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Diletta

W eekends are hard. Even when I fill them with activities, I’m still lonely. Five and a half years without seeing your family, your homeland, and everything you love will do that.

Hart’s main street has that quaint, resort town mashed up with old money feel. Half the buildings are stone and brick and the ones that are newer constructions were designed to look old. They all have those fancy windows at the front, jammed full of clothes, shoes, outdoorsy equipment, teas, books, journals, and paper supplies. There’s even one just for hats, and not the ballcap kind. The retro stores are the brightest, but the bookstore on the far end has the best window display, beating out even the candy and ice cream store, since someone painted giant books and fairytale characters all over it. Even the grocery store on the main street looks more like a castle with granite stacked stones climbing halfway up the front and huge, old-fashioned pillars.

Sundays are slower paced in Hart, but it’s afternoon now, the late May weather is lovely, and people are out. They amble down the sidewalks. Couples hand in hand, families with small kids, groups of teenagers laughing and talking too loudly. There are a few singles, but they’re definitely the minority—an older woman shuffling along pulling a wire shopping basket filled with groceries, a man in a suit who looks frazzled. A few people with earbuds jog here and there. The traffic on the roads is actually quite heavy and there’s everything from scooters to skateboards to bikes going by.

I’m heading to a garden store at the end of the street, just past the butcher’s shop. It’s overpriced, but they always carry a good selection of seeds. Nothing I couldn’t get online if I wanted to, but supporting local feels better.

Plus, this is my life now. This town.

Part of the street ends before the garden store starts. There are steel posts which block traffic, and the pavement turns to cobblestone. In the summer, this is Hart’s hotspot for music, festivals, and farmers’ markets. One big pub and a smaller restaurant both have patio areas that extend onto the cobblestone, but they’re roped off and fenced off. The coffee shop I stride past smells like heaven. Nothing that would even come close to home, but even a subpar espresso still brings tears to my eyes.

It’s been less than twenty-four hours since there was someone in my backyard.

My heart picks up now, thundering dangerously as adrenaline dumps into my veins. I’m not worried that someone from my past has found me. My father dealt with the Rossi family already and if they were coming for me, he would have moved me faster than they could get here.

Long story short, I was kidnapped. Me, a mafia princess, daughter of a notorious drug lord. To avoid an all-out war after my father found out what had been done, Adolfo Rossi offered a truce. He said he would punish his son for his unsanctioned actions, and he gave my father territory that he’d wanted for a very long time, plus access to a second major port.

There’s no possible way that Romeo Rossi would risk the wrath of his father a second time, but just in case the unhinged, spoiled brat and the world’s most underserving Capo, ever changed his mind, my father hid me and gave me another life far away from Italy. The rules were clear. No contact with home unless it was an absolute emergency. I was no longer Diletta Cosmo. I became Haley Black, with airtight fake ID from a driver’s license and social security card to my teaching degree.

Whoever was out there was probably just some creep. Even if it was someone trying to case the place to break in, I have nothing to steal. Was it someone looking for what they thought was an easy target? Has someone been stalking me?

I’m fairly confident that my past training has given me the skills to deal with them either way. The fact that they panicked and jumped the fence, leaving their blood behind, tells me that they’re not a professional. Even if they were, I could still hold my own.

That’s rich, coming from someone who was kidnapped not once, but twice.

Seven men is a different story.

I took down three, but the other four grabbed me. One latched around my arms while a second bound my hands behind my back and a third grabbed my feet. It was the fourth who stuck a needle into the side of my neck. At least the first three probably caught concussions, balls that likely would never be the same, and the last definitely had to have needed multiple surgeries after I shot out his left kneecap.

The second kidnapping days later, I didn’t fight, even though I was blindfolded.

You have no reason to trust me, but I’m your only option. Stay quiet. I’m getting you out of here.

I’ll never forget the timber of that deep, gravelly whisper. He never spoke in more than that the night we spent hiding before he returned me to my father. I wasn’t blindfolded the entire time, but my savior wore all black, including an eyeless mask over his face like a bank robber. Every inch of his skin was covered. He gave nothing away.

I know that my father knows who he is, because my faceless hero explained everything to him after he brought me home. I also have zero doubt that he’s the one Rossi is still hunting. No one from the outside could have penetrated so deep into their defenses and went straight to the heart of Romeo Rossi’s house. No one but an inside man. One of their own. A traitor.

My papa gave me a small fortune when he sent me here, out of sight and out of mind, far, far away from Italy. I imagine he gave the man who saved me twice or three times that amount as repayment for my life. People talk about honor amongst thieves, but they have no idea how serious a blood debt is.

I’m half lost in the past, half still thinking so hard about last night—the creep in the yard, and the fact that the cameras on the house picked up nothing—that I’m not watching where I’m going.

My right foot wedges in the cobblestone street. I don’t realize the spike heel is trapped until I go to step and my foot jerks painfully. The snap is clear, though thankfully, it’s not from my feet or ankles.

The shoe is so stuck that I have to hobble around, one foot bare, and turn and yank it out of the crack.

Merda.

The shoe is ruined beyond repair. I could find a way to snap the heel off the other shoe so that I can walk home, but I’d likely be at it for a while out here with people staring at me. There are plenty of shoe stores down this way. I glance up and spot one at the end of the block.

I hobble to it. I should have just worn sneakers like everyone else. But anything with a flat sole just doesn’t do it for me. I even wear heels to school most days, although I tone it down to kitten height. Very few days have I ever worn flats. What can I say? I was raised like a princess. My mom passed her love of fashion on to me. Also? We’re Italians.

Was Italian. What am I now?

I literally limp into the shoe store. It’s definitely a family place, with no high-end designer brands. There are basketball shoes and some truly god-awful sandals in the window. This is the kind of place that for sure has plain black flats.

As I walk past the displays and rows of boxes, sneakers, more sandals, rubber boots, things that look like hard soled slippers, and sliders, a pair of plain flats definitely seem like the best option.

The women’s section is right at the back, past all the kids’ shoes.

There’s a woman with a little girl in that section. She’s sitting down on a stool while her mom bends over her feet, trying to stick on a pair of rainbow shoes that probably light up. The girl giggles, her auburn curls bouncing, striking green eyes flashing.

My chest aches with that burst of laughter. I love kids. I work with them all day long. I truly do enjoy what I do, even if my life was never supposed to go this direction, but some days are hard.

Having a normal family isn’t in the cards for me.

What would I do? Meet a regular man and explain to him that I’m in hiding because the fucking Italian mafia once kidnapped me and oh, by the way, my father is also one of Italy’s most notorious drug lords? Sure, they’d be lining up by my door.

“Stand up, Penny. Try those out.” The mother straightens. She’s tiny and adorable, with long hair and soft, dark eyes.

The girl bounces up off the seat like she’s spring loaded. She rushes around the shop, putting miles on those shoes, right to the front door.

A beast of a man steps in front of her, so big that he literally blocks out the sunlight coming in through the windows. I freeze on the outside, but inside, everything goes still. Lungs. Heart. Molecules and fucking cells. Breath? What breath?

It’s his eyes that I notice first. Ice blue. Cold and hard. Empty and dead. The kind of eyes that are like mirrors, but not into the soul. When you look into them, all you see is your own reflection.

His head is shaved on the sides, taken right down to the scalp and long on the top, intricate black and gray tattoos twisting over his bald scalp.

His appearance matches the leather vest, which I notice next. There are patches all over it, the one on the front that denotes him to be a one percenter, the most glaring. His shirt sleeves are pushed up and his arms are inked, but the ink folds and swirls wrong, like it’s been hammered into and over scarred skin. I don’t want to be caught staring, but it’s so hard to look away.

He’s utterly captivating. Frightening, with his hard, expressionless face, so beautifully cut and chiseled all the same. He reminds me of my father’s soldiers—a man who immediately strikes fear into the hearts of others. An enforcer or someone who is exceptionally good at extracting information.

I wonder what he does for that biker club he’s a part of.

I wonder if he’s a bad man. There are parts of me that don’t care.

I watch him for another few seconds. He doesn’t seem like an evil man. I’m pretty good at reading people and picking out their aura.

The little girl stops short of the giant. She’s clearly familiar with him and shows no fear. She doesn’t run away screaming, like a grown man and most sane people would be tempted to do. She smiles up at him before she circles around the store and returns to her mom.

Is that man the girl’s father? The way the woman looks at him and smiles slightly, like she’s relieved that he blocked her daughter from racing out the door and sprinting down the street to test out her new shoes, speaks of familiarity, but not necessarily romance. She could be reserved, though. A couple who doesn’t believe in PDA.

A wild, white hot spark of jealousy flares in my chest, stealing my breath for a second time.

The giant hasn’t noticed me. I step closer to the women’s shoes for cover and peek at the glorious warrior again. I know what I’m doing is illicit and irrational, but I can’t stop my eyes from tracing that same path.

He grunts low in his throat before turning his head to the window to scan the street outside. Like a guard. I’m familiar enough with my father’s men to recognize the gesture. I don’t think this man is Penny’s father and the woman doesn’t belong to him either. The tight chokehold squeezing my throat relaxes slightly, which disgusts me.

There is no way in hell I should be attracted to a man who clearly represents trouble. My father always promised me he’d marry me to someone normal and get me as far away from his life as he could. An accountant or a businessman. Someone who could look the other way about his father-in-law but would still appreciate the old-fashioned dowry I’d bring to the marriage.

That was my father’s dream for me, to see me safe and settled, but it was never mine.

That bodyguard is obviously an outlaw with his own creed. It’s not the allure of the bad boy, a man who could protect and also do the filthiest things to my body, that attracts me. For the most part, I can keep myself safe.

It’s the promise of understanding.

Twin flames.

A man like that wouldn’t care what my father does. He wouldn’t care about my past. He wouldn’t fear me or who I am. He’d probably think it was good that I’m tough, know my way around a gun, and can handle a knife in a pinch. He’d be my match in every way.

I choke back a heartless, sad laugh.

If a man like that wanted a woman and a family, he wouldn’t be a member of an outlaw biker gang. I’ve heard about the one in Hart. You can’t live here and not know who’s running the town. Satan’s Angels. How very original. Apparently, they’ve run most of the riffraff and small-time drug dealers out of Hart over the years. Cleaned the city up. That must make them popular with the police. People don’t speak of them with fear, they probably think of them as heroes.

How does no one understand that the most dangerous men get that way because they put their competition in the ground?

“Ma’am, can I help you find anything?”

My head whips around to see a young, twenty-something athletic looking blond guy all in black with a nametag. Chris. He studies me eagerly, his eyes roving up. I was wearing a knee-length vintage fifties dress with a fitted bodice. His gaze stops right on my breasts.

“I’m good, thanks.”

His face falls, but he’s not deterred. “Can I tell you about some of the sales we have today?”

I glance over at the register, where a teenage girl with bright pink hair is ringing up Penny’s shoes while the little girl bounces with excitement. I wish she was the one monitoring the floor.

“I think I’m okay. I just came in for a pair of flats,” I respond politely, but my body is stiff.

Chris doesn’t take the hint. “In that case, we have so many to choose from. If you want to follow me…”

I don’t move. My annoyance builds, which triggers an immediate self-defense response. I silently debate the merits of kicking Chris in the nuts or stabbing him in the thigh with the pen I have in my messenger bag at my hip. To be fair, he’s annoying and he ogled my breasts, but that’s not exactly a crime and certainly not worthy of bodily harm. He hasn’t hit creep level yet. I suck in a deep breath and remind myself that he’s only doing his job. He wants the commission, not a date.

I hobble down the row of women’s shoes, stacked floor to ceiling in neat little rectangular boxes. Chris’ smile is smarmy and makes my stomach churn, but only because I wish that it wasn’t always my first instinct to want to resort to violence. Technically, just because I can break a guy’s neck or toss him over my shoulder certainly doesn’t mean I ever should.

“I think you’d look great in a pair of yellow wedges.” Chris produces the box. I’m ready to grab it out of his hands, just so that I can get the hell out of here. “They’d match your dress. A size… seven?” he guesses after tracing my legs with his burning eyes.

They settle on my feet and ankles, which are both starting to feel the strain of being so unlevel. We might be reaching creep level now.

“Eight and a half,” I mutter. Spotting a box of black flats to my right in a size nine, which will certainly do in a pinch, I snatch them off the shelf. “Actually, these will work. Thanks.”

Chris literally jumps into my path. “Those are just display. Let me get you a pair from the back.”

Yeah. Not how it works, buddy. Not in a store like this.

“I’ll get these ones. Thank you for your time.”

“No, really.” Chris’ hands cover mine and I wonder if he’s about to make a move or try and wrestle the box away from me, all while he flashes me his playboy grin. “Let me get you a new pair.”

“Take your fucking hands off those shoes!”

The thunderous, gravelly voice behind me freezes both of us. Chris apparently does have a sense of self-preservation after all. He immediately lifts up his hands and jumps back half a foot. I don’t turn around, but I can feel the heat of him at my back. Unless someone else who looked like the lovechild of a grim reaper and a Viking warrior from the wrong century walked in, it’s the guy from the door. Penny’s bodyguard. She must be the daughter of someone important to that club.

I had men guarding me like this when I was a child. I was never afraid of them. I knew they’d give their lives for me and that only ever made me feel safe. Maybe that’s why an electric thrill shoots through me now, exploding between my legs in a way that is just straight up wrong.

I don’t have a sense of self-preservation.

That rough, raw, obvious menace makes me shiver with raw desire of my own.

Chris runs off, rounding the corner with unnatural speed. I slowly turn, box in hand. I’m not going to thank this man. I had it covered. My eyes do a quick scan because I just can’t help myself. His worn jeans cling to thick, muscular thighs and hang low on his hips where a giant metal skull belt buckle flashes in the light.

I nearly laugh at how token and out of place it is, but then my eyes land on his right arm, where a nasty row of jagged stitches stands out red against his inked skin. I was right about the scars, but that’s not what makes my throat close up with fear.

I’m good at hiding in plain sight. I’ve had a lifetime of practice long before I arrived here. I force a smile and thrust the box up to my chest, hugging it tight. “Thanks. I’m fine though.”

I expect an answer. Some small amount of resistance. Something. But the guy turns and walks off. He’s light on his feet, probably deceptively fast, for a man so big and jacked. He could likely bench press ten of me and not break a sweat. Lift a car. Snap a tree in half. As he walks to the front and joins Penny and her mom, then sees them out of the store, I don’t ogle his ass. I already know it must be rock hard.

I study the box of shoes like my life depends on it.

Maybe it does.

I hope that there was nothing on my face.

None of my suspicions or paranoia.

I searched my yard with a flashlight last night and I double checked it all this morning. Went over the cameras again and again, but all I found were a few dark drops of blood where a nail in the fence caught whoever had been in my yard. I assumed it had torn clothing, but what if it tore flesh?

That jagged line of stitches, the wound so fresh, floods my mind until I shiver.

I’m being ridiculous. That guy is a biker. He might be scary as fuck, but clearly, he has a sense of honor. He’s guarding a little girl, and he came over to check and see if I was in trouble when he noticed Chris trying to wrestle shoes out of my hands. Even if he’s not chivalrous, he’s part of a motorcycle club. He’s not a stalker. He could have acquired that injury in a thousand different ways. Probably some fight with a smashed beer bottle or a knife in a parking lot.

Whoever was in my yard last night probably wasn’t a creep. It was probably just some asshole thinking my house might be an easy target to steal from. If someone was watching me, I would have noticed by now. I’m hypervigilant myself.

I have to stop.

Just go pay for the damn shoes and get out of here.

All this hiding in plain sight is starting to make me lose my mind. If there’s one thing I have to do, it’s just keep it together and hope that this won’t be my life forever.

Maybe one day something will change, and I can go back home.