Mafia.

What exactly is Mafia these days? It’s a loose term. I’m a different kind of mafia, the CEO of my very own new world order. Security systems. I’ve designed the best in the world. My businesses are owned by my shell corporations, hiding my wealth, to make Mossack Fonseca look like a newspaper route company next to mine. I don’t have soldiers shaking down people in back alleys; my dealings are in boardrooms. And my army is the trained computer hackers who graduated top of their classes from MIT.

My hands are definitely not clean.

I didn’t get the nickname Dark Don of the business world for nothing. I’m a ruthless motherfucker, and I’m not afraid to play dirty.

“Mr. Stone,” Justin, a member of my security detail, calls out, semi jogging up beside me. “Got five minutes?”

“It’s late.” I continue to my office and sit behind my desk to finish work I dropped the instant the call came in she was making her move.

“I need to talk to you.”

My eyes lift from the documents, neatly stacked, waiting for my signature. “Make it quick.”

He takes a seat and bobs his legs with nervous energy. “Seems they already know Rhiannon is missing. Mr. DeLaurio says he’s offering a lot of money for her safe return.”

“Safe return? Ah, ok.” I let this information roll off my shoulders. He knows his daughter is missing. Good. Cause I’ve got her, and I’m not letting her go that easily.

Let him offer all the money in the world. I have just as much. If not more.

After a few more details, I dismiss Justin, finish up, and go to check on my little prisoner. Seeing Rhiannon again was not how I imagined. Agreeable, sweet, submitting to my every command is what I pictured. Because, although she's always been in this life, she somehow remained untouched by it all. But, she had some fight in her; I saw the scorn in her eyes when she looked at me as if I were shit on her shoe.

It’s quiet, too quiet, as I roam the halls of this massive house like a ghost. My proverbial sheet is a suit and tie as I stride down the endless hallway which leads to her room. Her ‘cell’—which is pretty fucking far away, I could probably drive there quicker—sits on the opposite side of the estate. Obviously, I didn't need a house this large—no one does—but it’s a statement. A statement written in bold across the front of the sprawling structure: don't fuck with me, or I’ll fuck you harder.

I grew up with nothing, and now I have everything I could ever want. Except, what's behind the locked door in front of me.

The lights are dim when I step inside and move to the bed where she sleeps bundled under the navy comforter. One small foot, with pink toenails, peeks from beneath the blanket.

Her chest rises and falls as she breathes through her tepid dreams.

As I study her, I take in the perfect lines and curves of her tight little figure. Pictures and small video clips showed how beautiful she'd become. But, seeing her now, in the flesh, big fucking difference. Ten years. Ten fucking years of watching her life play out from a distance. Ten years of planning and accumulating wealth to finally set my plan into action.

I have her, now I just need to let him know it.

* * *

The next morning, my first stop is the security office. Having Rhiannon in this house is stifling. Like a goddamn elephant sitting on me. I feel her presence bearing down on what’s left of my conscience everywhere.

It gives me a headache—she gives me a headache.

I jam my thumbs into my temples, trying to drive her condemning brown eyes out of my head. Fuck. She's still there.

“Mr. Stone,” Zeke, sitting behind a panel of flat screen monitors, calls out as I enter the room converted into a mini-surveillance center.

“How’s our little prisoner?”

“Trying to escape.” He chuckles as I glance at the screen where Rhiannon works her fingers around the window in her room. “She’s pretty,” he says. But, corrects his word choice when he sees me lift a brow. “Pretty determined,” he says with a cough.

“Yeah, a lot of good it’ll do her.” This house was designed by the top security expert in the world—me. Metallic glass windows. State of the art security system. She's not getting out.

When I reach Rhiannon’s room and step inside, she’s given up her attempt at escaping to sit in the fawn-colored armchair, staring out the window at the wild bramble thicket with its dark blackberries and prickly thorns.

“There’s no way out.”

“There’s always a way,” she says, not breaking her gaze from the view outside.

“Ah, hopeful Rhiannon. Trust me, there's no way.”

She moves to the bed, crossing her arms, finally meeting my gaze. Her brown eyes shoot daggers at me. “Trust you?”

She makes a sarcastic sound which I choose to ignore. What I can't ignore are the way the baby blue sleep shorts and tank I purchased for her hug all the right places.

“Get dressed. You’ll be having breakfast with me every morning.”

She stands. “And then what?”

On autopilot, I move closer. Her body is still as inviting as ever. The curves have matured more, and she’s grown into her plump breasts. I rake my teeth along my lower lip. “Whatever I decide.”

“And if I say no?” she huffs.

Getting extremely too close, so close I can smell the mint on her breath, I zero in on her. “You don't want to find out.”