Never Look Back - a Gripping Bad Boy Mafia Romance Read online

  A drunk looking guy was pawing at a giggling stripper, who was practically naked and trailing the last of her clothing on the spike of her high heal. The guy kissed ravenously at her chest, her stomach, her arms and shoulders, and she flung back her head and gave a big, juicy laugh. In an instant her one leg was hoisted up almost to under her armpit, the guy shirked off his trousers and I caught a glimpse of his swollen cock before he threw himself into her and she laughed even louder.

  No sooner was he inside her did he begin to fuck savagely, each pump bumping her hard into the wall and up a few inches, her long black hair and bangles shaking as their hips slapped into each other again and again. The guy curled himself up into her and pawed at her waist, pulling her down hungrily onto him.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. They were just …fucking. Right here. Like animals.

  I turned to see the man-mountain watching the spectacle with me, through the door where the two seemed not to have noticed us in the slightest. He turned to look at me and our eyes met. The heat in my spine seemed to nearly engulf me. I swallowed. For a moment it looked like he was preparing to yell at them, but when he saw my face, something strange crept into his expression instead, then he smiled slowly.

  “You like that?” he asked, something mocking in his voice.

  My eyes went wide.

  He chuckled and looked me over, and I swear I felt every cell in my body spike to attention as he did. He was ugly. He was dirty. He looked positively evil. So why was I sitting demurely in front of him, head tilted a little to the side, staring right back at him as he gave me that filthy look?

  I shook my head clear and tore my eyes from his. He turned his attention to the drama unfolding on the stairwell.

  “The fuck is wrong with you people? Get out of here, Tasha, that’s it, you’re off, go the fuck home, I’m sick of this happening,” he yelled out into the doorway and then slammed the door on their surprised faces. Then he turned to look at me.

  “I swear this place is falling apart right before my eyes,” he said to nobody in particular. Then he noticed I wasn’t really bound at the wrists anymore, and his face got even angrier.

  He leapt forward, grabbed me hard by both shoulders and shook me.

  “You got free, huh, little bitch.” He then flung me hard back down on the ground. The other stripper came back into the room, a look of panic flashing over her face the instant she saw the man-mountain.

  “JD, I’m so sorry, I just took a call…” she said and backed out of the room a few steps.

  JD looked so angry he might bite through his own jaw.

  “Just get out and do your fucking set”, he hissed at her, his eyes throwing daggers at her near-nude, sparkly body.

  She hurried off in the direction of the stage, belt tinkling behind her, and slammed the door. Now I was alone with him.

  “You trying to run away or what?” he said as he looked around for something to tie me up again.

  “Why am I here? Why are you doing this?” I said, realizing how trembly my voice was.

  “How about you shut up, huh? It’s not enough I have to babysit everyone in this fucking hole, now I have answer your stupid questions?” he said, and started rummaging through the makeup drawers like he wanted to punch something.

  “You’ve made a mistake. Please just tell me why I’m here. I don’t know what’s going on. Please don’t hurt me.” But as these last few words left my lips, he looked at me again and I felt, I actually felt something kick inside my body. What was I saying? He could hurt me if he wanted to. He could kill me with his bare hands.

  He looked me over again, top to bottom, as though sizing me up. In that moment, he knew it and I knew it. At that moment, he could have done anything he wanted to me and I would be powerless to stop it. I swallowed hard and stared at him, even though I was so petrified it felt like I had forgotten how to breathe.

  “You pushing me, little bitch?”

  He said it quietly, almost a whisper. A threat. It sent a sick, strange little thrill through me. I said nothing, just kept looking into his small, black eyes. I could tell his hands had clenched by the way the muscles in his forearms and biceps tightened and bulged. His nostrils flared.

  I stared back at him.

  “If you fucking make another peep, you’re going to be sorry,” he said again, in an even lower voice than before. He had stepped closer, and the sheer size of him felt like it eclipsed my small, crouched body. Like his very form cast a shadow over me and made me shiver deeply.

  I parted my lips. Maybe I would make a peep. He wanted to threaten me? So what?

  “You know what I think, JD?” I said, loud and clear. “I think you’re just a hired meathead who’s supposed to be looking after me, and if you fuck up I think the real person who’s in charge here is going to be pretty pissed at you.”

  I had no idea what I was doing. His jaw dropped as I spoke, and he unclenched his fists, truly surprised that I had talked back.

  “So let’s not pretend that you can lay a hand on me. I bet you’d like that, though, wouldn’t you…?”

  I didn’t know what I was saying. I only knew it seemed to come from somewhere deep inside, from that deep, liquid, crackling, electrified stirring in the pit of my belly, somewhere at the base of my spine, between my legs.

  He stared dumbfounded at me, unable to speak. I saw the tiny muscles twitch in his immense jaw. I lowered my head and locked eyes with him. I could tell he was doing his best not to stare at my body. I could tell he was thinking about it. He could tell that I was thinking about it.

  He snorted loudly and tore away his gaze, then found a string and bound my wrists again, without any finesse or mercy, and I smiled quietly to myself as he did so, a weird thrill of triumph washing over me.

  I had never done something so outrageous.

  And it had never felt so good.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as he came round to stand in front of me again, and, kneeling square in front of his crotch, I squared my shoulders and dared him internally to do something. Anything. I didn’t care. I wasn’t scared. But what was I, then? I don’t know. He didn’t know either. But it felt good.

  He left, muttering under his breath, just as the redhead came back in from her set. She winced a little as her eyes met with JD’s for a second before he disappeared and she came into the room and looked down at me.

  “You ok?” she asked. Her perfume was like a thick, intoxicating hug around me.

  “I’m fine,” I said, but I was more than fine. “But I need to get out of here.”

  She looked down at me with pity, then at the door, then at me again. She handed me her cellphone from inside one of the drawers and waved her hands at me.

  “You can use that. But quickly, ok? Just the once so make it count.”

  My fingers were shaking violently as I started to type a message to Leo.

  Chapter Thirteen – Leo

  I’m sitting, throwing rocks at the corrugated storage facility doors. If I stare at it hard enough and stop thinking about everything, I can start to imagine that it sounds like sadness. Like the metal is crying or something.

  Someone appears next to me.

  “Leo Bianchi?” he says. I hate it when people say my name like that. Like an accusation.

  “Who wants to know?”

  A thick wad of fifties lands at my feet, just like that, making no sound at all. I look up to a see a guy smiling.

  “That’s for you.”

  I snatch at it and stuff the money under my coat pocket, then get ready to scram.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  “Friend of Vito’s. He said you could probably use the help,” he says as he looks down at my broken shoes. “You gotta do a little favor for him, though.”

  I look up at him suspiciously.

  “What favor?”

  The guy looks over his shoulder and pretends to kick around some of the stones, like he’s not doing anything at all, like he’s never done any particular
thing in his life and nobody could ever prove it in a court of law.

  “You go over to the corner of Fifty-seventh and Main, you look in a big blue trash can, OK? In there you see a plastic bag and in there’s a box. Take the box out, throw the bag away. You give the box to the guy at this address.”

  I see him take out a lighter to light a cigarette and as he does so he drops a small note scribbled with an address on it. I don’t pick it up.

  “You knock, you say Vito sent you, you give him the box. Then you fuck off and say nothing to anyone. You got a mother or something? Family?”

  I say nothing.

  “Well, if you got someone, go and visit them immediately after, OK?”

  Before I can say anything he’s turned around and walked off, like nothing happened, and the only proof he was even there is the little note still lying on the floor.

  Later, when I fetch the box from Fifty-seventh and Main, it feels heavy and cold in my hands. When I stop to think about it, I imagine it feels like fear. Like guilt. I think how glad I’ll be to get rid of it.

  The guy who opens the door is big, with skin is the color of an eggplant and his eyes are tired looking and bloodshot. He takes the parcel from me and I run away as fast I can. I run before he opens it. I run even before he has time to look at me, time to close the door. I run, feeling free and light without it. Outside, the sun is clear and bright and when I stop to think about it, it feels a bit like relief. I hug the money against my chest and daydream about what I’m going to do with it all.

  I squeezed my eyes tight till they stopped burning. There was no point in being upset about any of that anymore.

  The past was the past.

  What good was stewing over the past when I had big enough problems right here, in the present? Sophia was missing, it was my fault, and now I had to find a way to get her back. It had been a long time since I had dealt with men like this, but I could never forget the way they work. When they say ‘family’ they mean ‘guilt’. When they say a man is ‘loyal’ they mean ‘he’s got no other choice’. And when they threaten something you care about, well that’s the loudest message of all.

  Them interfering with me - by all accounts an outsider - was a challenge that couldn’t be ignored, something designed to catch my attention whether I liked it or not. And now that this ‘Shawn T’ had my attention, I planned to make him sorry he ever tried it.

  I paced the apartment. I hadn’t been able to think straight since she disappeared. Everything in the house seemed pointless without her. Just a waste. Why have any of these rooms without her inside them to laugh or putter around or sing in the kitchen? Why was the sun bothering to even rise this morning when she wasn’t home, here with me, in my arms?

  But the infuriating truth was I had nothing. I had no idea what I was dealing with, or who. I had no connections, no strings to pull, and worse than all that, I didn’t want to get my hands dirty. I wracked my brain for a favor to call in somewhere, for some plan I hadn’t thought through. But I could think of nothing. All I had was the word of some fat guy call Joe Smith and a scribbled address.

  Joe said he needed to think. With Vito out of the picture the whole house of cards was falling and he needed time, he said, to make his next move.

  But I didn’t have time.

  My stomach was in knots just thinking of where she was right now. What she was doing. Whether she was scared. It was all too much. I squeezed my eyes shut again and prayed for a sign. Then my phone beeped. It was from a number I didn’t recognize.

  I’ve been abducted and I’m at some kind of strip club. I’m OK but I don’t know why I’m here. They have me locked up but I’m going to try to escape. Please help :( :( I’m afraid of what I’m going to do here

  My heart stopped. It was her. My wide eyes ran over the same message a million times over, as if I could find her by just reading the words enough times. Some kind of strip club? My fingers flew across the screen and typed a response.

  Sit tight, stay safe I’m going to come and get you, don’t worry, I love you!

  I hit enter but the message failed to send. The number it came from had already blocked me. What the fuck? I broke into a cold sweat. At least she was alive! I ran my hands over my face and tried to think. There had to be dozens of strip clubs in this city. I thought of calling the Police but instantly imagined Joe’s stern face. No. It had to be me. She was safe now, but until when?

  I took another look at the address on the slip of paper. I had no idea who Shawn T was, and quite frankly I didn’t care. I got to my feet and went over the bathroom, kneeling down in front of the cabinet. Thumping the side with the heel of my hand I released a small flap on the bottom which I then pulled, opening a secret compartment inside. From this compartment I carefully slid out my Glock and tucked it into the band of my jeans, then picked up the .22 revolver, examined it for a moment then slid that in the front underneath my hoodie.

  Still on my knees, I whipped out my phone and called a number that rang only once before a familiar voice picked up.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m going after him,” I said.

  Silence.

  I could hear Joe thinking on the other side of the line.

  “You sure about that? Shawn T’s a dangerous man…”

  “He took my girlfriend. You know for a fact he’s there? At the address you gave me?”

  “Yeah, it’s like his vacation home, like a summer house. But kid, can you wait? Let me gather some muscle, let me—”

  “I’m not waiting. She could be in trouble. I’m going right now.”

  Silence.

  I could tell he didn’t take me seriously. None of them did. But I didn’t care. This had gone far enough, and I was now going to end it.

  “Good luck,” he said, and hung up.

  Chapter Fourteen – Sophia

  I know it’s just my imagination, but it feels as if the bright spotlights on my near-naked skin have set each and every tiny hair on fire. I’m wearing next to nothing, but have never felt more covered, covered in light, covered in greedy gazes from the darkness around me, covered in my own veil of thrilling fear… I’m sucking it all through my pores.

  I’m sparkling.

  I stand for a while, a deer in headlights, waiting for death. But they don’t kill me. They applaud.

  I take one ginger step out onto the stage, and then another, my feet light and empty like they belong to someone else, and the small crowd around me erupts in cheers. I stand still for a moment, knowing all at once how I must look to them: a naïve, ‘normal’ girl, one who doesn’t belong here. No self-tanner, no fake tits, no hair extensions. In a way, I’m more obscene than that.

  My heart’s beating so hard in my ears that I don’t hear the announcer’s voice blaring over the speaker, but the music starts up and the lights dim. And now I have to dance. In front of all of them. I have to slowly remove what few items of scanty clothing I’m wearing, and writhe around, and tease, and taunt, for the pleasure of those shadowy faces gathered loosely around and beneath the stage.

  They’re all perverts.

  They’re disgusting.

  Or maybe I’m disgusting? I can’t really figure it out in my mind, but as I raise my snaking arms up over my head, what I feel is not disgusting. What I feel is delicious. I know that every eye in the room is on me, the weird outsider who’s on a dare, on drugs, on vacation, something. Everyone senses that this is no ordinary dance, and pricks their ears toward the tacky stage. This feels real. This feels dangerous. They’re watching to see me expose myself. So, I decide to give them what they want. Or is it what I want?

  I look out at the hungry, amorphous faces and all at once they blend together and become one face: his. I see Leo out there, veiled in shadows and watching me with hunger in his dark eyes. The thought makes my hips tilt to one side, then to the other, serpentine, as though it’s the eyes that are doing it.

  I tilt my head back and let my hair fall to graze the bare skin of m
y back. I shake my head as well, slowly and side to side. I have never danced like this before. Not for anyone else. Not in the privacy of my own home. Not even in the privacy of my own fantasies. But the movements come naturally all the same.

  His eyes are on me, and I’m dancing all the things I want. What he wants. My hips describe the arcs and curls of the more horizontal motions I’m imagining in my mind. It’s not a dance to suggest fucking. It is fucking; only he’s not here.

  I arch my back and thrust out my breasts to offer them to his gaze. I stretch out long and lean, moving with the low, heavy beat, imagining that he is the source of that rhythm, he is the pulse, he is the unstoppable force that moves me.

  Aside from the music, the room is now strangely silent around me. I step further out onto the precipice of the stage, where the light is brightest and I can see barely anything of the crowd below. My body melts. I have never been more terrified in my life. Or more aroused. I slink my hands behind my back and unlatch the bra I’ve been given. My breasts bounce free, relief washing over me as the tight, flimsy thing is dropped to the floor.

  There are no cheers. But I can feel the gaze on me intensify all the same. The entire room is watching me. The lights, the eyes, even the space between the eyes are prickled tight and observing my every move. I shake my shoulders and feel it go through my breasts, each nipple now tight and hard. I slip my thumbs into the rim of my g-string and hover there, teasing, threatening.

  It’s all for him. All for Leo.

  Why had I never done this for him before? Never danced? Never flicked my hair or waggled my ass on his lap? I realized all at once that I wanted nothing more than for him to look at me like that, to move for him, to watch his face respond to me.

  A mere hour ago, I was sure I was going to be killed. JD had found me scrambling around to free my hands, looking for an exit, and had slammed me against the wall. I had laughed in his face and told him to do his worst. He sneered and told me I was pushing my luck, and taking up room, and that he was sick of babysitting me. And I had said, “so what, are you going to force me to work?” And then we had both stared at each other, me more shocked than him.