Page 23 of The Don's Prisoner

Vito pulled over a stool from the kitchen island and sat down, running a hand through his dirty hair. He really looked pathetic. He also looked genuinely sorry, which didn’t help anything. I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to throttle him, choke him, bash his face in with my fist, but I wouldn’t. But hitting him wouldn’t solve anything because, in the end, he would just sit there and take it because he deserved it, and then I would just feel bad for hurting him and end up trying to make him feel better.

“So, how is he getting his money from you?” he asked, his voice quiet. “I was only short ten grand, so he can’t be making you give him something like your business. Is he taking your car? I know his family had a used car lot, so maybe he wants to sell it to get the money. I’ll buy you a new one, sis, if—”

“He’s not taking my car, Vito,” I cut him off, stopping his rant. “He doesn’t want the money at all. He’s having me marry him.”

Vito’s mouth dropped and a look of total and utter disbelief stretched across his face.

“What? Why? Why would you agree to that? That… that seems like something worth well over ten grand to me,” he said.

“Yeah, well I feel like I am worth well over ten grand too, but you bet me for that much, so I guess not,” I harrumphed and turned around to make a pot of coffee. It was a little late in the afternoon for coffee, but right then I needed some. “But as it turns out, he needs to marry someone within the next six months or his family is going to kick him out, I guess. So that’s where I came in. Of course, he threatened to kill you to make me agree to it, but hey, anything for you Vito.”

I couldn’t see him, but I felt him come up behind me and hug me. He smelled like liquor and smoke along with a horrible smell of body odor.

“Thank you for saving me. Again,” he said and hugged me tighter. I coughed, forcing myself not to gag as the smell got stronger.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Now do us both a favor and go take a shower. Your spare clothes are still in the back of the closet. I don’t have another pair of shoes for you, but you can borrow a pair of fuzzy slippers if you put everything else in the washer and dryer.”

“You really are the best,” he said and kissed me on the cheek. My phone buzzed in my pocket as he walked away in the direction of my bedroom to go scavenge up the clothing I had kept for him.

“I know!” I called after him with a grin and sighed heavily when I realized my plan for the night was definitely not going to happen now. I would not be taking a bath and fingering myself while my brother was here. No way in hell.

Figuring it was either Guy or Caroline, I pulled my cell out of my pocket and noticed I had more than one message. The first set was from Giovanni, and I opened them with a smile.

Gio: Hopefully you got home from work okay.

Gio: We will talk more tomorrow.

Gio: Have a good night, darling.

Well, that was… kind of cute. So he was the kind of guy who texted goodnight messages. That was rare. Certainly not complaining, but it was highly unexpected.

The other message I had was from Rex.

Annoyed, I opened it up and read it.

Rex: You better not fuck that guy in your apartment. He looks enough like you to be the brother you spoke about, but seeing as you think we are not in a relationship anymore, I figured I would let you know that I still consider you mine, and if you fuck him, I will kill him. So contemplate how much you want your pussy filled, Vicky, and contemplate how much you value that man’s life, because if you fuck him I will know. Good night, Vicky. We will be in touch.

I tossed the phone on the counter and began searching for cameras.

Chapter eight

Giovanni

“Please… I don’t know anything about the shipment. I’m not in on that part of the business,” the man strapped to the chair insisted. His right eye was swollen shut and was quickly turning a grotesque shade of purple. Sweat dripped down the good side of his face and he trembled.

I couldn’t say as I blamed him. If I were in his shoes—zip-tied to a chair in the middle of an abandoned warehouse with Lucky the Axe using my face as a punching bag—I would be sweating too. Of course, if he would just tell us where the Irish had brought our guns, everything would be okay.

Well, that was a lie. The only reason the little rat was alive right now was because he had been caught at the docks exactly when our gun shipment supposedly had been scheduled to come in that night. My father had asked me to oversee the unloading of the product, but when nothing showed except for a tiny fella with too much red hair and not enough sense to hide so that our guards wouldn’t catch him taking pictures of our reactions to the missing shipment for his boss, at least we were able to figure a few things out.

Somewhere between Italy and there, the Irish Mafia had intercepted the ship and hijacked it, along with nearly a million dollars’ worth of guns and explosives—all things we didn’t want to fall into our enemies’ hands. If we couldn’t uncover where they had taken the ship, we were out a lot of money not to mention that our enemies would significantly outnumber us in weapons.

Needless to say, this was not a good situation at all.

“Where do you think they would bring them?” I asked. “Where do the Irish usually dock their own ships? I am assuming it’s somewhere in Boston, but if you give us an exact location, it will seriously cut your torture time down.”

“Will you let me live?” he asked, swallowing hard. He rolled his terrified good eye up at me to see my facial expression. “Will you let me go?”

“Of course, I’ll let you go,” I told him as Lucky cracked his knuckles next to me. His white shirt was spattered in the kid’s blood. Well, the guy in the chair wasn’t exactly a kid, but he was certainly in his early twenties, which was a “kid” compared to Lucky and me. “As soon as we verify that we’ve located the goods, I’ll untie you and let you head right out the door.”

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