Page 37 of Runaway in the Mafia (The shadows of Cosa Nostra Chronicles #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

AHANA

M y feet dragged along the hallway of the lobby. The weight of the call with Amara and regrets kept my eyes on the ground. She didn’t understand. She couldn’t. But it didn’t matter what she thought. I couldn’t let Pāpā fail.

The lift door rattled open. I stepped in and relief soothed my heart when no one joined me.

The place wasn’t too bad. It didn’t have a good mobile connection in the room to make a call, but it had a clean bed and a warm shower.

My skin crawled with memories. For four months, Rajesh had made me take cold showers.

To cool my wicked thoughts, he had said.

The shower I’d taken before I went downstairs to call Amara would be my last warm shower.

But then again, I had lost so much more than the luxury of warm water.

The lift shook on its rails on its way up.

It probably wouldn’t pass all the safety requirements.

But when you had a deadline and a monster at the end of the road, going through reviews and ratings seemed as far away as winning the lottery.

Lucky for me, I’d earned a bit in my short, free life away from Rajesh.

So when I’d got off the bus in Naples, I’d taken the first hotel I came by.

I was too tired. Too broken. What was the point of having money, anyway? Nothing I could do with it.

Plenty, according to Amara. Like book a ticket to India and fly back home. Then what? I was twenty-four. Too old to go home crying and ask Pāpā to fight off the mean world. Plus, with everything that had happened in the last six months, Delhi didn’t feel like home anymore to me.

The doors squeaked open on the fifth floor. Tightly shut yellow doors and navy blue walls with crooked picture frames greeted me. The dark blue carpet with the diamonds on it softened my footsteps as I trudged along the hallway to the dark end where my room for the night was.

Sometimes, I missed talking to Pāpā. Really talking.

Not the short, ninety per cent lying conversations I’d been having with him for the past six months.

But the actual deep conversations we used to have when I was in Delhi.

Him watching the news. Me with my coffee.

I missed that understanding. That unconditional love he oozed out to me.

That freedom to say anything I wanted. Keeping everything bottled up inside was suffocating me.

And I had to continue to do it till the end of my days.

Maybe I should just fly home and into his arms. And what? Hand over my burdens to him? If he didn’t crash from the guilt. It wasn’t his problem to solve.

This constant doubt, the fear curling in my chest. I was so tired of all of this.

It seemed so easy. Fly back home. But even last week, he’d gone in for a one-day stay in the hospital.

He thought I didn’t know that, but Maa had texted me about it.

Warned me not to worry him even more with my ridiculous, made-up problems. And she was right. I was being selfish.

But selfish had felt good for some weeks. Selfish had made me delirious with happiness. While it had lasted.

Something threw me off, and I paused with my key in my hand.

Made my thoughts shift. The hallway was quiet and dark.

I circled three hundred and sixty degrees.

No one was around. I sighed. Everything felt off.

To think the same time two days before he’d been buried inside me.

Forget it. What I needed was a few hours of sleep and then tomorrow I’d get to the border and cross to Switzerland, leaving all of Sicily and Italy behind me.

It would just be beautiful memories then.

Like a picture book of a past life. The hollowness in my chest expanded.

Why did I have to have met them? I should never have gone home with Ada.

Fewer people to miss. Fewer regrets. They were probably too busy, anyway.

They must have been preparing for Sara’s wedding, I consoled myself as I stuck the key in the lock.

My hands were so jittery it took me three attempts to get it to open.

But I only had to take two steps into the room before I knew my instincts had been right.

The aroma of spice and cedar. Sweet and mellow.

A burn that touched me like an open flame.

The room was shrouded in darkness. Not a single movement or sound that gave him away.

But all my senses shackled up like he stood an inch from me.

My pulse slowed, came to a stop, then picked up the pace and thumped madly like a tribal drum.

This man. He shouldn’t affect me like that.

The weight of consequences slammed into me.

I leaned against the door, my heart too weak.

Tried to find some sort of reality to ground me.

I was both relieved and furious that he’d found me.

He made me feel safe. Stronger. Wilder. Like I could stamp down the world and he’d still pick me.

But he was also a loose cannon. One I couldn’t allow anywhere near my family.

He didn’t seem like the type to care for an old man’s health or reputation.

“You going to come in or you going to paste your ass to that fucking door?” His voice was low, hot, and tight. Tension vibrated within it.

Click.

The warm light on the nightstand lit up. It highlighted the only thing worthy of a show. The man draped on the armchair next to it. Like he was the attraction. The only spectacle of the show. His audience. Me. Only me.

The small shoulder bag I’d been carrying loosened on my fingers and slipped to the floor. A heavy sigh filled the room. Mine.

As if running away from one man wasn’t enough, I had two on my back. The difference was that I craved this one. He made my heart all jittery. Made my pulse skyrocket to places it shouldn’t entertain.

“Well?”

The room was as dark as my mood. Dark wooden floors and wine-red walls. But nothing was as dark as the gloom hanging across the room. Hidden by a thick smoke cloud and dressed in an ink black suit. No one in their right mind would take a step in that direction.

I took a step in his. Because he was a lot of things, but he always made me feel safe.

“I’m not even going to ask you how you found me.”

“You should. Because I’m going to fucking ask you why you ran away.”

“Fine.” I took another step in. I was still in the little hallway. He was at the far end next to the window. “Tell me.”

“No,” he growled. “The rules changed. You first.”

My words strangled on their way out. The room throbbed with dark energy. I remained where I stood, and he didn’t move an inch. But it felt like he’d put his hands on my throat and attempted to squeeze the truth out of my windpipe.

This man. He wasn’t the type to give me a shoulder to cry on and walk away. He looked more the type to burn my world with the flip of his Zippo and his cigar on the other end. Burning my world wasn’t an option when I had Pāpā and Amara in it.

“Come here.” His voice was rough.

And I did. Another step in. The light from the lamp illuminated my face dimly. Whether he liked it or not, remained in doubt because he ran his hands over his face and growled angrily.

“Your defiance isn’t funny anymore.”

“Was it ever funny?”

He looked to the left. Teeth grinding. Jaw tight. Pulse ticking. A single drop of ash fell from his clenched fist to the hardwood floor between his legs. He, of course, didn’t care about damaging property.

“Don’t you feel it?” His tone was soft.

“What?”

His gaze jerked to mine. Eyes flashing. “You’re all over me. I can’t think without you. I drove like a madman all the way over here to get you. I can’t function without you.”

“You always drive like a madman.”

“Shut the fuck up.” His voice was hard. Harsh. The sharp lines of his face, steel sheets illuminated by orange light. “Don’t you feel it?”

I couldn’t give in. “I can’t.”

His head cocked to the side, and one brow rose. “Can’t?”

“I’m not free to—”

He was on me in a split second. My gasp strangled when he shoved me against the wall, his front to my back, his arms boxing me in.

My breath heaved. So did his. It came to me then.

He was as out of control as I was. Maybe even more.

The laboured breathing was him trying to rein it in.

I tried to force words past my desert-dry mouth. “I—”

“Shut up.” His hands crawled to mine and fisted around them like a metal clasp. His voice was reined in. Tightly strung. Then he grated it against my skin behind the hollow of my ear. “You are fucking mine, and anyone who says otherwise, I will fucking kill.”

“I’m not—”

“Jesus fuck. Can you, for once, stop fighting me?”

He split my thighs apart and shoved his knee in between. I hadn’t even registered it before his palm was on my core.

“Let me go,” I moaned.

“Not unless you tell me what the fuck you’re running away from or who.”

I shook my head violently.

“Why won’t you trust me?” His tone was filled with pain that I couldn’t get myself to hear.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I don’t trust what you’ll do when you find out.”

“Everything I do will be to bring you to victory. You are a fucking queen. Let me help you, mia ammaliatrice.”

“No. No one can.”

His thumb stroked a line of wetness quickly seeping through the satin.

It was an agony of inquisition and torture.

“Looks like I’ll have to help you out another way.

” His finger slipped in and sank easily inside me.

“Fuck,” he groaned against my neck before sinking his teeth into the dip between my neck and shoulder. “Is this all for me?”

I wanted to say no. I should have. Some instinct told me if I did, he’d step back. I’d be rid of him. Two letters. One word. No.

“Say it,” and two fingers slipped in.

“Yes,” I whispered.