Page 54 of Mafia Bride
This is the kind of store that keeps quiet. And yet, even if he doesn’t actually see me, he knows. He knows where I am. He knows I’m here.
I want to scream. I should scream. But it’s like a dream, a fucking nightmare, where you open your mouth but you can’t hear yourself, and neither can the monster. No one can help you. No one can hear you. But the beast always knows where you are.
“There’s a lounge for the guys. He knows he can come in,” the salesgirl chirps. She’s entirely too happy.
Is it demons or vampires who need to be invited inside? I never remember. Whichever it is, Santino’s that, because he opens the door just after the girl says he can.
“This way!” She nudges me towards the back, and I follow her.
The store is luxurious and terrifying. All my mind can see is the red lingerie that wound up in my bag. Velvet couches and velvet carpeting fill the dressing room area. Dim lights and frilly lingerie cover the walls. A pole is anchored in the corner, surrounded by a cove of floor-length mirrors.
And he’s a regular here. Great. Great.
“Stay here and I’ll get something that’s right up his alley.” She winks at me with a wicked smile.
Shit. “Hey, uh...don’t tell him I’m here. It was supposed to be a surprise.” I try to wink back but my body is so frantic and anxious I probably look like I’m in mid-seizure.
“Your secret’s safe with me.” She winks again and disappears into the forest of lace and leather.
I peek around the corner, behind a tall rack of hosiery, to spy on the devil. Santino is standing casually in the store, hands posed demurely in his pockets like it was another day, nothing exciting happening.
But I can feel him the same way he must feel me, and he’s anything but calm.
“You sure you don’t want him to come in?” the girl chirps from the back room. I can hear the mischief and excitement in her voice. It’s only a matter of time before she blows my cover.
I have to get out of here.
This dressing room is nothing more than an elaborate trap to snare me. Just around the corner is the Employee Only door, tucked behind another mounted pole.
Jackpot.
The breakroom is dismal at best. A single table, two chairs, a tiny fridge. Sexual harassment posters over an expensive coffee machine no one’s cleaned in months. Where are the posters warning about mobsters forcing you into slavery posed as marriage?
There’s another door in the back, with a big metal bar across the middle and a big, fat red EXIT sign shining above another that screams EMERGENCY ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.
What good will an alarm do if I’m already a store’s worth of steps ahead?
“This is your only chance, Violetta.” I grit my teeth. My heart is trying to shatter my rib cage, my stomach clenches down attempts to upheave the coffee I had earlier, and the air around me feels like cotton in my lungs.
I take a running start and slam into the metal bar. It buckles under me with aclackand the alarm shrieks.
The world shifts from velvet and lace to metal and dirt. The back alley has a roof over top and is wide enough for a Rolls Royce to be parked back there. I can squeeze past it to the right. To the left is dumpsters, a plastic chair with a spray of cigarette butts at the feet. A stack of shoeboxes marked PRADA.
Past that, past the mess of filth and luxury, people walk in blissful ignorance. The sky. Freedom. My way out of this fucking nightmare.
I turn to run, make it two steps, and the world moves sideways as I’m grabbed by a thick, powerful hand. The door slams shut and the alarm cuts out, then I see him.
Santino.
The king.
He’s more regal in rage.
I want to squirm, for my body to respond to my brain’s desperate, frantic pleas. To run. Be safe again. Ever again. But he holds me against the brick wall with a vise grip that’s nothing compared to the intensity of his wine-dark eyes.
My chance at freedom disappears in a blink.
“Please,” I gasp. Tears threaten to peel off my skin and my body threatens to combust. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe I’m just better off dead. “Set me free. Please.”
