Running from hell isnʼt easy. Especially when thereʼs someone dragging you back down into it.
Belligerent, brash and always in shades of black, Freya is hardly a lady. Hidden away by her father, sheʼs lived a normal life despite being born into the...
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I’VE NEVER BEEN more worried in my life. When Torren pushes me into the elevator, I have no choice but to listen. I ride all the way up to the penthouse, my heart a pounding, bloodied mess in my chest.
I obey his instruction, because I know that I have little to no power this time. And this time, none of my stupid little tricks are going to work.
Ben crossed a line.
Normal men are protective over their woman. And Made men? They’re borderline territorial.
In the Cosa Nostra, when you gain a wife, through either love or a business acquisition, you vow to protect them with your life. Any insult to your wife is an insult to yourself. It’s a strict honor code that all Made men and their enforcers follow.
If you try to make a move on someone else’s wife, you will be punished for the disrespect.
It’s a certainty.
And if Torren could kill someone for touching me, after hearing that Ben was planning to run away with me . . .
I couldn’t even begin to imagine it.
All I could do was submit. Plead. And hope that, somehow, he’d pity me enough to change his mind.
I knew it was futile, but I had to try.
Defying him to protect Ben would make only things worse.
In the penthouse, I’m pacing the space between the kitchen and the dining table. Nerves are festering in my stomach like a swarm of bees. It feels like hours have passed, but when I look up at the sleek metal clock on the wall, I realize it’s only been two minutes.
Images of Ben’s cold, dead body, covered in blood swarm my mind.
God, I feel like throwing up.
My funeral outfit is suddenly too much to breathe through.
I reach behind me, tugging down the zipper of the dress before slipping out of it. The black material sinks to the floor. Rushing to the bathroom, I lean over the sink in just my underwear, dry heaving.
Nothing comes up.
But it’s hard to breathe, and it feels like I’ve been hit by a bus.
I must be having some sort of panic attack.
I glance up at myself in the mirror. My brows are pulled together in clear distress, and my hear is still in the fifties’ hairdo from the funeral, although it looks more like a bird’s nest now.
Frantic, and with shaking fingers, I start to pull out the pins in my hair. I send a brush through my knots, then tie back my hair before stepping into the shower to try to clear my mind.
The water rushes over my skin, and I exhale, air rushing through my lungs as I focus on breathing.
They say my husband-to-be is a hellhound. That he can figure out your deepest fear in minutes and use it against you. I guess it becomes easy to detect fear — become well acquainted with it, even — when so many people are afraid of you.
