Alexis
I closed my eyes and tipped my head back. I needed to get out of this damn chair, but Lorenzo must have been one hell of a Boy Scout in his youth. The knots in the rope held tight. There was no telling when my captor might leave me alone again, and I knew this could be my last chance to attempt an escape.
With a sigh, I surveyed the room around me. There was a large bed with a gray comforter. It looked far more comfortable than my current position, but it wasn’t going to help me escape. Lorenzo kept only a few small things on his dresser, including a bottle of cologne and a comb. Not helpful, either. He had put me in this room for a reason. Surely, a man like him had weapons, but he probably didn’t keep them in here.
I eyed the large window on the other side of the room and the thick curtains that covered it. Was there another apartment building that faced this one? If I could get to it and get someone’s attention, then I might just have a chance of escaping. I shifted in my seat, trying to get the chair to move. If I wasn’t going to be able to get out of it, then it was just going to have to come with me. But it threatened to topple over on the rich carpet. I pushed backward with my feet, and the chair stabilized once again. If I fell over, there would be no way I could get back up, and Lorenzo would know immediately that I hadn’t obeyed his orders. As much as I wanted to get away, I knew that I couldn’t risk pissing him off.
A thump from the other side of the apartment made me freeze. I glanced at the alarm clock on the night stand. It had been only an hour and a half. If I’d made it over to the window, I would have been dead.
The bedroom door opened. Lorenzo entered and shut it behind him. As though I weighed nothing, he pulled my chair toward the bed so he could sit down and face me. He leaned forward. “I’m going to take off your gag, but you have to promise that you won’t scream. You do, and that’ll be it. You understand?”
I nodded feebly.
“Good.” He reached around the back of my head to undo the knot. His skin smelled of cologne, sweat, and gunpowder. “It looks as though you behaved yourself while I was gone. I shouldn’t be expecting the cops to come up the elevator anytime soon, should I?”
I wished that I could say yes, but of course that wasn’t true. I was all alone with a hitman. “No.”
He nodded. “Here’s the deal: If you want to live, then I’m going to need you to cooperate with me. I killed Calzoni and his men, but you should be dead, too. Those were my instructions. If anyone finds out that you’re alive, then you’ll have people after you both from my boss and whatever contingent of the Calzoni family might still be out there. They’ll kill me and they’ll kill you, too. Do you understand?”
I nodded, adrenaline and fear running through my body. “So, you didn’t tell your boss about me?”
“Damn me, no I didn’t,” he replied, his voice rough. “But having you around makes things very complicated. You’ve seen too much, and I can’t just let you go. No matter what you say or how many promises you make, that’s more of a risk than I’m willing to take right now. And that’s coming from someone who takes his chances on a daily basis.”
I was ready to promise him anything he wanted, even if he asked me to move to Canada. It would be better than dying, that much I knew. “But, really, I promise I won’t—”
“No!” He cut me off with his voice and a sharp gesture of his hand. “I don’t even want to hear it, because we’re not doing that. You aren’t leaving my side. I need you where I can keep my eye on you, which is why you’re going to pretend to be my girlfriend.”
My insides had been knotted up for hours, ever since Lorenzo had come into my life the night before. Now they turned to water. Just where was this insanity leading anyway? “What?”
Lorenzo stood up and began pacing again. He ran his hands through his thick, black hair, making it stand up in all directions. “It’s simple, really. I should have thought of it earlier. Neither Moretti nor anyone else in the family know about you. Sure, they could probably guess that there was some, um, entertainment last night, but they don’t know that it was specifically you. It could have been any other woman, and so the stripper who was at Calzoni’s club last night is dead. You, Alexis, are not that woman.”
I wasn’t quite following, but he was on a roll. I didn’t dare make him repeat himself. I knew what men were like when they got angry. Lorenzo gestured wildly, and I flinched. No matter how much I tried to put my past behind me, I could never quite stop myself from expecting the abuse all over again. When Dino had found me, I thought he was going to finally get me out of the rut I had been living in. It turned out that he was only another level of my own personal hell.
“Instead, you’re an old friend of mine whom I’ve just come across again,” he continued. We’ve rekindled our old flame, and I’m letting you stay with me until you get back on your feet. I haven’t figured out the backstory yet. Maybe you lost your job or you’re trying to get away from a rotten ex-boyfriend or something.”
“Yeah, that sounds about right.” I had moved to this town for just that purpose, so the façade wouldn’t be a hard one to keep. No matter how much we fought, Dino wouldn’t let me just walk away. Moving out and avoiding his phone calls hadn’t been enough, and I’d finally had to pack my bags and steal away into the night. Maybe that was why I hadn’t tried hard enough to get a new job. The night had been my friend, and I was safer if I went out after dark. But maybe not. There was no logic in my former relationship with Dino, and I couldn’t expect to find any anytime soon.
“Fine, we’ll use that.” He started pacing again, and I realized this was his habit when he was thinking. “And we have to come up with a new job for you. I can’t say that the guys would be upset if I was dating a dancer, but we can’t have any ties to you and Calzoni. Is there some other job you know a lot about? Something you’ve always wanted to do? We need to make it believable.”
I searched my mind, but it was mush. I’d been awake for far too long, and I’d never quite stopped being afraid of this man. Just because he seemed to want to keep me alive didn’t mean he wouldn’t change his mind. “Um, I was a secretary at an insurance office for a little while.” It hadn’t lasted long, but it was the only “real” job I’d had.
“Good. That’ll work.” Lorenzo rubbed his hands together as his plan developed. “So, that’s what you did before you moved here. You’re looking for a new job. Got all that?”
“Yeah, I guess so. But what do I do? How do I convince these people that I’m someone else?” As far as I knew, I’d never been involved with the mafia before. It was quite possible that a member or two had come into The Corral, but they had never made it known. “I’ve never done this kind of thing before.”
My captor stopped pacing and sat down in front of me once again. “Sure, you have. You act all the time.”
I eyed him sideways. “I was never even in a school play.”
He shook his head. “I mean as a stripper. You dance, but there’s more to it than that. When the men pay attention to you, you act like you’re interested in them, right? You make them feel like they’re only one pickup line away from taking you home.”
I looked down at my lap, suddenly ashamed. It was all true and I had known that, but it was completely different to hear a stranger say it out loud. “Yes, I suppose I do.”
“Hey.” He put a finger under my chin and tipped my face back up. His skin was hot against mine. It was the first time he had touched me without trying to detain me. “It’s not something to be ashamed of. It’s actually a very handy skill for you right now. You just have to pretend like I’m one of your customers. Make everyone think that we’re really together, and the rest of it will all fall into place.”
I took a deep breath to keep the tears that pricked at my eyes from spilling over. It was all so overwhelming. “Okay. Well, can I at least get something to eat first? Or take a shower?”
He smiled, and it sent a glint of amusement into his dark eyes. “Yes, but we’re not going over there today. We have some work to do first.”