Page 16 of Captive Promise

There’s a fountain off to one side, the water murky in the cloudy skies.

My gaze comes onto the house and my eyes widen.

It’s a three-story mansion made of stone and ivy with a sweeping grant driveway.

It’s something you see in Newport Beach, right out of the Gilded Age.

I half expect women in old fashioned dresses to be strolling around with their parasols while servants bustle behind them.

I shake my head as if to dislodge the thought. I really don’t know what I was expecting.

Maybe a gangster’s house?

But then again, what even is a gangster’s house? Something flashy, I think.

That tries too hard.

This is the complete opposite. And that scares me more than flashy ever would.

The car stops at the bottom of a wide stone staircase and the driver cuts the engine.

The music immediately shuts off, leaving a very uneasy silence. I swallow heavily, unease prickling down my spine.

You can do this, Kat. Whatever this is, you walk in with your back straight.

The door opens for me. I step out onto gravel that crunches too loud, the cold biting after all that warmth, and I look up. My breath catches.

He’s already there at the top of the steps.

God help me, my first thought isn’t you’re a piece of shit. No, my first traitorous thought is holy hell.

My therapist is going to have a field day with me if I survive this.

He’s tall—well past six feet—and muscular, speaking to years of time in the gym.

He has dark hair that looks carelessly perfect.

He’s wearing a black sweater that fits like it was poured on, sleeves shoved up his forearms, and even from the bottom of the stairs I can see ink there, dark lines vanishing under the fabric.

He has a strong, square jaw covered in stubble and…and his mouth—I hate that I’m looking at his mouth—is doing something just shy of a smug smile, like he never doubted for a second that I would come.

He’s devastatingly, insultingly beautiful, and something low in my body sits up and pays attention a full second before my brain can get there and slam the door on it.

I hate it more than I’ve hated almost anything—this stupid animal flicker of want, pointed at the man who stole a baby out of a safe backyard to get me standing on his steps.

My body should know better.

My body, it turns out, does not give a damn what it should know.

Stupid, bitchass body.

I’ve read too many dark romances, clearly. This is not okay.

“Dr. Sokolov.” That voice—the one from the phone, low and warm and certain of itself—does something unfair to the base of my spine. “Welcome to my home. I am Nico Barone.”

My knees nearly buckle. Barone.

I’m not Bratva and I’ve spent my entire life making sure of it. But you don’t grow up in my family without learning the map of who matters in this city.