Arranged Mafia Marriage

Karma

“You ass, I almost died and now you shove your… your floozie in my face? You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” I struggle in his arms and he tightens his grasp.

“Stay still,” he orders, “or I might drop you.”

Jerk! “Don’t you dare,” I shove at his shoulder, and my palm encounters the hard muscles of his body. Goosebumps rise on my skin. Shit, why does he draw such a primal response from me?

He continues walking and I glance up at the jut of his chin. For a second there, when he’d kissed me, I was sure I’d been wrong about him. That he isn’t the kind of monster I’d thought him to be. He saved my life, didn’t he? He’d come after me after that…that show that he’d put on for me. Why did he do that?

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“You are scared about how I make you feel?”

His jaw tenses.

“You are worried that you are attracted to me?”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“You?” His lip curls. He stares straight ahead, lengthens his stride. “Is that what you think?”

“Why else would you have left behind that…that…?”

“Beautiful woman, who is actually the kind of female I go for. I promise you, girls with little to no experience are not my type.”

“How do you know I have no experience?”

“Are you telling me that you have had experience?”

I tip up my chin, “Are you trying to ask me if I am a virgin?”

“Are you?” He lowers his chin.

I gape. “Seriously, like, is that even a thing anymore?”

He holds my gaze and the blood rushes to my cheeks.

“What?” I scowl. “Didn’t think you were the kind to worship at the altar of the hymen.”

His gaze intensifies.

“But then you are Mafia, so I guess you forget that the rest of the world has progressed enough to recognize that the hymen is a myth. Many girls aren’t born with one, and most lose it thanks to exercise or when we use tampons.”

He arches an eyebrow and I feel the blood rush to my face.

“What?” I snap. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Answer the question.” He lowers his voice to a hush, “Are you, Karma?”

“Yes,” I murmur, “I am Karma.”

He scowls. “Are you a virgin, Karma?”

“None of your bloody business.”

“It is, actually.” His arms around me tighten and I gasp as he pulls me closer into his chest. The heat of him seems to increase in intensity. The planes of his chest seem to harden until they dig into the flesh of my arms.

“You’re hurting me,” I protest.

“Tell me.” He growls, “Are you a virgin?”

“No,” I snap, and his scowl deepens.

“Are you lying to me, because if you are…”

“No, I am not.” I set my jaw. “Why would I lie to you about that anyway?”

“Good,” he growls, “because I am tired of your impertinence.”

“Impertinence?” I scowl. “I am simply trying to show you just how backward you are in your thinking.”

“Take a good look around you. Where do you think you are?”

“Somewhere in Italy, with someone who kidnapped me and brought me here and is holding me captive and not even telling me what he wants from me.”

He pauses so suddenly that the breath catches in my chest.

I sense his gaze on my face deepen and glance up, then wish I hadn’t. Blue eyes, bottomless and cold. In their depths is something unfeeling, something inhumane, something that causes my muscles to stiffen, my pores to pop. The hair on the nape of my neck rises.

“Wh…what?” I clear my throat. “What is it?” I force out the words through a throat gone dry, “What do you want from me?”

“I told you,” he drawls, “your father owed me, I took you in payment.”

“And what are you going to do with me?”

His lips twist, and I flinch.

I tilt up my chin, keep my gaze trained on that cruel, beautiful, gorgeous face of my captor. “I mean, other than that…”

“Other than what?”

“Of course, you want that. It’s why you brought me here.”

“Want what?” His lips curl.

“You know,” I scoff.

“No, I don’t.” He holds my gaze, “Why don’t you tell me?”

“Sex,” I snap, “you want sex with me.”

“That’s too easy.”

“What do you mean?” I scowl. “Obviously, it’s why you took me and brought me here and are now trying to impress me with your wealth, and power and control, and your stupid dominance-”

“You think I am dominant?”

“Unfortunately, while I wish I could say otherwise, I have to concede that much to you.”

“At least, you are honest.”

“At least, you are…” I search for a suitable adjective. “Not bad looking, for a kidnapper.”

He blinks. “I wasn’t aware that was a quality one needed to have to suit the role.”

“It’s important.” I bob my head up and down, “Very important. I mean, if you were old and fat and had onion breath…” I shudder, “it would be so much more worse.”

“You taking the piss, Drama?”

“It’s Karma, you asshole.”

“Maybe I’ll call you Llama.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Language…” he says in a mild tone.

“Oh, fuck off.” I hunch my shoulders and turn my head away from him. Tears prick the backs of my eyes, and honestly, that’s just stupid. Why do I care what he calls me? Hell, he can call me Destiny, for all I care. Not that it is insulting or anything. Actually, I’d take Destiny over Karma anyway, considering the number of times I’ve been teased for having been called that. It’s a stupid name. Why did my mother have to call me by that name. Being a flower child is all well and good, but why couldn’t she have called me by some other new age easily pronounceable name instead? And why did she have to die on us, anyway?

I had been a baby when she’d passed on. The only things I remember about her come from the photographs of her that we have. I don’t remember anything about her in real life. If it hadn’t been for my sister Summer, who became the de facto maternal figure in my life, well, I’d have never had any inkling of what it would be like to have a mother. Thanks to Summer, though, I’ve always felt loved. She’s done a lot for me, my sister.

Surely, she’ll be missing me. Despite the messages that this man says he’s been sending her from my phone, surely, she’ll know that something is wrong and she’ll come in search of me? Surely.

I sniffle, and to my horror, a tear makes its way down my cheek. Shit, shit, shit. The last thing I want is to be seen as being weak by this man. I don’t want him to see just how defeated I feel right now. That the true horror of my predicament is finally sinking in.

Shit. I have been kidnapped by this monster and he is not letting me leave. I can’t even try to jump off a cliff without his somehow snatching me back from the jaws of whatever fate had in store for me. How the hell am I going to find a way out of here? Why the hell had he come after me in the first place?

“Why?” I demand, my voice hoarse. “Why the hell did you have to turn my bloody life upside down?”

“Why did you have to turn my life upside down?”

I blink.

“Wh…what?”

“You heard me.” He lowers his face until his lips are right above mine. Until that hooked nose of his bumps mine, until those long thick eyelashes of his kiss mine. “It’s you who’s turned my plans upside down.”

“I… I have?”

He nods, “I was supposed to kill you, not bring you here and spare your life and-”

“Wait, what?” My heart gallops so hard in my chest, I am sure it’s going to break through my rib cage. “What do you mean kill me?”

His lips twist, “Off you, shoot you in the head, or did you forget that I did hold the gun to your forehead? If you’ve forgotten, I don’t mind reminding you.”

“No,” I snap, “I remember.”

“Good,” he nods, “so you can understand how crazy it seems that I’m standing here, carrying you in my arms, and after saving you from throwing yourself down the side of the cliff into the sea-”

“My foot slipped,” I snap. “I would never kill myself.”

“Sure didn’t seem like that to me.”

“Believe me, I love my life. Or rather, I loved it before you came along.”

“Did you?” He peers into my face.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You may have told yourself that you were happy, but the woman I saw that day on the hillside of the park was lonely and quoting Byron in the hopes of finding a reason to live.”

I open my mouth to retort, but he tilts his head, “Am I wrong?”

I glance away.

“Thought not.”

He straightens, then heads off, once more, in the direction of the house. He retraces my earlier steps, back across the lawn, through the front door, then up the stairs. He walks down the corridor, enters my room, and lays me down on my bed. I turn away from him, wrap my arms about my waist. The softness of the pillow under my cheek, that masculine scent of his that surrounds me, all of it confirms that I am safe. Safe.

A trembling grips me. Maybe it’s the fact that I almost went over the side of the cliff. OMG, OMG… I almost died. Gah. My arms and legs feel too weak. A ball of emotion clogs my throat. What the hell? I had been fine this far, so why am I breaking down now? A tear slides down my cheek. Stop that, you idiot. What’s wrong with you? Why are you crying now?

Say something. Protest again. Ask him to let you go. As if any of that is going to work. Face it, I am here as his captive and I’ll stay here until he lets me go… Which is never. Unless he kills me… But he’s never gonna release me and I am going to spend the rest of my life in this stupid room, on this stupid island, playing stupid word games with this over-the-top, mean, growly, grumpy, way-too-handsome, egoistical, controlling, arrogant tyrant.

Another tear slides down my cheek and I can’t stop shaking. Gah.

The bed dips, and the next second, the heat of his body sears my back.