Duct tape is a lot stronger than it looks. It’s amazing, really. A couple strips over my mouth, and I can’t make a sound. My hands, feet, arms, everything. I’m like an insect struggling in flypaper.

Thinking about that is much more pleasant than thinking about the man I loathe, who sits on the bed with a gun trained at the door. I’ve already tried wrestling the gun from him, and he knocked me out. Couldn’t believe that I’d actually want to kill “the father of his child.”

Maniac.

He keeps glancing at his phone, waiting for some bit of horrible news about the ambush he has set up for Tony. First he made me get my father’s money from Tommy. Then he hired those fucking animals to kill my husband.

With my money.

He grabbed me the moment I left the restaurant. It was right out in the open and if any of Johnny’s people saw, they didn’t give a fuck. He forced me to go to Tommy to collect my money.

“Those fucks better take care of him. I swear to God. I’ve never paid so much for a fucking hit.”

My murmured, unintelligible response doesn’t go unnoticed by him. He cups his hand around his ear, looking at me.

“What was that? Couldn’t quite make that out.” He grins at the fury on my face.

I’m glad you’re able to keep a sense of humor during this.

“Fuck it.”

He bounces from the bed and grabs the corner of the tape, ripping it off my face. Spittle drools down my cheek, and he wipes it off with his thumb.

“Rafael, let me go. This is insane.”

“Let you go so you can crack me over the head with that lamp?” He nods toward the heavy-looking lamp on the nightstand that I’ve been eyeing. “I don’t think so.”

Rage boils in my chest as I struggle fruitlessly against my bonds.

“When he’s dead, we’ll go upstate. Hide out in some fucking farm. That money will last us a while.”

He talks about it on the bed as though he’s got everything figured out.

“Or maybe I can give it to Vince—get him to call off this shit.”

“Yeah, do that so that I can watch him blow off your head.”

It bursts out of me before I can swallow back the words, and Rafael whirls around.

Oh fuck.

He gets up from the bed, gun dangling from his grip as he walks in front of me, his pelvis facing me. “You’re a sick cunt,” he says as he threads his hand through my hair, yanking viciously. “The moment this kid is born, I’m beating some fucking manners back into you.”

The deepest loathing riles inside me as he gently cups my face, running his thumb over his bottom lip. Disgust swirls in my stomach as I see the bulge in his pants, growing larger by the second.

“Fuck, maybe I should just shove my cock down your throat to shut you up.”

“I’ll bite it off,” I growl.

“You’ll lose more than a couple teeth if you do that to me.”

“No!” I squirm in my seat, terrified when he actually undoes his belt with a groan. He pulls his pants down and I scream.

He swears and smothers my mouth with his hand, and the door suddenly rattles as though a battering ram smashed into it.

“OPEN THE FUCK UP!”

“Tony!”

I manage to scream his name as his hand goes slack around my mouth.

“Fuck,” Rafael swears before he aims the gun at the door.

“NO, DON’T!”

Too late.

The sounds of gunshots explode in my ears as he aims at the door and shoots. Black holes rip through the door and shatter through the window, which is covered with drapes. He clenches his face as he fires indiscriminately.

They’re going to fire back. Fuck.

Using my weight, I swing so that my chair topples to the floor. Returning fire blasts the plaster above me, and a voice screams for them to stop.

BAM!

I see an image of Rafael frantically reloading his gun before he’s blasted off his feet, back smashed against the floor. Blood streaks the wall as he slumps down.

Yes. Finally.

It all happened in an instant, and suddenly men pool in the room. They kick away Rafael’s gun. I can only make out slacks and leather shoes before a familiar face drops down to my level and hauls me upright.

Tony gives me a sad smile as his hands briefly grasp mine.

“Hey there, troublemaker.”

I’m so stunned to see him here that I’m convinced it’s a figment of my imagination. “Tony? How—what about the ambush?”

“They were just low-level street thugs. They backed off once they knew who they were dealing with and told us where to find you.”

I can’t believe it. My heart swells inside my chest as I realize that Tony is really here.

“Vincent, she’s mine! Her baby is mine! Don’t do this!”

“Shut him up.”

Tommy sinks his fist between Rafael’s ribs and he sputters with blood. Tony quickly cuts the duct tape from my hands and feet. A vicious surge of vengeance courses through my limbs.

“Let me do it. I want to.”

Tony’s face darkens. “No wife of mine is going to be an accomplice to murder.”

“Vince, you still got my room at the deli?” Tommy’s voice trembles with excitement.

The New York boss crosses his arms, looking angrier than I’ve ever seen him. “Yeah,” he responds. “Tony, is that okay with you?”

“Let me take care of him, Tony.”

I glance at Tommy, whose excited face shines with bloodlust.

Tony doesn’t seem to be listening to them. He wraps his arms around me and lifts me out of the chair, wrapping around me so tightly that I think he’ll never be able to let go.

“We’ll wait outside,” Tommy says in a different voice.

Once the door shuts, he lets out a strangled gasp. “What the fuck did you do to me, Elena?”

He pulls my face toward his roughly and kisses me, tongue spearing through my mouth in a dance that makes my chest heat.

When he finally breaks away, I see tears swimming in his eyes.

* * *

Nothing feels the same anymore.

I think that to myself as I pace around Tony’s apartment, waiting for him to come home. The charges against him were mysteriously dropped following the disappearance of Rafael. He left the motel with Tommy and the others, probably to torture the bastard before he killed him.

I find that I don’t really mind much.

It’s just hard for me to accept that things are finally getting back to normal.

The door opens.

The sound used to terrify me.

His deep footsteps creak over the floorboards, and I get up from the armchair in the living room, twisting my ring around my finger.

Tony gives me a heart-stopping smile the moment he sees me tiptoeing into the foyer. His smell envelops me as he wraps an arm around my waist, hand curving protectively over my small baby bump. His coarse cheek scratches mine as he turns his face to tease me with his lips. Sparks travel down to my thighs.

He grasps me in his arms, pulling back to look at me with a smile I’ve never seen on him.

“Baby, I’m out.”

Out? Out of patience? Out of what?

A tentative smile creeps over my face when he laughs. Geez, I’ve never seen him like this.

“Johnny let me go. He let me go, Elena!”

He’s out of the Mafia.

“Oh my God.” Joy soars through my chest and tears spring to my eyes. “Really?”

“It’s just me, you, and the baby now. I’m done with the life.”

I bite my lip anxiously. Back home, I knew the rules. You don’t leave the Mafia after signing up. It’s a life of service or death.

“How?”

He shrugs. “I told him Tommy could take my place.”

“Johnny wasn’t happy with everything that went down. He didn’t take the threat to my life seriously, and word is getting out about it. No one respects a boss like that, you know? He wanted to get rid of me—to transfer me to another family, but I told him I just wanted out. So I got out.”

I can’t believe it. We’re so lucky. “So—so what are you going to do now?”

A hand slips down my jeans, pushing aside the fabric of my panties as he slowly strokes me. I gasp into his chest as a smirk widens his face.

“Right now, I’m going to fuck the shit out of you.”

His face is filled with joyous energy as he suddenly lifts me into his arms. “Before I do, though, I wanted to ask you something.”

I cling to his shoulders, smiling. “What?”

“Will you spend the rest of your life with me?”

He sets me down over the bed, and I try to suppress a smile. “We’re married, Tony.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t real.” He bends over, planting his arms on either side of me as heat curls over my breasts from his fuck-me gaze.

“When you say ‘yes,’ I want you to mean it.”

“I meant it then and I mean it now. I love you and I want you to fuck me. Is that good enough for you?”

Heat blazes through his eyes and the smirk tugs at his full lips.

It strikes me how things come full circle. My infatuation with bad boys could’ve landed me with another bad egg, but I got lucky. I got him.

He seals his lips against me and heat blazes through my chest. For the first time in a long time, I’m optimistic about the future. If he’s in it, I know I’ll be all right.

* * *