Page 43 of Taken by the Mafia King (Kings of Philly #1)

SERA

T hree days passed, and if Killian slipping out of my room after taking my virginity hadn’t been enough, he’d kept me locked in here since that night.

Three days with no word from anyone about what was going on in the outside world.

Three days of sitting on my hands wondering if I’d done something wrong.

After he’d claimed me, he’d looked at me like he hated me. No.

Like he hated himself.

Then he’d left me here to lose my mind.

Asshole.

Olivia had been my only source of human contact since then, and her chipper demeanor did nothing to improve my mood. If anything, it made it worse. She was always that way, no matter what happened or to whom. Even Tommaso getting a bullet through the chest hadn’t changed her disposition.

I watched her yank the sheets from my bed as I lurked near the window.

“No blood the last few days,” she sang to herself, which made my cheeks go a fiery red. “Off your period, then?”

I wasn’t sure it was possible to turn redder than I already was. The blood she’d seen on my sheets three days ago hadn’t been from my period, that was for sure.

“Yes,” I lied, forcing a smile before turning back to the window. “Can I leave the room now?”

“No.” She tossed the sheets in the corner of the room. “Sorry.”

“Why not?” I turned away from the window.

“Because we’re all on lockdown and have been for days now. Something big happened,” she added in a whisper, excitement lighting up her eyes. “Mr. Ricci has barely left his office, eaten, or slept.”

My voice slipped into a whisper too. “What happened?”

She looked back and forth like we weren’t the only people in the room and someone might be listening in. “A raid.”

“On who?” On my dad? My stomach twisted into a tangled knot, and I fought the urge to drop to my knees. I still held on to hope that my dad would come for me, even though the temptation to stay behind kept tugging at me.

I’d lost my mind completely when I’d let Killian into my bed.

Olivia opened her mouth to reply, but the door opened, and Delaney Lombardi walked in swinging a set of keys around her forefinger. She drew up short, planted a hand on her hip, and looked around the room. “Woah, nice digs. Way bigger than mine. What gives?”

“How the hell did you get those?” Olivia snatched the keys off her finger and tucked them in her apron.

Delaney, unfazed, simply strode across the room to stare out the window. She frowned at the view, then took a moment to walk around my room, inspecting it.

“What are you doing in here, Delaney?” I asked. The last time I’d seen her I let it slip that her father was dead. It was also painfully obvious that Delaney was only one more verbal slip away from coming completely unhinged.

I didn’t like the look in her eyes as she turned back to me and Olivia with a shrug.

“I was bored. Everyone is so up in arms about Giuseppe De Luca that one of the guys left his keys in my room. So, I went on a little walk, but there was no one around to talk to. I figured I could count on the Hand of Death’s little plaything to be locked up tight in her room though. ” She giggled and winked.

Olivia and I glanced at each other and for the first time a shared understanding passed between us.

Neither of us trusted Delaney, and I couldn’t help but think she was up to something right now.

Did I think she had the bandwidth to actually formulate a plot of escape or revenge?

Absolutely not. Getting into mischief and dragging me, and possibly Olivia, down with her? That was a different story.

I moved to my door and held it open. “I think you should go back to your room.”

She cut me off. “This house is so dark compared to Rose Hall, or whatever the Marino mansion is called. One of the girls I was with before the auction said the ceiling trim was decorated with real gold. Can you believe that? I told her the color of the wallpaper matched her hair, which made her cry. Paige was a really strange girl.”

“Who?” I gasped, my blood suddenly running cold. Was this the redhead she’d mentioned before?

“Paige,” she said nonchalantly.

Something about Delaney’s incessant ramblings the day Tommaso introduced us had been nagging at me. “Paige who ?”

I only knew one Paige, and she was part of the same Hell I’d lived as a child. Children born to men in the mafia. Children stuck watching their mothers cry over mistresses. Children who knew where the suitcases of cash were kept in case we needed to run in the middle of the night.

But I hadn’t seen Paige in years.

“Paige Bruno, of course. I bet she fetched a big bid that night. She’s beautiful.”

My world shattered around me. I choked on my own breath, but Olivia grabbed my arm, squeezing tight. The look in Olivia’s eyes told me everything I needed to know. Shut up. Don’t say a thing. Don’t let her know you’re acquainted with Paige. Period.

“Who bought her?” I asked shakily. Paige had been one of my dearest friends as a child. She was always too good and too sweet, and I’d prayed she’d gotten out of this world like I had.

“How am I supposed to know?” Delaney shrugged, picking at the corner of my dresser with her nail. She glanced between Olivia and me, then rolled her eyes and started for the door. “I’ll go bother someone else. This is boring too.”

“Go back to your room right now,” Olivia hissed, using a tone I’d never heard come out of her before.

Delaney eyed her for a moment before disappearing.

Olivia smoothed her hands over her skirt and gave me a smile that lacked her usual sparkle.

“I need to go take care of that mess. I’ll come back and make your bed. ”

“Wait,” I said before she left. Olivia turned back to me. I fidgeted with my hands and swallowed past the lump in my throat. “You mentioned Killian has been holed up in his office?”

For a moment, she didn’t say anything. She just eyed me, curious and contemplative. “I did. You know the way, don’t you?”

I nodded through the burn of tears that threatened to overwhelm me. I needed him now more than ever, regardless of how furious I was with him.

Olivia backed out into the hallway and rapped her knuckles on the door. “Blame Francesco for leaving your door unlocked, okay?”

I counted to sixty, giving her enough time to be far enough from my room that nobody would see us together.

Then I bolted.