Page 16 of A New Days Don

My gaze catches on a few women laughing in a booth with one another, and I am transported back to that day with Karmin and Rain. My mind begins to fill with an airiness that makes my steps falter. I shake my head, trying to regain control over my mind, but the images come in quick, threatening bursts.

No!

I mentally shout, my fingers twitching with the need to scratch and pull on my hair to help relieve the fear bubbling.

Turning, my gaze lands on the luxurious bar with a man in a suit cleaning a glass. His eyes are lazily looking over the party. This isn’t La Cochon Rouge.

The panic in my veins crackles and threatens to pull me under, but it stays at bay for now. Vicek takes a seat in one of the stools, and I swallow thickly. My tongue feels heavier than before. Vicek stares down the bridge of his sharp nose at me, his eyes waiting for me to crack, but I don’t let him have the satisfaction.

I slowly sit beside Vicek, the velvety stool moulding to my bottom. My eyes dart around the club, noting the dark corners and cataloguing as many patrons as I can. There is a hall to the left of the bar and another one on its right. I picture those must lead to offices, bathrooms, and storage. I note them anyway, peering down each one to see three to four closed doors, before stopping at each velvet booth and checking under each table.

Vicek leans forward, his arm resting on the glass bar top as he leans in toward me. I can feel his hot breath fanning across my cheek and neck. My hands clench into fists so tight my knuckles pop and pin pricks of pain bloom along the joints.

“Personal space,” I drawl, rolling my eyes even though my blood pressure feels like it’s currently going through the roof.

Vicek leans into me, and I shudder, leaning from him, but he grabs my shoulder to stop me, “S-stop.”

My voice is a weak whisper that makes me cringe as Vicek snaps, “Relax, Mila. The only way any of these assholes will speak with us is if they don’t think we are cops.”

“Stop touching me.” I snap, balancing on the precipice of my sanity. Vicek balls the fabric of my shirt on the shoulder in a fist when I attempt to pull myself away from him. My chest constricts tightly, the dim lighting blurring.

I don’t think, I act. My hand gripping his as tight as I can, but before he or I can say anything else, another voice, deep, raspy, and dangerous, that sends goosebumps up and down my body. I wish I could say these goosebumps are from panic, but the distinct zing thrumming in my veins tells me otherwise. His voice teleports me back to last night almost instantly, “She said, let the fuck go.”

My cheeks heat with embarrassment as I face the man who caught me fainting on the job. His dark, familiar eyes pin Vicek with the cruelest, yet still unnervingly handsome glare I have ever seen.

Massimo Bianchi.

Chapter 6

Massimo

My mind drifts to the small, inky-haired temptress who was lying in my bed. I didn’t expect her to leave while I was changing, though perhaps I should have, given how skittish she was. The worst part of all of that was the way my stomach sank when I left my room to see she was nowhere to be found. I shouldn’t have cared, but I hate to admit, I was kind of looking forward to teasing her a little more.

Even now, that same hollow pit grows.

Sliding the cursor on my computer screen over to the private browser, all of her information populates.

Mila Lewis. Junior officer. The department photo of her is haunting. Her eyes look emptier than they do now. As if she were a shell of a human.

My eyes drift over each little feature. Her pale skin, her stunning raven hair, her button nose, her cerulean eyes. This close, I can see the little bit of green that threads through the vibrant blue, which seems far too dull compared to what they really are in person.

Who hurt you, angelo mio?

The incorporeal look is only something you earn after seeing or experiencing something so depraved you can’t fully return to the soul you once were before it.

She has been on the force for three years, though I couldn’t find much on her personal life, even before joining the department. All I have is her name, her parents, Jaime and Naomi Lewis, and the schools she’s attended. An artist turned police officer.

Dragging her school history back up, I eye the art school dropout record a little closer. She was in her third year. One year away from graduating.

I have reread what little I can find on her dozens of times since she left my condo.

Her dropout date catches my eye for the hundredth time. March 7th. Four days after her twenty-first birthday. I glare at the date, as if demanding answers from it will give me what it is I seek.

It doesn’t, but I know there is significance in there somewhere, and despite searching events and her history around that date, I have nothing.

“There are two cops sitting in your club. Care to explain?” Anita, Gli Amanti Litigano’s club manager, muses from my door, pulling my gaze to her.

Her brown pixie cut hair frames her delicate features. She is dressed in a pair of black dressy shorts that have pearl-studded pockets, which match her white, pearly top. I hired her for this club because she always embodies the classy hedonistic vibe that I want this club to showcase for all our patrons. She doesn’t overdo it by dressing in barely there clothing. She allows her personality and who she is to bring the lust and arousal here.