Page 98 of Pretty Plaything

“HOW CAN I BE SURE YOU’LLlet my wife go?” I ask.

“I know you’d never cooperate without her. You have my word that if you sign the deal, your wife will be safely returned to you,” Mauro says.

“What if your men get trigger happy?” I eye him carefully.

“I’ll tell you when you put your gun down.”

I narrow my gaze at him as I slowly place the gun on the floor.

“I send my men a message every twenty minutes. If they don’t get it, they know what to do. And before you say anything, it’s a very safe system that only I can use, and there’s no risk that a message will get lost or that they won’t get it.”

“How comforting.”

“I sent one only five minutes ago, so the system clearly works. There’s also a button on my phone. If I press it...” He grins.

“Okay, you win. Let’s sign the damn contract.”

“As you wish.” Mauro lowers the phone on his desk and pulls out the contract from his drawer. He places the contract with a pen on the desk.

I move closer as Mauro keeps an eye on my gun on the floor and on the phone.

When I pick up the pen, I shift closer as I keep my gaze on the contract.

In one swift move, I spin around the desk and stab the pen into Mauro’s eye. He screams, but I catch him into a tight grip, my arms wrapped around his neck.

“You may have watched me my whole life, but you know absolutely nothing about me,” I hiss into his ear as I apply more pressure to his neck.

He chokes and splutters, his hands flailing around.

“If you truly knew me, you’d know that I don’t like being blackmailed or told what to do,” I say. “You should’ve stayed the fuck away from me and my family.”

He gasps for breath, but it’s useless.

I don’t let him go.

I only squeeze harder until his body goes limp. When I lower him to the floor, his eyes stare into the nothingness.

I want to feel something, but I feel nothing.

It’s just another dead body.

I pull out my phone and search for the signal of the tracker I put in Sienna’s shoulder the night after she left the house.

A smile spreads across my lips.

I know exactly where she is.

I knew Mauro couldn’t have taken her too far away from the house.

Picking up my gun off the floor, I race out of there.