.

He signed the papers and then handed them back to the non-blinking officer. I bet women did wonders for his ego every day.