Hold You Against Me (Stripped #4)

“No, you got here by killing. By hurting people.” My voice breaks because his hand is hurting me. And because maybe I did want to test him, to see if he really is the hard man he claims to be.

He twists my arm behind my back, bending me over the trunk of the car. My breath comes faster. This position. No. Black spots dance in front of my eyes. My muscles lock up. “Please. Stop.” I barely get the words out.

“Don’t push me, bella. You won’t like what happens.”

His fingers open, releasing me. I stumble away from the car over the smooth slate tiles on the drive. If that was a test, then he passed with flying colors. He really is a ruthless bastard.

He turns his face up, the hot Vegas sun drenching his features in startling light. Then he looks back at me, his eyes flat once again.

“Come inside, bella,” he says mildly. “We don’t want you to burn.”

*

He gives me a tour of the mansion where I grew up, as if to drive home the point.

The point is that he is in charge here, and I am at his mercy.

Maybe he thinks that will shock me. When I was the daughter of the capo and he was the son of a foot soldier, he had to show me deference. I lived in this mansion, while he lived in a small complex set behind the property.

What he doesn’t realize is that I never had any power between these walls. On this antique sofa or in the glass-domed greenhouse. I definitely never had any power in the office.

Most of the rooms look the same. The office too.

Leather armchairs gather around a heavy stone fireplace. It always seemed silly for a place as hot as Vegas. Then again, nights get cold in the desert. My father’s desk is ornately carved with naked men and women, arms raised to support the thick slab of wood on top.

The only difference is the leather armchair with wide wings. It’s empty.

Every other time I’ve come here, I was summoned. Escorted here by one of the armed men, usually while my sister was at ballet practice. My father would be waiting in that seat, framed by the tall window at his back. My heart beats faster, muscle memory feeding the same fight-or-flight response I had back then.

The touch of Giovanni’s hand snaps me back to reality.

With two fingers, he turns my face to look at him. “You’re upset.”

“I never expected to see this room again.”

“Are you sad that your father is dead?”

His words are blunt, without sympathy. He might as well be made of rock for all he seems to understand grief or pain. “He deserved what happened to him.”

“Because he tried to force your sister to marry.”

And because he hurt me. That information is too private. It hurts too much to share with stone.

“There’s only one way out of the mafia,” I say, repeating words I’ve heard a hundred times. When my father whispered them to me, they were a threat. They still feel like a threat, now that I’m here again.

“Did you think you had escaped?” Giovanni’s tone disturbs me, detached and curious. His expression disturbs me too. He looks as if he’s inquiring about the timetable of some business takeover, something with a foregone conclusion. Something he will no doubt win.

In the face of his cold regard, tears prick my eyes. “I should have escaped. God, you helped me escape. You risked your life to help me, and now you’re the one to bring me back? Why, Gio?”

He studies me, his eyes dark and tumultuous. “That newspaper article. I couldn’t let anyone else take you.”

I won’t let him off the hook that easily. “Then why not warn me? I could have run.”

His head shakes slowly, almost regretful. “I let you go once because it was the only choice. The only thing I could do to keep you safe.”

“And I’ll be safe now?”

Violence flashes across his face. “Anyone who touches you will die. I’ll kill them myself.”

A shiver racks my body. “Then who will keep me safe from you?”





Chapter Nine





The tour ends upstairs, in my old bedroom.

Everything is exactly where I left it, down to the pink ruffles on the bed and haphazard makeup on the cream wood vanity. I wasn’t allowed to actually paint the walls, but I had four large canvases hanging that must have twenty coats of paint each.

Giovanni hasn’t spoken to me since we left the office. Now he turns to face me in the center of my room. “You’ll stay here until I can trust you. The door locks from the outside.”

I know very well that the door locks. My father had the key.

There’s one way I can leave, though.

Gio’s dark eyes flicker with amusement. “The window’s bolted shut.”

Of course he knows about that. It was the only way I could meet him in the pool house. My eyes narrow. “And what happens when we get married? Am I still going to sleep here?”

His expression is impassive. “I won’t force you to sleep with me.”

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