Page 35 of Taken by the Mafia King (Kings of Philly #1)

SERA

H is side profile looked menacing as he looked over his shoulder at me, hovering at the threshold of my door. The hallway beyond was cloaked in darkness, but it wasn’t the same pitch black as the depths of his eyes. For a brief moment, I wondered why he’d hesitate to leave. Then he smirked.

It was a standoff, I realized. I squared my shoulders, tilting my chin to the ceiling in defiance.

But he only smiled—or smirked more brazenly, I should say—and stalked out of the room.

I heard a scraping sound, and the knob jiggled.

Rushing to the door, I grabbed the doorknob and shook it violently.

He’d fixed a chair in place on the other side of the door, making it damn near impossible for me to escape again.

I pounded on the door until my fists hurt. Damn it. No. Damn him.

His rich, deep laugh echoed through the corridor outside of my room. I hadn’t heard that sound until today when I’d burst into his office and he’d had a gun trained on my chest.

Somehow, his laugh frightened me more than his stern, unyielding glare.

I pounded on the door again so hard it rattled the art lining the wall. Maybe if I made enough noise, someone would come and tell me to shut up, and if I didn’t, they’d move the chair to come in and yell at me and conveniently forget to put the chair back. A girl could hope, right?

When the heels of my hands were aching from so much pounding, I tried a different tactic.

I spent a good twenty minutes trying to manually take off the hinges using a bobby pin, to no avail.

Frustrated, I gave the door a good solid kick and shrieked a string of colorfully foul curses, most of which I’d learned from the teenagers in my classroom.

Someone walked toward the room, their footsteps heavy and rapid. I backed away from the door just in time for it to swing open, the bobby pin still clutched in my hand like a weapon.

“Kill—” I began, but it wasn’t Killian standing in my doorway. It was Francesco, the mean one. I put the bed between us and hovered on the other side.

“Come with me.” He pointed his chin at the door. When I didn’t move right away, he paced around the bed, but I scurried across it, messing up the blankets and pillows. “Woman,” he growled, “try to escape again and the pair of us will have to answer to him.”

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. “If he wanted to hurt me, he already would have.”

Francesco cocked his head to the side and gave me a lazy yawn.

“Do you consider yourself unscathed this far? From what I can see, you’ve come a little unhinged.

” His gaze wandered to the bobby pin I’d dropped on the carpet in my frantic retreat from the door.

Did he know I’d been trying to get it off?

If so, I wasn’t going to compliment a beast like him on his lame pun, regardless of whether it made my little teacher heart pleased.

I licked my lips. “Where are we going? Am I going to see my father now?”

Francesco snorted, moved around the bed, gripped my upper arm, and led me out into the hallway. He kicked the door closed with his boot but somehow hardly broke stride, and we moved purposefully down the tight stairwell to the first floor.

We abruptly stopped walking. I hadn’t anticipated it and my feet had a mind of their own.

Francesco must have thought I was trying to get away because suddenly his fingers curled under the collar of my sweatshirt, catching me off guard.

I yelped, struggling to catch my breath for a moment before he shoved me into a room.

He slammed the door behind us.

I turned to scream Killian’s name.

Francesco, still with a hold of my sweater, spun me around.

Tommaso lounged lazily on a king-sized bed with green velvet blankets. His bare chest was covered in bandages, but his injury didn’t seem to dampen his spirit, and he flashed me a devil may care grin. “I owe you big time, Sera.”

I gaped at him, then sucked in a breath. A thousand things flew through my mind. First and foremost came relief. I hadn’t killed him. Thank God. Second came confusion. Why had Francesco been the one to come get me? Why not Killian himself? That thought spurred action.

“Does Killian know I’m here?” I asked.

Tommaso shrugged with a wince. He sat propped up in the bed, his hands resting in his lap. He had some color to his cheeks, but his skin was still an unearthly pale that told me he still had a long recovery ahead of him.

I took a tentative step forward, worried Francesco might grab me again and stop me.

He didn’t, so I continued forward until I stood at the end of the bed.

Up close, I saw more evidence of Tommaso’s state.

The skin under his eyes was sunken and purple.

His lips were chapped and drawn. His complexion had a yellowish sheen to it—something to keep an eye out for in regard to infection.

I gripped the bedpost closest to me. Maybe he wasn’t out of the woods yet.

“How are you?” Tommaso asked. “Were you able to knock down that door? I thought that’s what I heard.”

“No, but I tried.”

He gave me a soft smile and motioned to the bed. I arched my brow at him, crossing my hands over my chest.

“I’m just offering you a place to sit so we can talk for a while.

I’m not making a move on you, Sera. You look like you could use a rest.” He winced a bit, and I turned my head to look in the mirror of a vanity next to the door.

The bun on my head had slid sideways, and the hair around my forehead stood straight up.

My face flushed a rosy pink. I smoothed my hair back and stuck out my chin as I sat on the very edge of his bed.

“Good, because Killian would kill us both.”

“I’m well aware of that.” He laughed and grimaced before adjusting himself carefully on the bed.

“You said you owed me a favor?”

“For saving my life. I’d use it wisely if I were you.”

“Is my father here?”

“That’s what you want the favor to be? Information? About him ?”

“I know you can’t let me out of this house.” I met his eyes. A silent understanding passed between us, and he nodded gravely. “I need to know.”

“Your father isn’t the man who was here this morning, no.”

“Then who was it? I heard Killian talking about it, that the man’s daughter was here. I thought he was talking about me.”

“He was talking about Delany Lombardi. Her father, Edoardo, went behind Killian’s back to sell information. That’s a death sentence.”

“Oh.” Unsure what else to say to that, relief rushed over me, but it was short-lived. I’d completely forgotten I wasn’t the only person being held captive in this house. “Can I meet her?”

“Delaney?”

“Yeah, I mean, we’re in a similar situation. I think it would be good for both of us to be able to talk to each other.”

Tommaso rolled his lip between his teeth in consideration. Before he could answer, Doctor Enstrom walked in, smiling broadly at the both of us.

“Ah, I was wondering when I’d see the Ricci Guardian Angel again.” He smiled warmly.

A nurse followed behind him with a cart of supplies. I glanced at Tommaso, who frowned and shifted away as the doctor approached the bed.

“Come to inspect my handiwork for yourself?” the doctor said.

“What? No,” I said hurriedly. “I was just… erm…”

Tommaso waved me off. “She was just leaving.”

Doctor Enstrom gave his nurse orders before frowning at me. “You don’t have to go. I was hoping to pick your brain about your medical training. It’s not every day a damsel like you can pull off a miracle like this.” He pointed his thumb at Tommaso, who gave me a bored, tired frown. “Stay.”

“Go,” Tommaso said.

I inched toward the door. “I’ll give you space. Nice to see you again, doctor.”

Out in the hall, I inhaled deeply, relief washing over me again. My father was not, in fact, here. For some reason that brought comfort. Not because I knew he was safe, but because I knew he wasn’t close by.

What’s happening to me?

Francesco leaned so silently against the wall to my right that I hadn’t known he was there. He pushed off. “Let’s go.”

I flinched.

The big brute of a man chuckled and started leading the way, for once not feeling the need to put a hand on me and escort me physically. “Move your ass, princess.”