Page 90 of Dirty Mafia Torment

Cold iron bites my wrists, sharp and waking. The sting settles into a dull, dragging weight that yanks my arms down. My fucking hands are cuffed, each wrist swallowed by steel, but there’s slack enough to stretch, slap my cheeks, then test the pull.

Light bleeds through the wall slats, too bright and accusing, enough to see that my ankles are bound the same way, with shackles wrapped in leather, as if it were an urgent afterthought to ease the chaff against my skin. They’re attached to a long chain trailing loose behind, so I can stand, kneel, even pace a few restless steps. The chain’s bolted to a barn wall, tethering me like a dog on a leash. Room to move but no room to run—not that I’m in any shape to do so.

It’s not the first time I’ve been restrained. My brother once locked me in a guest room when I hit rock bottom and ignored my sorry ass until the drugs worked through my system.

Looks like I’ve landed there again.

I’m drenched in sweat. My limbs jerk on their own, like my body’s trying to work something out. My stomach churns, and I swallow hard against the burn in my throat.

The physical withdrawal symptoms are familiar.

Where I’m at and how I got to this point are not.

I sit up, brush straw off my bare chest, and assess my situation. I’m in boxer shorts, on a straw bed inside a barn, with a round wooden stool to my left, straw piles to my right, and a woman in red high heels watching me at my feet.

Relief flickers, chased quickly by self-loathing.

Jesus, did she witness the entire thing?

“How do you feel?” she asks.

“Like shit.”

“Do you know who I am?”

“Nope.” I try to smile, but it falters. “But you look like my kind of woman—trouble.”

She doesn’t react. Just stands there, arms crossed, taking me in like I’m something rotting on the sidewalk.

This is what dying must feel like. Me, at my lowest. Her, in her flower-print dress and red heels, forehead pinched and eyes branding me from the inside out. I was her salvation once. Now I’m her goddamn curse.

“Fina.” I taste her name, slow, like I’m savoring a forbidden thing.

“Renzo,” she snaps, voice sharp enough to cut.

A flush colors her cheeks, and she radiates a vitality that wasn’t there before, like Italy breathed life into her and made her even more irresistible.

She takes a step and freezes. My gaze follows hers to the necklace I carried from Rome, now lying in the dirt. Fucking hell. I don’t even know why I kept her pearls, why I hauled them around like some twisted good-luck charm. Maybe because they were a piece of us, a token of what could never be, a reminder of what I gave up.

My focus snaps back to her just in time to see it hit. Recognition slams into her, surprise hardening into raw, scorching fury.

“Are those my pearls?”

Shit. I must have shoved them in my pocket. A miracle they lasted this long. If I had been in my right mind, I would have done anything to keep them hidden. Deeply disturbed, I clear my throat. “No clue how they got there.”

“Just like you’ve got no idea how you got here?”

Her hands are on her hips. Jaw tight. Chin tilted. She looks ready to spit nails.

God, she’s stunning.

Our eyes lock, and something stirs. It always does with her. No one besides her has ever had this effect on me. Never has, never will.

“You stole them.”

“So what? Or will you shoot me again for it?”

She glares at me. “It’s crossed my mind once or twice.”