Page 55 of Taken by the Mafia King (Kings of Philly #1)

SERA

“ C lose the fucking curtains, Olivia.” My tongue stuck to the top of my mouth, dry as sandpaper. Light poured into the room and set my head throbbing like someone was beating me to death with a hammer.

Olivia snorted with mirth as she ripped open another set of curtains, this time directing the unforgiving light of day right over my eyes. I winced, shielding myself from the sun.

“Don’t worry,” she sang as she moved about the room. “I brought you the cure . My nonna loved her brandy, you see. But she had to be well for Mass every morning.”

Something clinked against the bedside table, and I peeked through my fingers to find Olivia measuring some sticky, smelly liquid into a silver spoon.

“Get that away from me.” My nose wrinkled at the stench. A rich, herbal scent hit me and settled deep in my gut.

“Open up,” she chided, reaching down to pinch my thigh as I clenched my jaw.

“You bitch!”

She shoved the spoon into my mouth, and I jerked off the bed, swinging out an arm. I missed her completely, and her laugh cut through the sound of me hitting the floor. I gagged, choking down something acrid and gritty and foul.

“What the hell was that?”

“Oh, a little something I cooked up.” She crossed herself, kissing her fingertips and raising her hand to the heavens. “You’ll be thanking my nonna here shortly. She’s always listening, so if you complain, she’ll hide one of each of your paired socks.”

“Held against my will by a murderer and tended to by a kooky maid.” My stomach roiled as I crawled on my hands and knees across the floor.

I leaned against the foot of my bed, trying to shield myself from the light in the room like a vampire.

If I was a vampire, that concoction would have certainly killed me.

“Any second now,” Olivia said.

Something clinked again, and I glanced up through narrowed eyes as she messed with what looked like a tray of breakfast sitting on the table by the window.

“I’m not eating. Oh, God.” I gasped as the most intense wave of nausea I’d ever felt hit me like a battering ram. I pitched forward on the carpet and scrambled on all fours, eventually mustering enough momentum to get onto my feet.

“What did you do to me?” I cried as I hurtled to the bathroom, one hand over my mouth just in case I didn’t make it.

I hit my knees in front of the toilet while Olivia hummed under her breath in the bedroom like she hadn’t just given me the worst stomachache of my life.

She continued to hum and sing while I expelled all the contents of my stomach.

Suffice it to say, her herbal poison was even worse coming up than it was going down.

When I came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I wanted to fall face first into bed. Whatever potion from the depths of hell she’d force fed me had caused me to puke up every lingering shred of alcohol left in my system.

Slightly dizzy, I stumbled back to the bed, but she snapped her fingers and smiled.

“Step two. Eat something greasy.”

“Oh my God. Please leave me alone.”

“I will, once you eat. And take some aspirin. And drink some water. All the water,” she said, pointedly looking at the glass on the tray.

I groaned and sank into one of the chairs at the small table beside the window.

Hash browns, sausage, and pancakes coated in butter stared back up at me as I clutched my fork like a weapon.

I held out my other hand for the aspirin and she dumped an obscene amount into my palm.

I threw the pills back and gulped some water.

Then I chased it with a scalding black coffee that burned all the way to my stomach.

After a few minutes I felt as though I’d only drank sparkling water the night before and the jumbled memories from the club had been nothing more than a weird dream.

“See?” She smiled from where she was tidying my room. “You feel better, don’t you?”

“I feel like I got hit by a train,” I corrected, then tilted my head. “And survived. But yes, I do feel better.”

“Nonna always knew best,” she chimed, straightening out my bedspread.

Now that my brain wasn’t drowning in gin, I looked down and realized I was dressed in a cream-colored cashmere pajama set. “I don’t recognize these pajamas.”

“Oh, I got you dressed last night. And I dropped a few electrolyte tablets in your water bottle.”

“Um, thanks.”

“Killian said he took you to Diavola ,” she murmured, giving me a playful look. “My sister is a dancer there. I’ve heard it’s very high class.”

“I don’t remember it at all.”

She giggled and poured me another cup of coffee. “Perhaps that’s for the best.”

When we locked eyes, she gave me a knowing wink, and I started to giggle too. She had a point. Whatever depravity I’d engaged in last night was probably better left in the dark recess of a drunken memory I would never be able to recall.

We joked about how I might have gotten up on stage, and my cheeks burned at the thought as I crammed a large chunk of pancake into my mouth. The maple syrup was sweet heaven and I went in for another bite.

The door burst open and slammed against the wall.

I yelped and dropped my fork, which left a sticky maple-syrupy mess on my cashmere pants.

Delaney stalked through the door, her face ashen and glistening with tears.

I shot her a dirty look she was too self-absorbed to notice.

Whatever drama she wanted to share wasn’t worth ruining my comfy pants or losing a bite of pancake.

Olivia stood behind me and didn’t say a word. No one spoke. I hated when people did this kind of thing—showed up and waited to be asked what was wrong.

So performative.

“What is it, Delaney?” I rolled my eyes and looked at Olivia.

I expected Olivia to at least indulge me in a knowing smile and some shared annoyance, but her eyes were wide and fixed on Delaney.

Delaney didn’t look at me. Her unseeing gaze was fixed on the carpet at her feet. And in her right hand, she gripped a revolver.

“Delaney,” I said slowly. “What’s going on?”

“I went snooping,” Delaney whispered, sounding unearthly and unlike herself.

Her eyes glazed over. “There’s a room downstairs…

in the basement. It smelled like bleach but there were…

stains. I grew up in this life. I know what old blood looks like.

” She abruptly shook her head and snapped her gaze to mine.

“I’ve heard of them, of course, but I’ve never seen one before. A killing room.”

Olivia stood up. “How did you get out of your room?”

Delaney’s choked sob ripped through the air, and for the first time, she seemed human—vulnerable, fragile, and unpredictable. I focused on the gun. We had to take it from her. Then we could worry about calming her down.

“Delaney,” I said gently. “Come sit with us and have breakfast.”

“I found my dad’s ring,” she blubbered.

My heart sank lower than I thought possible. Her mouth continued to work, but no words came out, just tears and snot running down her face.

“Delaney,” I said softly again, like a friend might. She didn’t look at me, so I called to her again. “You’re with me and Olivia. We aren’t going to hurt you. You’re safe here.”

For now.

Delaney ran her thumb over the cylinder of the revolver. Then her free hand pulled something from her pocket. It was small and wrapped in cloth. She held it out to me. It was then that I caught a whiff of something horrid.

Something dead.

I pinched my nose closed and reeled up out of my chair, backing away. “What is that?”

“His ring,” she cried, shaking like a wet dog. “I found his ring in the corner of the room, under some plastic.”

The stench was more unsettling than the gun in her hand.

“You shouldn’t have gone down there,” I said, shaking my head. “ Why did you go down there?”

Delaney moved toward the table. I backed up, and Olivia followed suit until we stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the large bedroom window. Delaney held her left hand over the small table, uncurled her fingers, and dropped the cloth-wrapped something right next to my breakfast.

The cloth fell away, revealing it was a lot more than a ring.

My stomach twisted, and the small amount of breakfast I’d eaten threatened to come back up.

Olivia gagged. “I’m going to be sick.” She rushed to the bathroom, where I heard her throwing up, but it sounded like she was far, far away as I processed what I was looking at. Dimly, in the back of my head, a little voice laughed that this was Olivia’s karma for making me drink that foul remedy.

Delaney with the heels of her hands. The gun pointed in every direction. Her sanity had fractured, and all it would take was one wrong move and bullets would start flying.

I moved toward her, talking softly to her, telling her I was sorry, that she must be hurting, and that I would help her. She didn’t pull away when I touched her elbow and ran my hand all the way up to her wrist, where I was able to take the gun from her.

As soon as it left her hands, all her bravado dissipated, and she pitched forward into my arms, sobbing her heart out.

I rubbed her back and made little soothing sounds.

How easily could it have been me in her position? What more would it take for me to crack like this? She annoyed me, sure, but she didn’t deserve this. Nobody did. And the blame rested with one man.

It was time he started giving a shit.

“Come with me, right now.” I wrapped the cloth back around the severed digit, scooped it off the table, and headed for the door, not waiting for her reply.

We needed to act fast because I was holding a fucking finger.