Chapter Two
Mia
I had to remind myself there were worse things than being on the run, and certainly worse things than being on the run in southern Italy. The waiter set my espresso down, momentarily interrupting my thoughts, which wasn’t a bad thing.
What had I been thinking watching them? Watching him? Was I so hard up?
I covered my face in shame. Well, I couldn’t not watch. He was incredibly good looking for one thing, blue eyes, dark hair, scruff along his jaw, and a grin that was wicked, devious even. I imagined he was a man who didn’t hear the word no very often, at least not from women. Then there was his body. Big, cut with muscle and heavily tattooed. That last part intrigued me while scaring the crap out of me. There was something about him, something about the ink covering most of his chest and arms. I just knew that for someone like him, it wasn’t about vanity. Each of those tattoos meant something.
Watching him fuck her the way he had? All I had to do was imagine it was me on my knees before him and I came. Hard.
This had been going on for the last three days. I’d been spying — to my utter disgrace — on the couple in the hotel room across the courtyard as they made love.
No, wait. There was no love making that I could see. He’d been fucking her. And I’d stood there like a perverted — and horny — peeping Tom unable to look away. And today, he’d caught me.
I groaned, ashamed, rubbed my temples, then picked up my coffee and took a sip. This wouldn’t do, I needed something stronger. The waiter walked by and I ordered a shot of vodka, tossing it down when he brought it, looking around at the noisy little café. This was my favorite neighborhood spot and I began to recognize the regulars here. Some part of me longed for that familiarity for myself, even if it was an impossibility, given the circumstances of my stay in Italy.
I’d been in the city of Cosenza for six weeks now, had rented one of the small studio apartments the hotel offered for long-term guests. I’d been hopping from city to city for the last couple of years and I was tired. I missed home more than I thought I would. Well, not home so much as my friends, but when you testify against your stepbrother, the son of a man whose family has earned their fortune on the suffering of others, and put him away for a good chunk of his life, you can’t exactly go back.
I wasn’t even sure if stepbrother was the right term. My sister, Tanya, who had practically raised me since I was five, had married Samuel St. Rose when I was thirteen, and she was eighteen. He was in his mid-forties. Jason and Allison were Samuel’s kids from his previous marriage. Although technically the term stepbrother and stepsister didn’t work, given our ages, it was what I called them. Never mind the fact that Tanya was just a year older than Jason.
My sister had known all along what Samuel St. Rose did for a living. She’d married him anyway, and I understood that. We’d come from nothing. He had everything. And on top of that, she had fallen in love with him. I think it was Tanya who had been the most surprised at that. We’d lived on the street for stretches of time on two separate occasions. She was tough as nails. Samuel changed that, and in a way, I was at least glad for that part of things. Glad that in her short life, she had had at least that.
My friendship with Allison, my stepsister, was another one of the good things that came out of this. And truly, Samuel had been kind to me. Had treated me like his own kid. He did it for Tanya, I knew that. He had loved her. But when everything had happened, he had chosen his son over me. I wasn’t his by blood, and he’d do whatever he had to do to protect his son. Even if he knew that son didn’t deserve his protection.
I didn’t realize my sister had been trying to protect me until it was too late.
Ironically, I received her letter on the same day as I received news of her death. She’d tried to call me twice that week, but I’d been too busy to talk to her. Maybe if I had, she would have told me what had happened, what she’d been thinking about doing. Maybe I could have helped her. She’d been scared and I hadn’t known it. And when Samuel had found out what she’d done, all bets were off. Suddenly, he wasn’t so nice to me, and between him and Jason, I knew the danger I was in. It was then I’d decided to go to the police, to tell what Jason, my stepbrother, had done to me, what he had done to my sister. Tell them what kind of man he really was. Tell it before he hurt anyone else.
But by doing that, by going against him, I’d gone against the family and broken a promise I’d never wanted to make.
When Jason ended up in prison, he vowed revenge, and I believed him. Samuel wasn’t as reckless as Jason, but what I saw in his eyes the day his son was sentenced scared me to death. I received a promise that I’d be made to pay for my betrayal. We were family after all. Family didn’t rat out family, they didn’t talk about what happened behind closed doors, and certainly not after an agreement had been made and money had exchanged hands.
I scoffed at that. Family. No, we were certainly not family.
Catching the waiter’s eye, I ordered another shot and drank that down too before reaching into my bag to locate my wallet. It was late, just past midnight. I’d have to go back at some point. I’d just leave the curtains drawn until the couple checked out. Surely, they’d be gone soon.
But just as I stood to leave, the door opened — and I stopped dead.
This cannot be happening.
I tried to tell myself I was mistaken, that it wasn’t him. What were the chances he’d walk into the same cafe, after all?
But it was him nonetheless.
He was dressed in a dark suit. Actually, it was the first time I’d seen him dressed at all. He was taller than I had thought, but then again, I hadn’t been paying attention to his height when I’d been peering between the curtains. I’d been too busy watching them fuck. His dark hair was still wet; he’d probably showered before leaving the hotel room, and now that he stood just a few feet from me, I saw that gray dusted the scruff along his jaw, making him look even more fierce now than he had when he’d been in the room across the courtyard.
He stood there, scanning the café as if he owned the place. He finally turned his gaze in my direction and when those ice blue eyes found mine, my heart took a nose-dive to my belly.
He paused, scanning me from head to toe, and when he returned his gaze to mine and the corner of his mouth curved upward, I was left without a doubt that he recognized me too.
My chest grew tight and I couldn’t breathe for a minute. One word, one thought, one sensation made me shudder. It was the same thing I’d felt the moment we’d locked eyes from across the distance of the courtyard.
Danger.
He took a step in my direction, and I blinked back to life. I wasn’t about to stick around, not now that he stood in the same room as me. Gripping my purse, I hustled quickly around the tables, slipped out the door and dashed into the street.