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I left the kitchen, walking quickly to try to keep ahead of Renato.
He chuckled at my first wrong turn. “It’s this way,” he pointed out.
I stopped and spun back. He waited for me at the bend I’d just hurried around. When I reached him, he gestured to a different hall, and I started forward. This time, Renato’s hand circled my wrist and jerked me into him, forcing me to slow my pace.
“Not so fast. There’s no need to go racing around. I’m sure your sister will sleep a little more.”
“What did you and your henchmen give her last night?” I demanded. I’d been worrying about what they’d drugged Lucy with all night, though her vitals had seemed steady.
“Nothing more than a responsible doctor would for someone in her condition.”
“Her condition?” I arched a brow at him.
“Overwrought…not thinking straight. You know exactly what I mean.”
“Of course, because it’s so unreasonable to freak out when your boyfriend is shot dead in front of you and your life is threatened.”
We stood nose to nose. Well, not really, seeing as his nose was so much higher than mine. He stared down at me with an undecipherable emotion in his eyes. This wasn’t like me. I didn’t challenge authority figures or rock the boat. I didn’t get up in people’s faces, ever, but something about this man made me forget the woman I’d worked so hard to be. Sensible, hardworking, and an expert at avoiding attention.
Nobody had ever paid such close attention to me. Not until Renato.
This dangerous killer.
A ghost of amusement passed over Renato’s striking face. “Be careful, little nurse. You’re in my house now, and like I just told you – I make the rules. I won’t tolerate temper tantrums or accusations. You gave me your word, and I expect you to honor it.”
“Or?” It was like someone with a death wish had possessed my mouth and was now running the show. My brain couldn’t seem to overpower my anger and frustration.
“Or there will be consequences.”
“So, every time I do something, or Lucy says something that you don’t like, we have to be scared of being taken out to the garage and put down like dogs?” There it was. A core fear that couldn’t be ignored. How long would the ax of death hang over our heads? I didn’t know if I could take it much longer.
Renato studied me for a long moment, his gaze tracking across my face, from my splotchy old makeup to my lips, lingering there, and then returning to my eyes. “You’re really not afraid of anything, are you, Charlotte?”
I wet my lips, my mouth dry as hell again. How did this man use up all the space in every single room he was in? “Not true. I’m scared of you. I just want to know what to expect. Ineedto know.”
“You need to know so you can try to control it. You need to exert some kind of power over the situation so you can feel safer, because you need to be in charge, isn’t that right?”
Renato’s words slid over me, prickling my nerves. I didn’t like that he was psychoanalyzing me. I didn’t like that he was seeing all my soft, unprotected parts.
“What you need to understand, and soon you will, is that you’re never going to be in charge of your life in the same way again. You’re never going to go somewhere or do something without rules. You’re never going to be the one keeping you and your sister off the street. You’re never going to be the one paying down huge student loans and struggling to put food on the table. You’re never going to be the one whose shoulders bear all the burdens…even the ones you never asked for. Soon, that’ll be your husband’s job.Myjob.”
His words sunk through me like stones, hitting the bottom of my heart with odd thumps. They both infuriated me and perplexed me. I didn’t know what to make of those promises. I was a modern woman. I didn’t need a husband to take care of me and make decisions for me.
Fuck him.
Renato reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “You’re not alone anymore, Charlotte. You’re no longer the only adult in the room. The grown-ups are here now, and you will never be alone again. It’s time to let go now,bambina. It’s okay to just stop worrying about everything. You have no choices here. You’ve surrendered…it’s over.”
His hand abruptly left my hair and cupped my chin, and my pulse rate shot up, thundering through my veins. Why did I keep antagonizing this dangerous man? What the hell was wrong with me?He could have killed you already; there’s a reason why he hasn’t.Stress had burned out my survival instincts, and now I was just a crazy person who didn’t mind swimming with sharks, or something else as equally dangerous as talking back to thecapo dei capiof New Jersey.
“I’ll never stop worrying about Lucy, and I’ll never let you make every single decision for our lives without a fight.” I snorted softly.
His thumb brushed over my lips, and my face was caught in his firm grip. I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t move an inch. Last night and the oddly comforting feeling of falling asleep with his fingers in my mouth returned to me.
“You know,anima mia, Sonny was right. If you prove to be too much of a handful, we’ll have to remedy that.”
His finger brushed over my lips again. It felt good, sinfully so. I hadn’t been touched by a man who actually knew what he was doing for longer than I could remember. Not until this man first touched me at La Leonora.
My love life had been one of the dullest, most disappointing parts of my life. I’d started to think it was me. I was the common factor on all the dates I’d been on with perfectly nice guys. There was something broken inside me that couldn’t be fixed, or maybe it just wasn’t in my genes. I didn’t get the shivers when someone messaged me or feel growing excitement to see a boyfriend after time apart. I had never fallen apart in a man’s hands and wanted to repeat the experience with him. In twenty-six years, I’d had sex with a grand total of three men, and each one was less memorable than the last. I’d never come close to an orgasm with any of them, and lately I barely bothered masturbating.
