Marrying the Mob Prince

INDIE

I battled nightmares.

Scratches from padlocked doors invaded my mind while I worked. There was nothing we could do, so my guilt over the Sanctum girls festered. Like a contagion, it infected every cell of happiness. Blackening my joy. Shriveling up my insides. It killed me that I couldn’t say a word to anyone. I needed to vent, but telling the world that I’d been kidnapped, forced into an exhibition scene, and blackmailed by a sex cult was off limits. If it weren’t for Knox, I would be beside myself.

“Indie. Are you listening?”

I blinked, and the black fog melted from my vision. I sat in front of my laptop, where a scowling Eliot crossed his arms. Shit. I’d blanked in the middle of my meeting. Again.

I cleared my throat. “Can you repeat the question?”

He sat back in the chair, glaring. “Indie, what is with you lately? Your work is all over the place. You barely come into the office. You don’t pay attention in meetings.”

I’d stopped giving a damn about the utter banality of Vanity’s columns. My lips thinned as I meted out an appropriate response. “Sorry, Eliot. I’ve been…dealing with some personal issues.”

He rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I was saying we should revisit your piece about the missing girls from Chelsea.”

My heart pounded. “What?”

“Your story. The one you told me about at that yacht party?” He cocked his head, his gaze narrowing. “Why so glum? You were all for this. It was important to you.”

“No, um…it’s just, I’m kind of over that article.”

Suspicion darkened his features. “You’d rather pass it on to another writer? James?”

“No. I meant that I haven’t worked on it in a while. Besides, you seemed against it. You said it’d be terrible for clicks, and I think you’re right. Women read Vanity to feel good. They want fluff, not gritty realism.”

“Yes, well, we’ve had an alarming drop in traffic, and the CEO is pissed. I’m hoping a more serious angle will draw in new readers. Kale smoothie recipes aren’t riveting content.” Eliot let out a derisive snort. “Anyway, flesh it out. It’s almost ready to be published, but not quite. I want to get it out in two weeks.”

Are you freaking kidding?

I licked my lips, unsure of how to stop this impending disaster. “I need longer than that.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’ve looked at the file you forwarded me. It’s a great piece. Much darker than we’re used to, but the CEO agrees that it’s worth a shot. Maybe we’ll use a less unsavory headline. Discarded Girls.” He winced, shaking his head. “No. Too flippant.”

No, no, no. “Someone else read it? Eliot, I’m not comfortable-”

“I’d also like you to introduce Christine to Bryan Knox. I know you’ve built a rapport with him, but this story needs your full attention. Christine can handle Knox. He shouldn’t give her too much of a hard time. Apparently, he’s in a serious relationship.”

Fuck.

My throat tightened. “How-how do you know?”

“A credible source leaked to Elle Weekly that Mr. Knox moved a mystery woman into his place several months ago.” He copied and pasted the link to the article in the chat box. “Our readers would love a follow-up to the Knox profile. Is there any chance he mentioned something off the record?”Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

“Eliot, the trafficking story is a bad idea. I don’t want to do it.”

“Indie, learn to take yes for an answer. This was what you wanted. I know you’re nervous because it’s your first real story, but we all start somewhere. Okay? Keep digging on Sanctum. I’ll see if we can get a comment from the manager.”

I choked. “But I can’t-”

“I gotta run. My personal trainer is here. Bye.”

The screen blanked before I could object any further. I stared at the wall in a dazed sort of disbelief, and then the reality of my situation crashed over my shoulders. More people had read the story. What would happen when Cainan and his ring of trafficking scumbags found out?

My back stiffened, and I struggled to breathe.

I felt the other man on me-his meaty grip obstructing my air, the vicious tug of my hair, the arm of the couch slamming into my head, the eager fingers groping to pull down my naked flesh. Over and over. Without respite, sensations slammed into my head, slicing pain into my nerves until my very cells seemed imbibed with trauma.

I dropped onto the floor.

The feelings I’d buried-grief, fear, rage-battered my heart. I curled up and cried. Knox rushed into the room and dropped beside me, whispering sweetness into my ear. He moved me into a sitting position, his strong fingers cupping my cheek, erasing my tears with a firm stroke. Then his thumb made a leisurely stroll to my mouth, tracing my lips. The feathery-light caress tingled warmth in my cheeks.

I grasped my cinched throat. My vision kept flashing with blood. Tears burst from my squeezed eyes as I broke into sobs, in the full throes of a panic attack. I flattened my palms on the carpet, screaming, desperate to free myself from the terror. Knox clutched my arms, holding them still.

It was like being tethered to a raft.

Knox was dragging me to safety.

His strong, warm arms held me tightly, reeling me into a cloud of comfort. His scent was earthy and crisp, like a pinewood forest in winter. He was like smoke rising from a cabin’s chimney, beckoning me home. Knox stroked my hair. My fingers dug into the flesh of his back, the rigid muscles unyielding. He tucked my head under his chin, his heart pounding my cheek. He pressed his mouth to my head for a moment that seemed unrehearsed and wrong for Knox.

“What’s the matter?”

I choked on my tears. “Eliot wants to publish the trafficking story. He already showed it to the CEO. What should I do?”

“Don’t worry about that now.”

“Don’t worry?” I repeated incredulously. “You heard what Cainan said. This is my family we’re talking about! Are we all supposed to pack our bags and run?”

He grimaced, as though battling the same pain. Tears sluiced my cheeks. Then his hard thumbs swiped them away.

“We won’t need to. Come with me.” He helped me to my feet and took my hand.

Startled by how quickly he’d disarmed my panic, I followed the rough pressure of his hand. He led me into the master bedroom and pulled me inside the walk-in closet. I sat on a shoe bench and watched as he retrieved a heavy, metal locked box from a shelf. A grim-faced Knox slid it off the shelf, its contents rattling.

“What’s inside?”

He set it on my lap. “Trinkets. Relics of another life,” he murmured as he sat next to me. “Open it.”

He took off a key from a ring attached to his wallet and handed it to me. I took it and fitted the small brass key into the lock. I turned. It clicked and opened with a metallic groan. Inside yielded a trove of unremarkable objects: a tarnished harmonica. Magic: The Gathering cards. A plastic name tag etched with his name. I picked it up, running my thumb over Bryan.

“What’s this from?”

“In my teens, I worked the morning shift at a deli before class. Lucchese’s. I was too young to work there, but the owner knew my mother was a monster. Then his son started pocketing cash from the register and blamed me, so I got fired. My foster father beat the shit out of me for stealing.” As he finished that disturbing anecdote, he poked into the box, his long finger sliding through the Magic cards. “I was twelve when I began college. I should’ve been safe there, right? Wrong. A man in my engineering class gave me these to make up for…well, I’ll skip the graphic details. This”-he snatched the harmonica, smiling-“was a gift from my mother’s boyfriend, the biker gangster.”

I stared at it, appalled. I fought a violent urge to take a hammer to this box, annihilate its contents, douse it with gasoline, and set it on fire. “Why the hell would you keep mementos of your abusers?”

He smiled. “Why indeed?”

An ugly feeling crawled up my spine as he continued to talk.

“All these people who hurt me…who wronged me. Do you know where they are now? Can you guess?”

I shook my head, trembling.

“I’ll give you a hint. It’s one reason why I didn’t care for a reporter digging into my background.” Knox darkened as he dropped the harmonica back into the box. Then he slammed the lid shut and shoved it on the floor. Then it hit me, and my limbs numbed.

“They’re trophies,” I whispered. “Of people you killed?”

“You don’t have to take someone’s life to destroy them.” Triumph flashed across his handsome face.

A dark thrill shot into my heart as he leaned close to me, his lips skating my cheek. He kissed the shell of my ear. My temple. My forehead. My whole body buzzed with warmth by the time his feathery touch met my mouth. He was barely there, breathing, taunting me. Somehow his tongue stroked me into a blissful euphoria that soothed the trauma from this confession. Somehow we managed to slide to the floor, and Knox moved over me as I reclined, weakened from his kiss.

My head touched the carpet, and I glimpsed the metal box. I pictured its sinister contents and the ruined lives they represented. It was impossible to steady my erratic pulse.

“Do you think I’ll let anything happen to you?” Knox lifted his head, his stare drilling into mine. “Do you?”

“No.”

“No,” he repeated softly. “Living in fear is just another way of dying. I don’t want that for you, Indie.”

He was a deeply flawed man who showed his affection in the wrong ways, but this overwhelming connection between us was the only thing keeping me sane. My only comfort was his inexhaustible strength. I craved his over-the-top protectiveness. His consuming obsession was the light in a dark and terrible world. But a warning pulsed at the back of my mind.

What was the true cost of this love?