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“I-I’m supposed to be left alone until Mr. Midnight, I mean the Boss,arrives.” She pulled the blanket up even higher.

Her heart raced so fiercely, she waited for it to explode. Maybe it would be a blessing. She hated being cornered, knowing she couldn’t prevent him from doing whatever he wanted.

He shrugged. “What the boss doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Or you. Because if you tell him I touched you, he will kill you as well as me. So, we won’t tell him. He sees you as a whore anyway.”

The insult bit, causing her to flinch. You’d think, after all this time, she’d have grown thicker skin, but no. Heart on her sleeve that was her.

She’d caught the eye of the head of the Midnight family, the birthday boy himself, that night at the party. A powerful manwith cold, shark eyes–eyes she’d caught because of her stupid pink hair. He’d wanted her, and that was all it took for him to orchestrate her kidnapping.

She’d been shipped from place to place but always wound up in a small, locked room. Each new location was ruled by one of Mr. Midnight’s henchmen who thought he would be the first to get away with taking what the Boss,as they called him, considered his.

But she’d been lucky so far. Someone had always told Mr. Midnight. Then people died, and she would be moved to a new location where it started all over again.

Moretti stared down at her, derision in his voice when he said, “You’re just another girl for him to use before turning you over to his men. But this time, I am going to be first.”

He lurched forward and, before she realized he was too close, grabbed her wrist and lifted her to stand before him. She tried to run but her feet got tangled in the blanket, and she fell to her hands and knees on the edge of the mattress.

He laughed, and the sinister rumble sent shockwaves of fear over her. “How did you know where I wanted you,topolina? Such a good baby mouse to read my mind, or did you? You pretend to be afraid, but you want it, too, no?”

“No!” she screamed, trying to crawl away. But he had dropped to his knees behind her, his fingers gripping her hips hard enough to add even more bruises.

Terror forced bile into her throat, burning and tearing up her eyes. She screamed, knowing it would do no good. Even if anyone heard, no one here would stand up for her.

Reaching up her body, he grabbed at her breasts, using his hold to yank her backward into his hips. Even through his pants, she could feel his hard cock pressing against her. Unless some guardian angel from above appeared to help, she wasn’t going to be able to break free. There were certainly no Daddies here likethe ones in Darling to rush to her rescue. She was on her own, like always.

This Italian gorilla was going to do what none of the others had been able to. Even knowing she would never be able to stop him, no way was she giving up without a fight. She kicked back as hard as she could, somehow nailing him in the thigh.

He roared in pain and anger, grabbing her shoulder and flipping her to her back. She watched him draw his hand back but had no way to dodge the slap. Fire blazed across her face. She screamed and fought harder, praying the universe would send someone to save her even as she continued to fight for herself.

“He’s going to kill you for this!” she cried out, but her words earned nothing more than his laughter.

The universe must have something more important going on because, once again, she was left to fend for herself.

CHAPTER 3

Boone could picture his brothers, all gathered in the main house, having a glass of Wyoming Whiskey Single Barrel Straight Bourbon, while talking over the day. Maybe even heading to the parlor, as his granny had insisted they call it, to shoot a game of pool.

And where was he? On some god-forsaken island in the Kurils off the coast of Japan, freezing his ass off in his night camouflage. Even with the thermal wear he wore while keeping the cattle fed and watered in negative twenty degree weather back home, the waterlogged air of the island soaked into his bones.

Only someone as crazy as Nico Midnight would put a compound on an island with four active volcanos. The least he could have done was build the thing on the windward side of the island where winds were chilled by the Bering Sea and Northern Pacific. Stupid fuck could care less that the visibility was higher over here. He considered himself untouchable, but the Cosa Nostra encroaching on either the Russian Bratva’s or the Japanese Yakuza’s, whichever was currently controlling the island, territory was one step away from suicide.

Maybe he should have tipped them off and let them go to the trouble of fighting over who would take Midnight out, but this was personal. Boone was taking care of this himself. Midnight might believe he was untouchable, but he’d be finding out he was wrong when Boone put a bullet in his head.

Boone studied the night sky. The stars were in a different place than on the ranch, but he’d spent enough time on cattle drives to gauge by the moon it was somewhere close to ten o’clock. After crossing the island's rugged mountain terrain during the day, he’d fought his way past the layers of security. Now he stood just inside the entrance to the empty courtyard of Nico Midnight’s medieval mansion.

Stealing through the shadows, he crossed the courtyard and entered the outer vestibule. Had the guards he’d shot on the beach had time to warn anyone he was coming before he took them out? He had to assume they did. Scanning the area and not seeing anything suspicious, he followed the main hallway deeper into the castle until it dead-ended into another. Which way now?

Being in the right place at the right time guaranteed his success in accomplishing his mission. Midnight had to pay for everything he’d done. An eye for an eye, that was the Cosa Nostra way. At least, it was the Midnight way. Boone believed in that, too, so he would be doling out retribution with the man staring down the barrel of his rifle.

Midnight had taken Cara. Snuffed her out of existence and laughed as he drove away. Now it was time for him to pay. He wanted every emotion he’d been forced to witness in Cara’s eyes playing out in Midnight’s. Only he’d be able to see the life drain out of them, too. For Cara.

Swapping out his rifle for his Glock, he checked that the magazine was full and settled his stance, ready for whatever waited for him around the corner. Crouched low, his breathingsped up. He hated blind corners, especially in a den of Cosa Nostra vipers.

He spent most of his days on the ranch in wide open spaces. Running black ops in the special forces had forced him into too many tight places with precious few ways to dodge the bullets coming at him. He’d left damn near claustrophobic. It was one of the four hundred ninety-nine thousand reasons he loved his ranch. Wide open space extended in every direction. With the average population spread out to 6 people per square mile, he could breathe.

The fact that he was willing to spend the three weeks it would take to cross the ocean going home proved beyond a shadow of a doubt he wanted Midnight dead by his hand. Dreams of this moment, the day he would serve justice to the butcher who’d taken everything from him in the span of one stray bullet, had kept him going for the past three years.

Some people would call his dreams nightmares. But none of those people had the woman they loved stolen from them on the malicious whim of a mafia thug.