????MAFIA POSSESSION ????????
( HIS ADDICTION ????)
BY, ROYAL DIADEM ❣️
CHAPTER 16
Copy and have your life shortened ????
IN THE MORNING, Caroline found her door unlocked. But she was right notto be too optimistic. Luca waited for her with a box of cream filled donuts
and a drink with a pile of whipped cream on top. She’d actually grownaccustomed to him just knowing her favorite of everything. She narrowedher eyes at the donuts.
“Those aren’t my favorite.”
“The only sprinkles were on chocolate cake donuts, so I didn’t bother.”
He offered her the drink, and she inhaled the calming scent of Columbiancoffee mixed with heavy cream. He shrugged. “And these are my favorite.”
She took a sip of perfect coffee and reached for a donut.
She didn’tdislike cream filled, but she did dislike chocolate cake donuts. She realizedshe should be grateful. It would be very easy for him to make her life
miserable. However, she just couldn’t make herself feel gratitude towardthe man who kidnapped her. She followed him out the door to his shinysports car, a bit understated compared to his brother’s, but still more
expensive than Caroline’s yearly rent. He opened the pa-ssenger door forher, and she paused. She hadn’t been outside the cabin in a week. This felt
like way too much freedom. “What, you’re not gonna like, cuff me orsomething?”
A predatory look flashed across his face. “Only if you’re into that.”
Caroline ducked her head to hide her blus-h and sat down in the car. Shetold herself that he was a creep and that she didn’t care at all for the thought
of being restrained around him.
When he took his seat next to her and started the car, all predatoryseduction had faded back into collected pleasantness. “It’s a long drive. You can nap if you want.” He drove carefully down the long drive, slowing atany sign of wildlife.
“Nope.” It was a gut reaction. She wasn’t going to let down her guardwhile she was alone with him. Not in the slightest. “No thank you.”
He sighed, putting on his turn signal when they reached a road. “Ofcourse, suit yourself.”
Once they were on the highway and Caroline was almost content,watching trees and vineyards fly by the windows in smears of green andbrown, Luca broke the silence again. “Let’s review the rules.”
Caroline gro-aned.
“What am I? Five?” She didn’t appreciate beingtreated like a child. And the fact that he was going to be a stickler about the
rules made her want to break all of them.
“No, I apologize,” he said. He sounded like he might actually be sorry.
“I just want to make sure that we’ll both be safe while we do this.”
“Both be safe, my a-ss,” Caroline muttered under her breath.Luca didn’t seem to notice. “Tell me what we discussed.”
Caroline rolled her eyes. “I’m not allowed to kill you, or run away, ortell anyone that you kidnapped me.” They weren’t the most awful rules, butthey might be ha-rd to follow depending on what he did. She was scared of
him, so not acting scared in public might be a problem.
If she feltthreatened, well, it was human nature to have a fight-or-flight response andthe rules dictated that she couldn’t do either. So what exactly did he expecther to do?
“Right.” Luca checked his mirrors. “Good.”
He drove responsibly, not speeding overmuch, using his turn signal tochange lanes, always checking his blind spot, courteously allowing people to merge. Caroline was grateful that he wasn’t a reckless driver, but she alsowanted something to hate him for. There had to be something he was awfulat, some unbearable habit. Maybe he snored, or maybe he put the milk in
the bowl before the cereal, or maybe he was a terrible singer.
“Do you mind if I turn on the radio?” He broke the oppressive silenceagain.
“Yeah, sure.” She tried to sound apathetic, but noise to drown out thethoughts in her head would be a welcome blessing. He fli-pped to an oldiesstation and relaxed a little to nod in time to the music. He sang along underhis breath and Caroline let her head drop against the window. He wasn’t abad singer either.
She watched the white dotted lines whizz by on the road beneath them.
This was her chance to escape. She should be thinking about every possible
way to break every rule he gave her. But what if he was right? What if an
accident was just an accident and the Morettis didn’t have anything to do
with her father’s death? It seemed crazy to believe him, especially after
everything she found out about the Moretti Mafia throu-ghher journalism.
She’d seen the things they did,
the things they got away with. Luca was just
another Moretti thug, and she couldn’t afford to forget that. Even with his
pretty face and his se-xy voice, he was a thug first and foremost. Then again,
he really seemed to believe that his family didn’t do it. And like he said,
why would he lie to her?
After so long away from any civilization, Caroline’s apartment complex
looked vaguely foreign. Luca parked the car and stretched his arms and
legs. Even that innocuous exercise felt powerful and intimidating. She felt
stiff too from sitting still so long, but she didn’t stretch. It felt like some
kind of personal protest. She was suffering because of him. It was all his
fault. And maybe if he had to listen to every bone in her body crack on the
way up to her apartment, he would suffer too.
He had Caroline’s keys because apparently they counted as a weapon.
Caroline rolled her eyes, but in all fairness, she probably would have tried
to stab him with a key if he’d given her the opportunity. He allowed her to
walk ahead of him so she wouldn’t run.
He unlocked her door and pushed it open for her. She enteredobediently. Now wasn’t the time to run. An opportunity would presentitself. She just had to be patient.
Her apartment, her home, her little corner of the sky carved out by hardwork and tight deadlines welcomed her with the hollow warmth of anempty hearth. Everything was exactly as she left it when she fled to avoidthe very fate that clutched her now. She reached down to straighten a couchcushion she left out of place. A very fine dust had settled over the coffee
table and the tv stand and the books in a pile on the floor beside the couch.
Her floral air fresheners hung stale in the air. Too sweet and nearly toostrong. That scent had been her favorite. It always felt good to come home
and take a de-ep breath. Now, she wasn’t sure.
The familiar pictures on the wall watched Luca step over things she’dtossed out of her suitcase last minute and stand in front of the tv. “I a-ssume
this won’t take long, since you know what you’re looking for?”
Caroline nodded vacantly. What would have happened if she stayed? If
she hadn’t run, would he have come for her here? She looked over at him.
He tilted his head,
impatience making him tap his fingers on his crossed
arms. Right. The files on her father. She went to the bookshelf and pulled
down a box. Luca followed her to the table where she opened it and pulled
out her notes, the short newspaper article on the ‘accident,’ her father’s
phone records, some photos, and a list of contacts he’d kept at home. As
much information as she could get her hands on.
Luca seemed impressed. “There’s a lot to go from here. This is a good
start.”
“Duh,” Caroline was a little offended. “I know how to do my job.”
He laughed lightly, “I know that. I read every article you write.” He
picked up a photo of Caroline’s father smiling at the camera. “I’m just gladto know the degree we paid for didn’t go to waste.”
Caroline snatched the photo away and set the lid back on the box. Heread everything she wrote? Just in case it was about him? Or because heliked her? Or for some other sick reason? “It did not go to waste and I amvery grateful. However, you still kidnapped me, and I still hate you forthat.”
He sighed with a tragic drama about him that reminded her of dashingleading men in black and white films. “I suppose I can’t blame you, but I
had hoped…” he trailed off with a lingering look at her li-ps. He looked like he might say something else, but his phone rang. He pulled it out andchecked the caller ID. A flash of something like panic crossed his face, butit was gone as soon as it registered. He walked to the door. “Please excuseme for one moment.” Unspoken was the threat not to run.
Caroline watched him step out of her apartment and seriouslyconsidered running. Now would be the time. She’d been waiting for a
golden opportunity and this was it. He was distracted, she was alone. Therewere knives in the kitchen, pepper spray in a drawer by her bed. There was
a fire escape the level below her. If she could climb out the windowcarefully and manage to grab onto the metal bars… But that was recklessand dangerous and the reporter in her had to know what this phone call wasabout.
She followed him out as quietly as she could. She could hear a man onthe other end of the line, older than Luca, probably his father, BrunoMoretti. “Status report.” Luca noticed her and shook his head sharply. She didn’t leave. The voice on the phone continued, “Did you take care of thegirl?”
‘The girl’ was obviously Caroline and a seed of dread settled in herstomach because, no, he had not ‘taken care’ of her and maybe now hewould. She had just started to hope that he really wouldn’t kill her. She
hung onto the door to keep herself upright.
Luca looked her dead in the eyes and she swore he could see straightinto her soul. “It’s done.” His voice had a sharp quality she wasn’taccustomed to, a sharp blade wrapped in velvet.
Caroline couldn’t look away. He lied for her. Luca Moretti lied to hisfather, the most powerful Mafia Don in New York, for her. He kept sayingthat he didn’t want to kill her, but she never quite believed him.
This
changed everything. She couldn’t articulate exactly what changed,everything and nothing all at once. She was still his captive, she still didn’ttrust him, but he lied for her.
TBC