Page 6 of Mafia Men Need Love Too
It went against every instinct she had to tell him. What kind of idiot tells a violent killer their name? But since she was probably going to die tonight anyway, she supposed it didn’t matter. Not anymore, at least. “River. River Lang.”
He smiled. It really should be illegal for a man to look that good before he murdered you. “Lovely. Now, tell me, River, why did you kidnap me?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me,” he murmured. “When someone comes after me, I take it personally.”
She bit her lower lip. “Well…my ex owes some really bad people money…”
That’s all it took to open the floodgates. She told him about coming home from work one day and finding a giant Russian in her kitchen, threatening to kill her if she didn’t tell him where her ex was. Then she told him about arguing with the guy, telling him she hadn’t seen that dipwad since the divorce was finalized. Told him about the guy saying she was now on the hook for those debts and giving her a choice. She could either pay them off by working for them—on her back—or lure a stranger, a killer, to his potential doom, and all the debts would be wiped clean.
His eyes never left her face as she spilled her guts. She wasn’t even sure he blinked. All she knew was that his eyes got harder and harder as he listened.
Now he really looked like a killer.
When her nervous spill of words finally stopped, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “So, why did you tase me instead of just taking me to the Russians?”
“They told me you were dangerous,” she admitted. “And that if you suspected I was lying to you, you’d kill me, so I better make it convincing. But I’m total shit at lying. I mean, you obviously weren’t convinced I wanted to have sex with you, right?”
His gaze dropped to her lips. “No, fiorellino, I wasn’t. But I was hopeful.”
That was a fact she’d file away in her brain for future evaluation. It was way more than she could process at the moment. “I wasn’t confident in my ability to control the situation for any longer than I did,” she said quietly. “I was afraid you’d hurt me. Or worse.”
He studied her for a moment, but eventually nodded. “I understand.”
“So, what are we going to do now?”
“We’re going to figure out what the Russians were planning to do with me,” he said, pulling out his phone and firing off a text to someone. His big friend from the bar, probably. That gave her a little bit of hope. Together, those two could easily take down the Russian who’d threatened her.
“And I’d like to ask him why he thought he could take on Nico Fortunado and the Italian mafia,” he went on, still texting.
Record scratch in her brain.
“Wait a minute…who is Nico Fortunado?” she asked.
He glanced up from his phone and frowned at her. “I am, of course. Why?”
Her heart skipped several beats. Her lungs stalled.
This. Was. A. Disaster.
“What’s wrong?”
River blinked back tears of rage and frustration as she looked the head of the Italian mafia right in his long-lashed, sinfully rich black eyes and whispered, “I kidnapped the wrong man.”
Chapter 5
His little River was turning out to be a wild whirlwind of emotions.
The woman looked so bereft that Nico was starting to feel sorry for her. Which was a strange reaction to someone who had tased him and stuffed him into the back of her car.
Granted, he did let her stuff him into her car. He could’ve easily stopped her. But he’d been curious to see just how far she’d go to get him where she wanted him. And it hadn’t exactly been abhorrent to have her hands all over him.
Now she had him feeling…was this jealousy because he hadn’t been her target all along? That was a new one for him.
“Who were you looking for at the club?” he growled.
“Someone named Ricky LaRusso?” she whispered.
