Page 79 of Worth the Risk

“Don’t even think about moving.” Keeping his eyes on his target, he said to her, “I don’t have cuffs on me. I need you to find something to tie him up with.”

With adrenaline coursing through her veins, leaving her shaky and weak, she lurched inelegantly toward the shelves. The stock room was full of liquor on one side and a pantry on the other with cocktail garnish. There were boxes of tiny plastic cocktail swords, but no rope, cables, or cuffs. “How is it possible to be in a bondage club and not have bondage equipment readily accessible?”

“Find something, quickly,” Dan directed with urgency. “Take them off Marcy, if you have to, but stay away from him in case he decides to grow a brain and try something.”

“There’s no danger in that,” she quipped, her anxiety having erased her usual filter.

“Traitorous bitch,” Ernesto accused with a hiss.

“Shut the fuck up,” Dan ordered in the same cold, frightening tone. To her, he was her same calm and collected dom when he urged, “Hurry, Bella.”

Giving both brothers a wide berth, the conscious and the dead, she dropped to her knees beside Marcy. Gently easing her forward, she worked the knot on the rope they’d used to restrain her.

At a strange thumping sound, her fingers stilled. She turned in time to see Dan crumple to his knees before falling face-first onto the unforgiving tile floor with a stomach-churning thud.

“Dear god no,” she whispered. Marcy forgotten, she started crawling toward him. But Ernie was quicker. He grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her back.

“What do we do with the bitch and the others, Paulo?”

The rough hand gripping her hair prevented any movement. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lorenzo’s long-time consigliere stride through the door. Paulo Giordano had earned his position by being ruthless and savvy. The boss’s younger brother was also loyal to a fault. It would be a waste of time, breath, and energy trying to make a deal with him. The tiny glimmer of hope they might make it out of this still breathing flickered out.

“Bellamia, you’ve led us on a merry chase, but it’s over now.”

“I won’t go with you or any of your goons.”

“Did I ask you to?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Your permission is unnecessary.” To Ernie, he barked, “Bring her.”

“What about them?” he asked, waving to the floor littered with bodies.

Paulo’s mouth twisted with distaste. “You three are the messiest assassins I’ve been cursed to work with in fifty years.”

Three? The brothers made two. Had he miscounted?

As if on cue, Luka, a mountain of a man walked in. He wasn’t a blood relative but so close to Lorenzo he called him nephew.

“What a fucking mess,” he spat, his hands on his hips as he looked around. “And there’s a dead blonde out back.”

Oh no! Lisa.

“We can’t leave it,” Paolo decided. “Too much evidence.”

“I already took care of the blonde. I’ll get the redhead and the cop. Ernie can carry his useless brother.”

Luka bent to Dan and slung him over his shoulder. All 6’4” and 240 pounds of him. Next, he pulled Marcy’s limp body up by the arm then lifted and balanced her on his hip, before walking out with both of them.

Ernie struggled to get his brother off the floor then staggered out behind him.

“That leaves you with me, Bella. Do you make it easy, or are you going to be difficult, as usual?”

He had Marcy and Dan as leverage, so, with no other choice, and because there was no sign of the Rossi team coming to their rescue, she preceded him out the door, down the hall, and out the rear entrance.

“The fight?” she asked as Paulo waved her to a nearby SUV.

“A diversion,” he explained.

Before she slid into the back seat beside an unconscious, slumped-over Dan, she glanced at the building. The light at the back door was out, but maybe the cameras would alert security—

“We took those out first. And the man who was sent to fix them.”

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