CHAPTER SIX:
2460 Words
The journey to hell is often in the softest of carriages.
CAMERON
The driver gives me exactly 15 minutes.
Before I even zip up my bag, he’s pounding at my door, telling me all the creative ways Earl would kill him if he didn’t get me to the hotel at the exact time that he had been instructed to.
I roll my eyes and ignore him.
I decide against taking my laptop and instead slide it into the false compartment of my bedside drawer.
I leave all my other gadgets behind too.
Including my gun.
There will be plenty more of those where I’m going, even if the version of Cameron waters that the Salvatores expect has never so much as touched a gun, much less shot one.
The driver bursts into my room just as I hide the last thing.
I jump in false fright. “How dare…”
The words barely leave my lips before he tosses me over his shoulder, holding me in place with one hand and dragging my suitcase with another.
“Put me down. You put me down right now!”
Slamming my fist on his back does nothing.
The bastard is built like a tree.
“Hey!” Rose yells when he dumps me into the car unceremoniously, not caring that I scratch my arm against the door.
Another mark to add to the many wounds the Salvatores have given me in the past ten hours.
The drive to the Penthouse should have happened in silence.
Except beside me Rose is nervous and to hide it she’s talking a lot and jiggling her knee.
I place my hand over it and force her leg to go still.
I know what Ted, my handler, would say about that.
That I should let Rose think I am angry at her for a little while longer lest I arouse suspicion by giving in too quickly.
But I can’t.
Rose may not know who I am, but I know who she is.
And despite the blood on her family’s hands, she’s a good person.
And a good friend.
Rose freezes when I touch her, looking up at me and biting her lip.
Lifting the corner of my lip in a smirk, I bump my shoulder into hers. “You could have at least told me he was going to ram a car into my side. Would have worn a helmet.”
Rose’s large dark eyes immediately fill with tears “Oh Cam”
And then she throws her arms around my neck.
“Ouch” I mumble, flinching when her arm bumps against the cut on my eyebrow.
Never one for too much physical touch, I tap her back awkwardly.
Rose pulls away. “I’m sorry.”
“For tricking me into a hostage situation?” I ask, pressing my lips together and raising my eyebrows at her.
Rose sniffs, patting her hair. “In my defense, he would have gotten you, with or without me.”
I shrug. “At least, it’s five million dollars. And all I have to do is make sure I don’t get shot in the head by your brother first.”
I wait for her to tell me he wouldn’t do that but all Rose does is look away and out the window.
Oh my dear god what have I gotten myself into?
“I’m really f*****g sorry Cam.” Rose finally breathes, turning back to me. She barely has an accent, on account of growing up with a private English tutor. But it comes out sometimes, when she’s being sincere.
She smiles softly at me. “You’re going to love Il paradiso”
I frown. “Il what?”
“The Paradise. It’s what my dad calls our, well, his mansion.” Her face twists. “It’s almost as if he thinks forcing all his children to live under one roof until we’re married will make up for our disgusting childhood.”
I lean back into my seat and close my eyes.
On one hand, I am going to be under the same roof as the most powerful man in Mafia history.
Salvatore Malloré himself.
If the CIA could see me now they would be shitting themselves in excitement.
On the other hand, I am going to be under the same roof as the most powerful man in Mafia history.
Salvatore Malloré himself.
I am almost as good as dead.
The Penthouse is a massive sixty-five storey building made entirely of glass in the center of the city.
Rose tells me it’s one of the many hotels belonging to their family.
The doors open before we get to it and I can see the fear and deference in the staff’s faces as they scrape and bow to show us to our rooms.
If any of them are curious as to my presence, they hide it well.
The room they take me to is the most ridiculously beautiful thing I have ever seen.
It is brighter and bigger than my entire apartment.
Every surface is clean and slick and shiny.
I recognize it immediately.
It’s the exact room he had brought me to the night we…no, I refuse to think about it.
The minute I’m alone, I all but collapse onto the bed, the soft white Egyptian cotton sheets swallowing me whole.
My head still hurts and I’m afraid to look in the mirror because of all the cuts and bruises from the accident that I know I will find.
I decide to take a shower, wincing when the hot water comes in contact with my wounds.
I want to scream or cry or panic.
But I can’t afford to.
This is it. I’m here now.
On my first mission, Ted told me something I have never forgotten.
The only way to get out of a mission, is to get through it or to die trying.
The Mafia killed my family and I will bring them down if it’s the last thing I do.
I step out of the bathroom just as the door twists open.
“Oh my God!” I scream, jumping and holding my towel to my chest. “I f*****g locked that.”
Earl’s eyes drag themselves slowly up my body and without so much as blinking or taking them off me, he lets his access card slip unceremoniously to the table. “You’re wet.”
My mouth instantly goes dry and I have to swallow hard to calm the fluttering in my belly.
It’s the way he says it. The way he says everything.
That quiet growl and that accent.
It makes my legs weak around the knees and I bet he knows it too.
Fucking bastard.
I pull the towel tighter across my chest, suddenly aware of just how short it is.
His hands are in loose fists by his side but I can feel his gaze, hot and heavy everywhere it brushes against my exposed skin.
How the hell am I going to do this for one entire year without losing my mind?
He finally finds my face again but his eyes are darker now and oh my god I have to stop looking at him or I’m going to forget how to breathe.
Luckily for me, he glances away first, disinterest making his eyelids droop and masking everything that just happened a second ago.
I need to remind myself that Earl Salvatore sees me as nothing but a means to an end.
Maybe it might help my stupid brain stay on track.
I cross the room, towards my clothes laid out in the king sized bed. “You scared me.”
He closes the door behind him. “You’re oddly jumpy for a secretary”
My eyes take him in, darting instantly to the red stains on the edge of his sleeves. “And you’re oddly bloody for a CEO.”
Earl frowns at his hand.
And then he narrows his eyes at me. “Most people would have missed that”
Shit.
Me and my big mouth.
Years of training to be hyper observant had slipped through.
Earl Salvatore is no fool.
From now on I have to be wary of every word I say around him or else I risk making him suspicious.
I tilt up my chin to look him in the eyes.
“Well most people aren’t mafia hostages”
He shoulders past me, taking off his coat. “You’d be surprised.”
I avert my eyes before I can be distracted by the sight of his muscles and arms rippling through the tight button up he has underneath.
I proceed to dress up but it’s a struggle, trying to put on my jeans and wear my shirt all while fighting not to let go of the towel.
Whichever God thought two hands were enough for humans clearly didn’t know what they were doing.
Earl turns back to me suddenly just as the towel slips from my chest and I whelp, dragging my shirt down and over my breasts.
He could not have looked less interested.
“Rose tells me you packed a bag.” He points to the small suitcase at the foot of the bed. “Is that it?”
I nod, using the towel to wring out my wet hair.
He folds his arm across his broad chest.
He really needs to stop doing that, it’s horribly distracting.
“Open it.”
Distraction evaporates with the speed of light.
I blink at him in disbelief, letting my hair fall, limp and damp over my shoulders. “Excuse me.”
But Earl doesn’t do much as blink, instead his jaw tightens.
“You will find Cameron that I do not enjoy repeating myself. Now open it.”
I scoff, shaking my head as I do so.
Paranoid prick.
But I crouch down and open it anyway, dragging the zipper apart with more force than is needed.
“There. You’ve caught me and the dead body I secretly brought in here.”
He watches me in silence, hands folded, one over the other, in front of him. “Take them out.”
“Oh for f**k’s…”
“Cameron…”
I shiver at the warning in his voice.
At the sound of my name in his mouth.
I have never really understood the goddamn raw s****l appeal of hearing your own name before until right now.
Earl’s glass blue eyes are fixed on mine. His long fingers tap slowly against the back of his other hand.
“Take them out.”
Without another word I take everything out, dumping my clothes and underwear all over the floor.
“There.” I spit, unable to control my temper despite the fear, large and thick in the base of my throat. “It’s empty. Happy?”
“I’m never happy.”
“What did you think I was going to do, pack a bomb?”
“You’d be surprised at the lengths people would go to bring down the Salvatore family.”
“Maybe if you didn’t commit so many crimes you would have to look over your shoulder all the time.”
I expect him to issue a warning at my flapping tongue but instead he simply shrugs, proceeding to walk past me and my littered clothes.
“Maybe.”
The answer is so unexpected that I am temporarily at a loss for words.
Earl Salvatore is a very, very confusing man.
Why the heck does that bother me so much?
I look away from him just as he turns to glance at my things again.
“What, no laptop? That’s odd for a secretary, no?”
I fold my arms across my chest and look him straight in the eyes.
“Not all of us can afford one, you rich jerk and your bodyguard took my phone.”
“Hmmm.”
He doesn’t believe me.
But before I can start to sweat, he turns away again, taking off his watch and setting it on the bed. “Remind me, how did you start talking to my sister again?”
“Why?” I ask, stuffing my clothes back into the case, “I’m sure the guys you hired to do a background check on me told you all that.”
He nods. “True. But I want to hear it from you.”
I look away just as he starts to undo his buttons.
“Well if it helps, I didn’t start talking to Rose, she started talking to me.”
“Let me guess you were dressed in…” his eyes run up and down my faded jeans and even more faded Batman T-shirt. “That.”
I sneer at him. Classist jerk. “It was a different shirt.”
“Well,” He smirks, eyes cold and flat as he gazes at me with a mixture of amusement and disdain. “Rosalind never could resist a lost cause.”
I smart at the insult but let it wash over me.
I will not stoop to his level.
Not until I see him behind bars.
We’ll see if he wears an orange jumpsuit as well as he does his fancy suits.
Although he probably will. Goddamn it.
His voice jerks me out of my thoughts.
“Did you read the folder I gave you?”
He doesn’t bother to put a shirt back on and I’m forced to keep my eyes focused on a random point at the top of his head.
“Between packing my things and being bundled out of my own apartment by your thugs, I’m afraid I may not have had the time.”
Still shirtless and glistening with a subtle sheen of sweat, he lowers himself into the plush cushion in the center of the room.
“Read it.”
“What, now?”
“Yes.”
“Could you at least put on a shirt?”
“No.”
I’m beginning to realize that arguing with this jerk is pointless.
I go to snatch the blue folder from my bedside table.
The truth is I also actually want to know what his “rules” for this marriage are.
I start to read but he cuts me short before I can utter the first word.
“You’re too far away.”
I sigh and inch alongside the bed to get closer to him.
His chiseled chest and abs are drawing my eyes like a magnet.
I swallow and force myself to look at his face.
He nods once. “Sit”
Still not trusting myself to speak. I start to sit on the edge of the bed but he tuts.
“Not there. Here.”
My stomach dips and rolls.
- Writer
