Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80536 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
If a woman was going to survive inside my world, she had to be strong.
From the looks of things, Isabella Costa was that.
She was also beautiful with her soft, rounded, feminine face with plump lips, deep-set light brown eyes, and long, wavy black hair.
I might have been making the deal to bring peace between warring Families.
But I wasn’t going to shackle myself to a wife I didn’t find attractive in the process.
I’d just been getting out of my car in front of the warehouse when I’d seen the van with two of my soldiers in it pulling up.
You could say I was pleasantly surprised to see the tiny woman break free from their hold and attempt to run for her life.
She probably thought that people were inherently good.
That was her mistake.
No one was going to save her.
No one was going to get in the middle of my business.
She was in my neck of the woods.
Which meant she was completely at my mercy.
She was even smaller up close and personal. Her arm felt a little too breakable when my hand closed around it to drag her back toward the warehouse, giving my men a hard look that had them shrinking into themselves, likely worried about the repercussions of making me finish a job I’d hired them to carry out.
I’d have to punish them.
I was not the kind of man who ran his organization based on trust and understanding of mistakes.
I reigned with rules and ruthless consequences.
So while I knew that my neighborhood would not fuck around and get in my business, no matter what their moral compass was saying, I couldn’t look the other way when some of my men aired my business out like dirty laundry either.
I led the woman around the warehouse toward the back service entrance, taking her up to the third floor where the conference room and offices were. If this day went like I planned for it to go, she would end up on the top floor. A floor where only close personal friends and high-ranking men in my Family were permitted to go.
My home.
Where I planned to keep her.
Indefinitely.
Maybe reluctantly at first. But, eventually, willingly.
But until the deal was made and the vows were exchanged, she wasn’t a wife, she was a prisoner. Which meant she got tossed in the empty storage room that served as a cell when necessary.
“Here you go,” I said, yanking open the door to a room that had a small cot, a bottle of water, and nothing else.
When her feet refused to move forward, I grabbed her other arm, pushing her into the small space.
“I’ll take this off,” I told her, reaching for the end of the duct tape. “You can scream as much as you want in here. No one will hear you. And if they do, they won’t save you,” I said, taking an uncharacteristic level of gentleness when removing the tape from her lips. Those were lips I would need to have a first kiss with if or when the plan was in motion. I’d prefer they weren’t all ripped up. “We can do better than this,” I added, gesturing toward her duct-taped wrists.
I watched as her eyes widened when I reached into my pocket for a set of handcuffs I almost always kept on me. Experience told me that you never knew when you might need a set.
I clipped the bracelets on her wrists before removing the duct tape. If she struggled against the tape, she could fuck up her wrists. And this deal wasn’t going to happen if her Family thought I was harming her.
Finished, I took a step back.
“Sit tight. We have a meeting to attend in a few hours’ time,” I said, making my way to the door.
“Please, don’t,” she begged, voice choked, like it was killing her to do it. But there was something inside that was stronger than her pride. “Please, don’t leave me in here. I won’t try to escape again. Please,” she cried, voice taking on an edge that hinted at tears.
I wasn’t a gentle man.
But I felt the unfamiliar urge to go back on my word, to take her out of the room, to keep her from continuing to panic like she clearly was.
Which was exactly why I couldn’t do that.
“It will all be clear in a few hours,” I told her, then closed and locked the door. “You,” I called, snapping at one of my soldiers that was standing around. “You guard this door. No one goes in, or they answer to me,” I told him, the threat clear in my tone. “And she does not come out, either, unless it is cleared with me first.”
“Got it, boss,” the soldier agreed, nodding like his life depended on proving to me he could handle the job.
It did.
Alright.
That was one prisoner down.