Page 47 of Dirty Mafia Sinner

Also, my chances will improvegreatlyif no one is aware I’ve escaped …

Time drags by until the sun sits low on the horizon. With a folded sheet secured around my middle, and legs free, I grasp the pitcher and linger at the right side of the door.

Footsteps approach, and I wait for her to enter. They take turns tormenting me, but I hope tonight’s brunette is the gleeful cutthroat and my biggest tormenter. Because I won’t feel half as guilty for what I’m about to do.

Keys jingle, then the door’s thrust open and she barrels inside. The rolled rug descends with a loud thump in front of her, and before she can process what’s happening, she’s knocked off balance. Her arms flail, and then over the rug she goes, my dinner—the smallest imaginable loaf of stale bread—sailing across the room.

I rush forward as she stares at me, aghast, then before she can scream, I smash the pitcher into the side of her head.

She instantly goes limp.

Lifeless… oh no, no, no! I visualized her death a million ways, but I didn’t mean it.

I fall to my knees and check her neck for a pulse. Relief washes over me when I feel it racing.

Satisfied, I grab her keys.

Go, Riley. This is happening.

I step over her and the rug, into the hallway, pausing to lock the door behind me. Escaping into unknown territory, though the urgency of the situation is not lost on me.

With a glance around, I realize the villa is even more spectacular than I imagined. I’m in a hallway on a mezzaninefloor, with all four sides of the square looking over an open concept living area below. An intricate black wrought iron railing accents the otherwise sparse white space.

My attention pauses on an enormous grand staircase to the left.

I race toward it, not missing a beat, am down the stairs and sprinting across white marble tile, headed toward the kitchen area.

Yes,I think, spotting a single door to the left of an intricately carved wooden pantry and just beyond an island the size of my New York apartment’s kitchen.

All that stands between the door and me is another vicious brunette.

She’s vacuuming or pretending to. Looking like a Real Housewife, earbuds on as she wiggles and gyrates while pushing the humming machine. Not actually concerned with getting every lick of dirt—although I bet this immaculate floor and these fixtures have never been touched by dust.

When she spins left, I fly by her right side.

Hope pushes through the fright about a third of the way across the sprawling room. I’ve made it this far. Now exit the kitchen door. Walk, don’t run, toward the casita. Pray the guards are looking up for more surprises and not gathered poolside.

A shadow crosses the natural light reflecting off the tile, shifting my attention toward the mezzanine above. I breathe a sigh of relief, not finding anything. Yet something—nerves, incredulousness I’ve made it this far—has me looking over my shoulder.

I immediately wish I hadn’t. Because a man in a suit is descending the staircase, taking two stairs at a time.

Oh no. No. No. No.

My feet can’t move quick enough as I pass the island toward the door.Pull it closed behind you …

The sheet tightens around me, and my body jerks to an abrupt stop. I struggle, like a caterpillar inside a cocoon, until my pursuer’s full weight slams into me from behind. I land hard on my stomach, the wind knocked out of me as I’m tackled onto the cold tile floor.

His hands bracket my wrists in a bruising grip while his full weight pins me in place. Lord, he’s strong, all muscle against my back. My breasts hurt flattened against the floor. And worse, the sheet has risen and is around my waist, his groin flush against my bottom.

I’m completely, utterly at his mercy.

“Please,” I pant. “I can’t breathe…”

His fingers find my throat and he squeezes. “Better now?”

Panic washes over me as I attempt to buck him off me.

He waits until I’m exhausted to temporarily pull free. Temporarily, because the next thing I know, he’s forced my thighs apart with his knee, spreading them wide, obscenely so, and settled back against me.