Hank and Vinny likely used drugs to knock her out while en route, and, without any food, she’s obviously still experiencing the aftereffects. Carefully, I slip my head into the loop created by her handcuffed hands, then slide my palms under her thighs. Rising, I hold the unconscious girl in my arms while she unknowingly clings to me like a cuddling koala.
“Let’s get you somewhere more comfortable, vespetta.”
I can feel the girl’s chest rising and falling as I carry her up the stairs to the ground floor. She weighs almost nothing. Her head rolls left and right on my shoulder, then lists to the side. I quickly raise my hand and cup her cheek, keeping her head in place, with her nose snuggled into the crook of my neck. Her breaths are slow, fanning the skin on the underside of my chin. The warm exhales are so soft, like a flutter of butterfly wings.
“Boss?” Vinny hurries over when I round the corner.
“Uncuff her,” I say through gritted teeth. “Gently.”
He takes the key from his pocket and rushes around me to work on the cuffs. The girl tenses, and I barely suppress the urge to take out my gun and shoot the idiot in the head right there.
“Hush, it’s okay,” I whisper into the girl’s ear, then look at my men. “Go outside and wait for me by the garage. Both of you. Now.”
The woman in my arms doesn’t even stir as I climb the stairs to the upper level. If it wasn’t for her kitten-like breaths, I’d think she was dead. How could someone so tiny and fragile-looking fight off two grown men, dealing out obvious damage? There can’t be more than five feet to her, and I bet she weighs less than a hundred pounds, soaking wet. No doubt they underestimated her. I won’t. She might be the size of a nymph, but looks can often be deceiving.
I use my elbow to push open the white door on the right side of the hallway, then bring the girl inside. It’s not until I’m facing the big four-poster bed by the window that I realize where I am. My bedroom. I guess the fatigue thoroughly scrambled my brain, because I intended to take her to the guest room across the way. Now that I’m here, though . . . I can’t picture her anywhere else.
More high jinks from my tired gray matter is my guess.
No one other than me has ever slept in that bed. Ever. Not even my hookups. I’ve always fucked either in my office or taken them to a suite at one of my hotels. Having this woman here is uncanny.
The moment her cheek touches my pillow, she lets out a purr-like sigh and curls into a fetal position. I tilt my head to the side, observing my little hacker. Asleep. In my bed. Tangled strands of jet-black hair partially cover her sweet face, so I reach and push them aside, and then just stare. Like some hypnotized fool.
She’s young, in her early twenties most likely. Her slight build, however, makes her appear even younger. The bedside lamp casts soft light on her delicate frame, and it only heightens her perfect features. Even with dirt on her face and messy hair, she’s so damn beautiful—almost mythic. I wish I could see her eyes again. They were mesmerizing.
My gaze wanders over her sleeping form, stopping on her wrists. Immediately, rage reignites within me.
Fast, painless death is what I had in mind for her up until the moment she swiped that broken bottle at me in the cellar. Hurt, scared, and barely conscious, but she still fought back. Still lashed out, even when her captors could squash her with one blow.
I thought I’d seen it all during my years as an active member of my assassination crew. Every target tries to fight back. Initially, at least. But then, there’s a switch to crying. Or begging. Some offer money to let them go. To let them live. Men, twice the size of this slip-of-a-girl, would piss themselves in fear. Eventually, they all reach that point—that one moment common to them all. The moment they realize there’s no way out. That’s when the fight leaves them. Their will gives out. The weeping and pleading continue, of course, but they stop fighting back.
But, not her. She tried to kill me, even though she must have known she didn’t stand a chance. Her weapon was too inadequate to cause any serious damage. Maybe if she actually managed to hit my carotid artery by some crazy luck. Still, when she met my gaze, just before she swiped that smashed bottle at me, there was so much courage and determination in her pretty yet delirious dark eyes.
I pull the blanket over the girl, then head into my bathroom to get some gauze and antibiotic ointment for her wounds. Her wrists are raw and screaming-red, and there’s dried blood where her epidermis broke. I put a hefty amount of the cream on her skin, then secure a thin layer of dressing around her slim carpal joints. This woman may have been a major source of my agitation recently, but for some reason, I can’t stand the idea of her enduring even a smidgen of pain.
With one more look at my beautiful and gutsy hacker, I leave the room.
Hank and Vinny are hanging out near Guido’s car where it’s parked out in front of the garage. I approach and level a heavy look at them both. “Did you enjoy manhandling a woman that’s a third of your size?”
“She torched my face, boss,” Hank replies, avoiding my gaze. “The fucking bitch is crazy. She must have grabbed a can of deodorant from the jet’s bathroom, and then she turned it into a goddamned flamethrower when all I did was offer her the smoke she asked for. Then, she almost stabbed Vinny’s eye out with a toothbrush. She’s seriously nuts. When we first nabbed her, she hit him with her backpack, swinging it like she was batting at Wrigley Field, for fuck’s sake.”
“Who put the handcuffs on her? Her wrists are scraped raw.”
“Um, I did.” Vinny fidgets from foot to foot. “She wouldn’t cooperate. It was easier to drag her around with those on.”
Drag her. I nod, then reach inside my jacket and pull out my gun. “Do you remember your training and the lesson on manners?”
“Yes,” he chokes out, his eyes frantic and focused on the silencer I’m screwing into place. “But . . . you were going to kill her. Why does it matter if—”
He never finishes his bullshit excuse because I press the gun to his forehead and pull the trigger. Blood splashes onto my brother’s car, tainting the windows and the sleek body lines of his prized possession. Hank gapes at me from next to his dead buddy, face draining of color as the reality of his worthless future settles in. There’s blood and brain matter on his cheek and in his hair.
“Give me your hand,” I order.
“Boss, I . . .”
I shove the gun to the bridge of his nose. “Now.”
Slowly, he extends his left hand toward me—palm up—his fingers shaking. Before he has a chance to start pleading his case, I’ve got the barrel butted up to his middle finger and I’m squeezing the trigger. An agonized howl explodes into the night.
“Touch her again, and it’ll be your skull next,” I bark and head back inside, still fuming. I don’t understand why, but I can’t get the sight of the girl’s wounded wrists out of my mind.
Guido’s apartment is on the ground floor, in the east wing of the estate. I find my brother sprawled on his couch, watching TV.
“Had a look at your hacker?” he asks, still focused on his movie. “Did you kill her already?”
I round the couch, grab the front of his shirt, and yank him up. Then, I punch him in the face with my free hand.
“Fuck, Raff!” He presses his hands over his bloody schnoz. “What the hell was that for?”
“Next time you see a woman being mistreated and do nothing, I’ll do much more than break your nose.”
“I didn’t think you’d care. You wanted the hacker dead.”
“I didn’t know that he, is in fact, a she!”
“It never mattered before.”
He’s right. It never did. Man, woman, a damn unicorn sprouting rainbows and sparkles out of its ass—it never mattered. You mess with my business, I destroy you. So why the fuck am I standing here, after knocking my brother’s mug, thinking about the woman in my room upstairs, and wondering if I should head up and toss another blanket over her to ward off the chill?
