Page 12

CHAPTER

TWELVE

ADALYN

A t breakfast that morning, I learned from Jesse that Lexi didn’t stay the night and although I felt somewhat satisfied by that information, I didn’t exactly know why.

In the days that followed, Marco continued to play the part of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but whereas before I was annoyed by not knowing which character he’d play for the day, I now found myself intrigued by it.

Using my newly acquired car, I spent a few days visiting various up-scale furniture shops, galleries, and textile stores to gather inspiration for my room. I had done little more than purchase a lamp by the end of the week, yet I still felt a sense of progress. It may have only been a lamp, but to me it represented acceptance of my life in Chicago.

My other car was scheduled to arrive over the weekend, and I could hardly contain my excitement. As the week wore on, not only did I find myself accepting my new life, but I was also starting to enjoy it.

Despite having been brought to the pale, stone walls of Marco’s mansion as a captive, it was starting to feel…more like home.

“I have a job offer for you.”

Marco and I sat in the formal dining room on Friday evening just as we had the rest of the week. At first, I’d found our new routine odd and uneasy but as time wore on, I was starting to look forward to our evening conversations.

“I thought you didn’t like the idea of me working,” I answered, recalling what he’d said the previous day when I had first brought it up.

I was growing increasingly weary of sitting by the pool and given the number of staff he had around the place, it wasn’t like I could make myself busy by being useful. I needed something to do with my time, regardless of whether it was conventional in our world or not.

I had even offered to volunteer at Marco’s church, which he had vehemently prohibited, and it made me question whether he had even been attending recently. They were certainly unlikely to be happy with our particular arrangement …

“I changed my mind.” Marco responded simply, his eyes coasting to me across the table.

I grimaced, “No, I am not being one of your cocaine girls.”

A half-smile pulled at his lips.

“I wasn’t thinking that.” He rubbed a hand absentmindedly across his jaw. “I have an opening at one of my casinos. It is an assistant general manager role.”

My mouth gaped and my fork clattered noisily to my plate.

“Wh-I am not qualified enough for a job like that.” I tripped over the words, completely overwhelmed.

“You are organized and astute, those two things cannot be taught. The rest you will pick up through training and experience. The venue is twenty minutes from here. Your hours will be flexible, and the pay is good too. You should take it.”

There was no possible way I could agree to the offer.

“What’s the catch?” I asked, skeptical for obvious reasons. There was always a catch with the Cosa Nostra.

“There’s no catch, Ada.”

I turned it over in my mind as I finished my bite of food. “Can I think about it?”

“Of course.”

I turned my attention back to eating and speared another piece of spaghetti, popping it into my mouth.

“I hear your new car is being delivered tomorrow.” Marco offered after a few minutes.

I grinned, “I cannot wait!”

My beautiful Brabus C63 was scheduled to arrive tomorrow around lunch time, and I was damned near counting down the minutes until its arrival. I was feeling truly excited, and I couldn’t keep the happiness off my face.

“Then it was worth the $241,320 it cost me,” He drawled sarcastically.

“Woops. Guess you won’t be able to afford another hostage anytime soon then,” I mocked.

“Unfortunately,” He lamented and I giggled, my good mood making me more jovial than normal.

A smile pulled at the corner of his lips, flashing his perfect white teeth in a way that caused my heart to sputter in my chest.

“I was thinking…” I began, half to distract myself from it. “I know my Hellcat isn’t allowed in your fancy pants garage, but is there space for my Brabus?”

He chewed his food slowly, as if contemplating the question in great length. I could tell that rushing him was unlikely to get me the answer I wanted, so I focused on pushing my food about the plate rather than the fact that I wanted to tear my hair out with impatience.

“Potentially… but you’re not allowed to drive it inside. You can leave it out front and one of the others will move it.”

Well, it wasn’t a flat no. “Don’t trust me around your expensive cars?” I concluded.

“Something like that.”

I huffed but eventually agreed.

After a terrible night’s sleep and a restless morning, I decided to give up trying. I crawled out of bed and into the shower at a little after six. I straightened my hair, threw on some jeans and a loose fitted blouse, then headed downstairs in search of some coffee to help wake up.

As I approached the kitchen, Marco and Jesse’s familiar Italian filtered down the hall. I hovered outside the door a moment trying to understand what they were saying, but it was useless.

I silently cursed my father for his failure to provide an Italian tutor when I was growing up.

I decided now was as good a time as any to make my presence known.

“Morning.” I muttered, strolling over to the coffee maker on the side and collecting the ground coffee.

“Not a morning person, hey?” Jesse mocked, and I promptly flipped him the bird.

“I would have slept fine if it wasn’t for your irritating voice booming across the halls.” I retorted, watching the coffee as it brewed.

“Seconded.” The unfamiliar humor in Marco’s voice compelled me to look over at him.

I wish I hadn’t.

It was the first time I hadn’t seen him in a suit…or almost naked.

This morning he was dressed in casual shorts and a tank top, accentuating each of his heavily tattooed, muscular arms. His dark hair wasn’t its usual pristine self, tousled in different directions as if he had just run his hands through it. A thin sheen of sweat coating his forehead. He looked like he had just finished up in the gym…or a serious sex session.

With that lingering thought, I forced myself to look anywhere other than at the glorious man as he stood leaning casually against the counter.

It was the first time I noticed Jesse dressed in similar attire too.

“Why are you both so sweaty?” I questioned, looking more at Jesse than the God of darkness beside him.

He was the kind of man that women happily sold their souls to the devil for, and judging by his air of cool confidence, he knew it.

“Gym. You should try it once in a while.” Came Jesse’s sarcastic response.

“Oh, ouch. If you were actually attractive, then that might have hurt.” I lilted, turning back to my task and pouring the steaming coffee into a mug.

“Can I get one, please.”

I jolted in surprise as Marco materialized beside me soundlessly, a mug already in hand.

“S-Sure.”

I recovered and took the mug, placing it beside mine and filling it. I went over to the fridge to retrieve the cream and milk, collecting some sugar along the way. I poured a little of the cream, a little of the milk and two scoops of sugar before swirling and tasting. Damn that’s good.

I placed it back down on the counter and within a blink of an eye a hand snaked out and took it. Marco took a big swig from the cup before setting it back down on the counter.

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

Where has all this come from?

“I was skeptical.” He shrugged, answering my unspoken question. “But it’s good. Can you make mine like that? Please.”

I had never heard him so much as utter the word please before and now he was saying it twice in a five-minute window… It was like hell had finally frozen over.

I sighed and shook my head in disbelief and got back to work repeating the process.

Jesse muttered something I couldn’t understand and started laughing as Marco retook his earlier position against the counter. The latter just smiled charmingly, flashing his perfect white teeth, completely unaffected.

I finished up making his coffee and slid it over to him.

“What about breakfast then, Bandit?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I have more important things to do this morning!” I half-sung happily as I made my way across the tiled floor.

“Like what? Rearranging your sock drawer?”

“Aw sweetie, did some girl give you that excuse at a club? That’s really sad.” I mock-soothed him, rubbing him on the back like a child. “But no, I have to prepare for the love of my life…who is arriving any minute!”

Jesse’s face looked at me confused until Marco clarified for him. “She means her new car.”

“Well, I am off to rearrange my sock drawer. Bye, boys!”

A sound of a reversing truck echoed from the other side of the mansion, and I jumped to my feet, screeching with excitement.

I had been sitting on the terrace online shopping for furniture all morning, unable to sit still in anticipation for my new car’s arrival.

It’s here! It’s here!

I all but ran out to the driveway as a covered transporter came to a stop on the driveway.

“Mrs. La Torre, it is good to see you. You look well.” The salesperson greeted.

Mrs. La Torre?

He must have said it by mistake.

I didn’t raise it though. “I am well, thank you.”

The doors to the transporter were pulled open by the driver and a few minutes later my car was descending slowly onto the driveway. The sleek onyx paintjob gleamed against the sunshine, and a smile so big it hurt, plastered itself across my face. It was goddamn beautiful.

“So, what do you think?” He asked, gesturing to the vehicle that was more akin to something out of a Batman movie.

“I think it looks too fast for her to handle.” Came Jesse’s mocking voice as he approached us.

The men laughed at my expense, and we proceeded to walk around the car, examining it intently.

“As you can see, the armoring company have fitted extra thick ballistic glass and ballistic steel, culminating in high grade run-flat tires and armored wheel wells.”

Armoring company? That was news to me.

I shot Jesse a pointed look that said ‘we’ll talk about this later’, and he shrugged sheepishly.

We took our seats in the front, and I was talked through each of the various functions available. The thing resembled a spaceship more closely than it did a car, and I was blown away by all its features.There was an array of different screens, control panels and buttons adorning the console…none of which I had the faintest idea how to use.

I stayed out in the car the rest of the afternoon, too busy reading the driver’s manual to contemplate going in for lunch. I only took it for a drive once, too invested in learning everything about my new car before properly taking it out. I played around with all the features and learned how to use the navigation system and entertainment center in more detail. I also figured out the car had a distress beacon… which quickly led to two of the security guards legging it out the side of the building toward me. Oops!

I made a mental note not to touch that particular button again.

After they went back inside and the afternoon had drifted into evening, I set about adjusting the interior lighting until the cockpit glowed a deep shade of red.

A gentle knock on my window brought me back to reality, and I rolled down the glass, unable to make out who was on the other side in the darkness.

“It looks good, Ada.” I heard his voice before I saw his face. “Do you mind if I join you?” He gestured his illuminated chin to the passenger side and my chest sputtered.

I nodded, and the passenger door promptly opened. I tried not to watch as Marco’s muscular body came to rest gracefully in the leather bucket seat beside me.

The car filled with his spicy scent and his presence immediately warmed the air, brushing against my skin. He didn’t seem to notice the sudden heaviness between us, focusing on adjusting his seat and looking over the car’s interior.

Lord have mercy.

“It’s alright, isn’t it,” he remarked looking about the inside. I couldn’t help a stupid laugh from escaping my lips.

“Marco, you are sitting in a $240,000 car, and all you can say is ‘it’s alright’? You’re such a snob.”

“I prefer ‘vehicle enthusiast’,” he corrected with a smirk, earning him an eye roll.

“So…” He began growing nervous, which was odd for him. “Are we going to take it for a spin?”

“Yes, I am. And you are most welcome to come along for the ride.”

He scowled and muttered an irritated, “Fine.”

I handed him the driver’s manual I was still reading, and after a few seconds of staring at me like I had just escaped from a zoo, he stored it away in the glove compartment. I then readjusted my seat, checked my mirrors, and strapped myself in, ready for my first evening drive.

Anxiety quickly made me rethink my decision however… Not because it was the most expensive car I had ever driven at night, but because I had Don Marco La Torre, one of the most powerful men in the continental United States, as my passenger.

One look at Marco’s face told me that that particular fact hadn’t escaped his knowledge either.

This is ridiculous. Start the car! I commanded myself.

I pressed the ignition button, and the car purred to life. Growing to a growl as I gunned it down the driveway and out into the street. I turned up my music and relaxed back into the plush leather, enjoying the sense of calm I could only achieve through tires on the road.

“Christ! Would you slow down?” Marco’s voice interrupted my pleasant train of thought.

I immediately looked at the speedometer and scowled. What the hell was he talking about?

“Quit your shit, I’m hardly above the speed limit.” I dismissed.

“You’re going forty in a thirty.” He retorted.

“Well, it’s my car. My rules.”

“That I paid for.” He observed.

I chose to ignore him, turning my full attention to the road.

After ten minutes or so, my stomach growled loudly, and I was reminded that I’d skipped lunch and dinner earlier. Looking at the clock now, it was fast approaching half nine and eating was becoming a necessity rather than optional. I did a quick U-turn and headed back down the high street we had just come from, pulling into the McDonald’s we passed earlier and joining the back of the drive-through queue.

“What the hell are you doing?” Marco demanded, staring about in disgust.

“Getting fast food. I’m starving.”

I pulled the car forward with the traffic and studied the menu board now visible before us.

“Hmm… I’m fancying a quarter pounder with bacon. What are you gonna get?” I looked over to him as he stared, clearly annoyed, out the window.

“I don’t eat fast-food crap.”

Didn’t realize I had a food connoisseur in the car.

I sighed derisively and a few minutes later pulled up to the microphone to place our order.

Marco had fallen into a stoney silence beside me, and after a few minutes passed, I sighed. “Oh, would you stop sulking? This is fun!” I enthused, tapping my hand impatiently against the steering wheel while we waited to pull up to the serving window.

“Yes, eating a questionable burger in a brand-new car, what could go wrong?”

“Shhh. Shut it.” I exaggerated, pulling the car up the next window.

The young man behind the glass did a double take at the car, whistling lowly. He carefully handed over the brown sacks of piping hot food and drink, which I passed to Marco for holding. I quickly paid and pulled out of the drive-through, parking the car in a quieter part of the lot.

I took the bags and unceremoniously handed him back a Big Mac meal with chicken nuggets, before taking the rest and getting out of the car.

Our security detail had not gone unnoticed by me, so I made my way over to the familiar black SUV a few spots down and passed both Wyatt and Layton a meal each through the window. They looked just as confused as Marco had, and I couldn’t help but smile all the way back to my car.

“That was nice of you.” Marco murmured as I retook my seat behind the wheel.

I shrugged, uncomfortable with his unexpected praise.

When I looked over at him, I was surprised to see half of his burger had already been demolished.

Doesn’t eat fast-food my ass.

But I knew better than to call him out on it.

I tucked into my bacon filled burger of heaven and we settled into comfortable silence for a moment. Although we had eaten dinner together many times before, we had never been completely alone. This time the quiet felt much more intimate and my stomach grew nervous.

“So, your aversion to fast food… is it a life you chose or did the life choose you?” I questioned, trying to disperse some of my internal tension.

I thought I heard a snort of muted laughter. “I guess it’s more of a habit than a life choice,” he mused. “I played varsity football in college and it just kind of stayed with me.”

Of course, he had been the typical high-school jock…popular, handsome, and good with the ladies. That much I had expected…but varsity football? That was surprising.

“Really? Where for?”

“The University of Michigan.” He shrugged.

“You’re joking.” My jaw slackened as I stared at him.

“Nope. I was a running back, number thirty.” He said around a mouthful of chicken nugget.

“That’s incredible. I bet it was awesome to play in a stadium that big.”

“Yeah, it was.” He sighed and stared out the window. “But it didn’t last. I was halfway through my final year when my father died in the raid, and I had to step up to lead the family.”

My heart filled with genuine empathy for him, seeing the weight of emotions now lining his face. It wasn’t easy for him to talk about this, I realized.

“It was good though… I remember those days fondly.”

“Let me guess, that’s where you picked up your girlfriend Lexi?” I rolled my eyes at him, trying to lighten the mood.

Lexi was the typical cheerleader type—leggy blonde with an abundance of confidence.

“God no.” He laughed darkly. “She waitressed at one of my clubs… and is definitely not my girlfriend.” He shook his head as if in disgust.

Interesting… I took satisfaction from that particular piece of information.

“What about you? Did you ever go to college?” he asked, though I am pretty sure he already knew the answer to that question.

“I wanted to. Even applied to schools and everything, but my father refused to let me go.” I shook my head sadly at the memory.

I had barged into his office one afternoon with not one but two acceptance letters in my hand. I was desperate for him to congratulate me. Tell me he was proud of me… Instead, he became enraged and declared me selfish. My ‘insistence on following a hare-brained dream would blow the safety of our whole family’, as he so lovingly put it.

“What would your major have been?” He questioned, breaking the silence that had enveloped the car.

“Business.” We both shared a look and simultaneously broke into laughter.

A thrill of excitement swirled in my stomach at the sound of his laugh. It was incredibly deep and attractive, warming me in places I really didn’t want to think about with him less than a meter away.

“That’s original,” he remarked, and I grinned. “Did you ever use to cheer at school?”

“When I was Adalyn Mannino… no. I would rather die than cheer. But when we went into hiding and I assumed my Adalyn Parker role… I was forced into try-outs by my parents and made the squad because my father paid off the coach. I was the worst on the team.” Marco began shaking his head disbelievingly. “What? I kicked the mascot in the head once in the middle of a sequence. It was really bad.” He had looked away, but I thought I heard him chuckling quietly.

“You wouldn’t have made varsity then,” he pointed out.

“No, probably not.” I breathed out around a laugh.

“So, if you didn’t cheer in school and you didn’t go to college, what did you actually do?” he questioned, finishing up with his fries while I took another bite of my burger.

“I was captain of the volleyball team throughout high school, so you could say I did that…but overall, I just threw a lot of parties that served a lot of alcohol. It’s pretty funny how much popularity you can attain with those two things alone.”

He chuckled and shook his head, watching me as I continued eating my food.

“How about this,” he suggested. “I’ve finished eating the crap you’ve put in front of me, and you haven’t, so why don’t I drive us home?”

I eyed him suspiciously and he flashed a boyish smile that was so devastating it caused my heart to skid to a stop, knocking me into a kind of daze.

That kind of smile was dangerous. Very dangerous.

“Not to mention I did pay for the damn thing.” He added when I still hadn’t said anything.

My heart restarted and I frowned. One look at his expression and I knew there wasn’t going to be an easy way out of this one.

“Fine,” I grumbled, collecting my food and heaving myself out of the driver’s side door.

I met him halfway around the car and stopped in front of him. “You so much as ding an alloy, run over a moth, or wrap us around a tree, and I will rip your dick off. Am I clear?” I barked, thoroughly hating relinquishing control to someone I had never even observed driving.

He rolled his eyes but muttered, “crystal” as we both rounded the car and retook our seats.

He immediately sank the driver’s seat flat to the floor and repositioned himself to get comfortable. His long limbs hit the ignition button, and the car purred to life beneath his strong, capable hands.

Fuck.

Seeing him handle the car expertly was making my core smolder with heat.

I tried to ignore the sudden aching between my thighs as he pulled the car out of the parking lot and headed back down main street.

Realizing I was getting overwhelmed and was now blatantly staring, I turned my attention to my fries and looking out the window. Trying to distract myself from the part of my brain that wanted to mount him like a bike, whether he was a big scary Don or not.

It was then that I realized something.

“What the fuck is this?” I blurted, looking over at the screen in front of him. “Why are you driving so slow?”

Marco scowled for a minute without answering…or driving any faster.

“I’m driving sensibly.”

“You’re driving like an old man,” I observed.

“It’s a limit, not a target,” he retorted.

“I thought you Mafia men were supposed to be hardcore. You know: don’t give a crap about speed limits and all that?” I mocked. “I think I’ve been short changed.”

The internal lighting illuminated the familiar ticking of his jaw muscle… I was getting to him.

“My Grandmother drives faster and she’s dead,” I prodded.

Nothing.

“Or is it you’re just a bad driver?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“That’s it!” He growled.

Bingo!

Without warning, he violently threw the car to the right and stepped on the gas. I started panicking until I realized, he had pulled us into a mostly abandoned carpark outside of Target.

He brutally turned the wheel, and we started drifting across the empty expanse, tires screeching against the tarmac. I squealed with the initial shock but began cheering as adrenaline kicked in. It spurred him on, and after initially righting us, the car sunk into a large doughnut that left black tire marks streaking across the floor and smoke lingering in the air.

“I take it back! I take it back!” I laughed as we came to an abrupt halt. Marco was smiling as well, flashing me a perfect, toothy grin that made me feel… things .

“Again!” I demanded, and he immediately repeated the process.

This time he held the doughnut until we spun out and my head felt dizzy. Skid marks littered the parking lot, and I couldn’t contain the grin of contentment adorning my face.

It was then that I noticed a police car pull up slowly just outside the entrance behind us.

“Shit! Marco, the cops!” I exclaimed, touching his shoulder to get his attention and trying to ignore the jolt of static the contact sent up my arm.

He just laughed. “Then let’s give them a show.”

He reversed fiercely, the speedometer hitting almost thirty before he jerked the steering wheel, throwing us to the side. We came to a violent standstill, facing at the squad car as he revved the engine thunderously in challenge.

“Are you crazy?” I yelled.

It appeared my fears had been short lived however, as the cop car lingered for only another second before slowly peeling away and disappearing down the road.

“What the hell?” I asked in confusion.

I mean we paid off the cops in Las Vegas don’t get me wrong… but they didn’t know us by our vehicles or anything. Not to mention I’d had the car for less than 12 hours.

“It’s the number plate. It tells them to fuck off.”

How powerful is this family? I gulped.

“I told you. The name La Torre comes with a lot of perks,” he said, reading my expression.

Instead of continuing our stunts around the parking lot, Marco pulled off into the now quiet streets and headed back to the house at his previous languid pace. The once alien surroundings were fast becoming familiar, and I couldn’t deny the sense of comfort I felt as we pulled into the perfectly manicured driveway of the mansion.

Marco didn’t park the car outside the garage as agreed, instead preferring to pull up out front. He then handed our garbage over to Layton and Wyatt, who materialized behind us, and after triple checking the car was locked properly, I joined him inside.

The house was quiet and dark as we entered, and I couldn’t catch sight of Lucia or Jesse, which indicated it was probably much later than I’d thought.

“I think everyone’s gone to bed,” Marco said. His muted voice resonated in the silence.

I turned on my heel and found him standing close behind me. I met his gaze and felt a familiar heat vibrate through my body. He looked ridiculously hot, still dressed in civilian clothes similar to those he wore this morning.

His hand reached out and caught a stray hair from the side of my face, gently tucking it behind my ear.

I held my breath, shocked by the tingles that danced across my skin at the contact.

Slowly and cautiously, he leaned in toward me and I stilled as his lips brushed my cheek gently.

“Goodnight.”

He pulled away and looked down at me with a half-smile playing on his face.

It took me two seconds too long to process the gesture before my legs started working, “Goodnight, Marco,” I said as I turned to the stairs, beginning my ascent.

“Ada?” I turned around to look back down at him.

“Do you still think I’m a bad driver?” His charming boyish grin was back.

Damn I could climb that like a tree… No! Stop it!

“Jesse’s better.” I shrugged and his arrogant smile turned into a frown. I laughed. Got him again…

“Just kidding, Boss,” I mocked and continued up the stairs.

His deep chuckle followed me as I went.

It felt like I was seeing a different side to him…again.

Again, the lines between ruthless Mafia boss and twenty-nine-year-old relatable and extremely attractive guy were becoming blurred and I didn’t know how to stop it.