Page 77 of Taken By the Mafia King
Something clinked against the bedside table, and I peeked through my fingers to find Olivia measuring some sticky, smelly liquid into a silver spoon.
“Get that away from me.” My nose wrinkled at the stench. A rich, herbal scent hit me and settled deep in my gut.
“Open up,” she chided, reaching down to pinch my thigh as I clenched my jaw.
“You bitch!”
She shoved the spoon into my mouth, and I jerked off the bed, swinging out an arm. I missed her completely, and herlaugh cut through the sound of me hitting the floor. I gagged, choking down something acrid and gritty and foul.
“What the hell was that?”
“Oh, a little something I cooked up.” She crossed herself, kissing her fingertips and raising her hand to the heavens. “You’ll be thanking my nonna here shortly. She’s always listening, so if you complain, she’ll hide one of each of your paired socks.”
“Held against my will by a murderer and tended to by a kooky maid.” My stomach roiled as I crawled on my hands and knees across the floor. I leaned against the foot of my bed, trying to shield myself from the light in the room like a vampire. If Iwasa vampire, that concoction would have certainly killed me.
“Any second now,” Olivia said.
Something clinked again, and I glanced up through narrowed eyes as she messed with what looked like a tray of breakfast sitting on the table by the window.
“I’m not eating. Oh, God.” I gasped as the most intense wave of nausea I’d ever felt hit me like a battering ram. I pitched forward on the carpet and scrambled on all fours, eventually mustering enough momentum to get onto my feet.
“What did you do to me?” I cried as I hurtled to the bathroom, one hand over my mouth just in case I didn’t make it. I hit my knees in front of the toilet while Olivia hummed under her breath in the bedroom like she hadn’t just given me the worst stomachache of my life. She continued to hum and sing while I expelled all the contents of my stomach. Suffice it to say, her herbal poison was even worse coming up than it was going down.
When I came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, I wanted to fall face first into bed. Whatever potion from the depths of hell she’d force fed me had caused me to puke up every lingering shred of alcohol left in my system.
Slightly dizzy, I stumbled back to the bed, but she snapped her fingers and smiled.
“Step two. Eat something greasy.”
“Oh my God. Please leave me alone.”
“I will, once you eat. And take some aspirin. And drink some water.Allthe water,” she said, pointedly looking at the glass on the tray.
I groaned and sank into one of the chairs at the small table beside the window. Hash browns, sausage, and pancakes coated in butter stared back up at me as I clutched my fork like a weapon. I held out my other hand for the aspirin and she dumped an obscene amount into my palm. I threw the pills back and gulped some water. Then I chased it with a scalding black coffee that burned all the way to my stomach.
After a few minutes I felt as though I’d only drank sparkling water the night before and the jumbled memories from the club had been nothing more than a weird dream.
“See?” She smiled from where she was tidying my room. “You feel better, don’t you?”
“I feel like I got hit by a train,” I corrected, then tilted my head. “And survived. But yes, I do feel better.”
“Nonna always knew best,” she chimed, straightening out my bedspread.
Now that my brain wasn’t drowning in gin, I looked down and realized I was dressed in a cream-colored cashmere pajama set. “I don’t recognize these pajamas.”
“Oh, I got you dressed last night. And I dropped a few electrolyte tablets in your water bottle.”
“Um, thanks.”
“Killian said he took you toDiavola,” she murmured, giving me a playful look. “My sister is a dancer there. I’ve heard it’s very high class.”
“I don’t remember it at all.”
She giggled and poured me another cup of coffee. “Perhaps that’s for the best.”
When we locked eyes, she gave me a knowing wink, and I started to giggle too. She had a point. Whatever depravity I’d engaged in last night was probably better left in the dark recess of a drunken memory I would never be able to recall.
We joked about how I might have gotten up on stage, and my cheeks burned at the thought as I crammed a large chunk of pancake into my mouth. The maple syrup was sweet heaven and I went in for another bite.
