????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 13
Copy and have your life shortened ????
ALESSANDRO AND LORNA were on Luca’s last nerve. They needed to resolve
whatever was going on between them and get out of Luca’s hair so he could
deal with Caroline. He sat on the sofa staring at the pages of a random book
he pulled off the shelf and not reading anything. The longer he waited,
the
worse the consequences would be. But he had a lot to work out with
Caroline. She still didn’t trust him, still feared him too much, still looked at
her bedroom window longingly. He wanted to sit down and talk with her
yesterday. Procrastination wasn’t his style, but he couldn’t do anything with
his brother around.
Alessandro walked past to grab his keys off the hook beside the door.
Luca dropped the book and sat up straight. “Are you leaving?” He knew he
sounded too hopeful, but he couldn’t be bothered to care.
Alessandro looked over his shoulder. “I’m taking Lorna out to help with
the cabin fever. Don’t worry, we’ll be back tonight. We wouldn’t want you
to miss us.”
Of course. “Don’t rush your date for my sake.” He couldn’t help the jab
since Alessandro was obviously so sensitive about it.
He glared at Luca and muttered something about “not a date.”
Luca slouched back into the couch and closed his book.Not quitefreedom. But this was still an opportunity, and he wouldn’t waste it. “Bringdinner back with you,” he bossed his younger brother. “Least you can do.”
Alessandro rolled his eyes, but Lorna came down the stairs and theyleft. As soon as the door cli-cked shut, Luca jumped off the sofa and took thestairs two at a time. He knocked on the door of Caroline’s room and listened. No answer, but the sound of water from the bathroom. He
unlocked and opened the door slowly. “Caroline?”
She had to be in the bathroom. He hated to interrupt her shower, but
they needed to talk, even if it was throu-ghthe door to begin with. He
knocked on the bathroom door. No response. He knocked again, louder.
Still nothing. The window was closed and unbroken, so that was the only
way out of this room. Either his reporter was being stubborn, or something
bad happened. People pa-ssed out in the shower, didn’t they? And Caroline
hadn’t been eating or drinking much. It was entirely possible that she was
dehydrated and undernourished and fatigued from not sleeping.
Luca knocked harder. “Caroline? Hey, can we talk?” The sound of water
hitting the tile of the shower suddenly seemed thunderously loud.
“Caroline? Is everything okay?” Still no answer. Luca took a de-ep breath.
Probably, she was just being difficult. She did that. She liked to push him.
Maybe she wanted to see if he would invade her space while she was
vulnerable. She could be testing him to see if he would take advantage of
her. If that were the case, he’d call her clever.
“Caroline?” He couldn’t even
hear movement aside from the falling water. “Answer me, gattina,” he
whispered. “Let me know you’re all right.”
Worry started to creep in. A person could drown in an inch of water, and
if she’d fallen in a way that blocked the drain, the shower could easily
collect that much.
His throat clenched around a half-laugh. Wouldn’t that be
ironic? He brou-ght her here to save her life, did everything he could not to
kill her, only to have her drown in the shower because he didn’t force her to
drink enough water. He knocked again and let his fist slide down the door to
the knob. “If you don’t say something,
I’m going to a-ssume that you’re
incapacitated in some way and need help,” he called. He didn’t have
cameras in her bathroom—he wasn’t a creep—so he couldn’t know what
waited for him behind the door. He counted to ten in his head. No response.
“Caroline, I’m coming in,” he shouted over the sound of running water.
He
opened the door, prepared and perhaps hoping for an upset shriek. None
came. The noise of the shower was louder now, and Luca squinted throu-gh
thick steam. “Caroline?”
Out of nowhere, Caroline’s bare foot connected with Luca’s crotch and
he doubled over with a choked gasp. Always the cheap shots with this one.
She moved quickly, obviously she’d been prepared for this,
and Lucacouldn’t move out of the way fast enough to completely avoid the slash of a razor blade. It nicked the side of his neck, not de-ep and not near any major
arteries, but it still stung like a bit-ch . He covered his neck automatically,
feeling the warm smear of blood against his fingers. She wasn’t pulling
punches. She moved in a desperat,
lunging thru-sts, but Luca managed to
avoid the blade in the small space of the bathroom. He still didn’t want to
hurt her.
“Caroline,” he said, but she wasn’t listening. He shut off the shower and
tried to grab her, but her body was sli-ck, and she slid out of his grasp. She
swiped the blade at the next hand he reached toward her and left a thin line
of red across his knuckles. “Goddammit,” he cursed. She stood on a towel
on the floor. If she wouldn’t avoid cheap shots, neither would he. He used
his foot to pull the towel out from under her so she fell back,
then
simultaneously shielded the back of her head from cracking against the sink
and grabbed her wrist so she couldn’t cut him. He’d checked all her
belongings and hadn’t left a razor, so she must have found this one already
in the bathroom. He cursed himself for not checking the room for potential
weapons. Rookie mistake. She might have hurt herself if she hadn’t hurt
him, and he didn’t want to think about that possibility.
She squirmed and writhed, and he struggled to keep his hold on her.
They ended up on the floor, splashing in puddles of water on the tile. Luca
straddled her to hold her legs down and pinned her arm with his leg so he
could wrestle the blade out of her hand. He tossed it out of reach.
Only when the immediate threat had been eliminated did Luca come to
the complete realization that Caroline was nake-d. He’d been aware of the
fact, but only as an aggravation that he couldn’t hold on to her sli-ppery skin.
Now that he had her pinned down, caged between his arms, her nudity
meant something else entirely.
He hadn’t seen her na-kedbefore; hadn’ttried. He respected her privacy as much as he could while still keeping aneye on her. He tried not to think about her in ways that had her writhingunderneath him with a fu-cked-out look on her face. He really tried not toimagine what she would sound like when she mo-an-ed and how she wouldsay his name. He tried so ha-rd not to think about the way she would feel,the way she would taste, how soft her skin would be,
and how it would lookwith little purple bruises blooming across it like dandelions in an unkeptyard.
But she made it really difficult not to think about that, and the way herchest heaved with breathless panic and half-sobs, the fire in her green eyes,and her open-mouthed gasps were probably the hottest thing Luca had ever
seen.
“What are you waiting for?” Venom dripped from her words like the
blood dripping its warm trickle-down Luca’s neck and over his knuckles.
“Just ra-pe me and get it over with.”
Luca didn’t try to hide his horror or his disgust. He stood up and threw a
towel at her. “No,” he said in the scandalized sort of disgust you use when
someone suggests you eat the piece of food that fell on the ground and slid
under the refrigerator.
Caroline adjusted the towel to cover herself and sat up. Her dry halfsobs turned into large tears running down her face as she screamed with a
broken voice, “Just end it! Just ra-pe me, murder me, whatever. Just end it.”
Luca wiped at the blood on his neck and stared at her somewhere
between wanting to cradle her and comfort her because he didn’t want her
to cry and slapping her across the face because he was de-eply offended. “I
don’t know who you think I am-”
“The mafia,” she cut him off with a cli-pped finality and a wince like the
word tasted bad in her mouth.
He rubbed the blood between his fingers, still not quite sure what to
make of her. Sure, he wanted her, but he would never force her, or anyone.
“That doesn’t mean—” He shook his head. “We don’t just run around
raping and murdering women. I would never…” he trailed off. It was sick.
And of all the lives he’d taken and shoved into the dark shadowy corner of
his subconscious, he found no regret when he’d buried a rapist.
Caroline huffed a breath throu-ghher tears and pulled the towel tighter
around herself. “Coulda fooled me.” Luca narrowed his eyes. She wiped at
her cheeks. “You drugged me, kidnapped me.”
“To save you.” He knew she was smarter than this. Days of not killing
her, of doing his best to make sure she ate something and drank enough
water, had to count for something. She had to know he didn’t want her dead
by his actions, even if she wouldn’t believe his words.
“Why?” she demanded, no longer crying, but still volatile and shaky.
“Why not just kill me? Why save me?” She gained strength as she wentuntil her voice steadied and her green eyes flashed with anger.
Luca didn’t want to answer that. Not with her sitting on the floor at hisfeet, wrapped in a towel with tear-streaked desperation on her face. “Not tora-pe you.” He turned to leave.
“Wait,” she said and crawled to her feet, careful of the towel. “You said
you had no reason to lie to me. I asked a question and I want an answer.”
Gutsy. He turned around and crossed his arms over his chest. Caroline
was an enigma. Every time he thought he figured her out, she threw
something new and unexpected, like a wrench in his perfectly oiled
machine. He could tell how scared she still was, but she still made
demands. He wondered if she knew somewhere de-ep down that he wouldn’t
kill her,
couldn’t hurt her. He hoped so. He liked her small defiant streak.
She bit her li-p to keep from shaking and stood as tall and dignified as was
possible in a towel. She wanted an answer? He couldn’t deny her anything,
so he would give her one.
“You hate my family. Your interest in us is personal. I can feel it when I
read your articles.” He watched her reaction;
a tightness around her jaw and
a white-knuckled grip on her towel. He w-et his li-ps and continued. “But I
looked into you too. You’re a good person. A kind person.” He thought of
all the little selfless acts she performed when she thought no one was
watching. Anyone can do good when there’s an audience, but only truly
good people do good when no one is there to witness. “How does a good,
kind person hate so de-eply?” She blinked, shocked. Luca took a step toward
her. “What’s more,” he paused and looked her up and down. “How do youhate a family that put you throu-ghcollege?” Her expensive journalismdegree from the most prestigious program in the country was no joke. Shehad earned it, put in all the work, and scored high on the exams, but shedidn’t pay a dime of tuition.
She narrowed her eyes. “You really don’t know?”
How could she expect him to know? It didn’t make sense. “I don’t,” hesaid. “Enlighten me.”
A de-ep pain, old and raw, pinched her delicate features. “Your familytook everything from me.”
TBC