Promised: A Mafia Arranged Marriage Romance, page 5
“Fuck you,” I say, spinning around to face him. I don’t know what to do with the feelings coursing through my body, so instead of trying to figure it out, I’m just going to lash out at him.
“That’s the plan,” he says casually, reaching up and hitting a button above his head. I didn’t even notice that we’d pulled up to his house and I kick myself for not paying attention. I’d been so busy thinking about what it would be like to have his cock in me that I didn’t see how we got here.
That’s a big mistake and one that’s going to make it more difficult for me to get out.
He parks the car and hits the button again, sending the garage door down behind us. The garage is empty except for his car but I eye the tools hanging on the walls and the workbench off in the corner.
“You think that you’re handy or something?” I ask. “I thought that your main skill as a mafia asshole was breaking kneecaps and kidnapping.”
“I’m good at a lot of different things,” he tells me. “And I’m happy to show you some of my talents later. But right now you need rest and I need coffee, so get out.”
He hops out of his car and I follow a little slower, my body screaming at me to sit down. I could easily just sleep in his car but I can tell from the look on his face that there’s no way in hell that’s happening.
He has my bag over his shoulder and is waiting for me at the door into the house before I can even shut the car door. I join him, vowing to pay more attention to how he gets in the house and where we go.
I just have to be able to backtrack everything.
He must read my mind, because he stands in front of a small screen, his eyes open, and I watch as a light comes out and scans them. There’s a soft beep and he punches in a code, then grabs me by the neck and pulls me up to stand where he was.
“Open nice and wide, Janele, that’s good,” he murmurs, his fingers massaging my neck. I do what he tells me to even though I don’t understand what’s going on.
The same light scans my eyes, then Xavier punches in more numbers. A bright red X appears on the screen and he taps it. “There. I can get in and out thanks to my retinal scan but if you try then the entire house will lock down. Want to see it in action?” He turns to me, his eyebrow raised, a smirk on his face.
My heart sinks. I want to smack that smirk off his face but I know that it’s no use. “Clever,” I snap. “Now do you want to show me more of your little toys or are we quite finished here?”
“Oh, I have plenty of toys to show you,” he says, scanning his eyes again and opening the door. “But you’re not ready for them yet.”
“I hope you go blind using that thing.” I don’t want to follow him but I also know that I don’t have a choice, so I step into his house behind him. He reaches past me to shut the door and flicks on a light.
As soon as the door clicks closed behind me I feel panic rising in my stomach. He’s got me here and I don’t have a way out.
I’m fucked.
Xavier
Janele is so infuriating that I don’t know if I want to kiss her or lock her up in a room where I don’t have to look at her or hear her voice. It’s easy to see how she can get under my skin, not only with her hot little body, but with her sassy mouth.
I can safely say that I’ve never met a woman like her before. That’s part of the reason why I wanted to make sure I got to bring her to my house and she didn’t stay with her father. He’s obviously not able to keep her under control and I know that I can.
She may not like it at first, but I have no reason to think that she won’t end up loving it by the time we’re married.
“Let’s go,” I tell her, acutely aware of what it’s like to have her standing in my foyer. I never bring women back to my house, never want to have one in my space if she’s not going to be there long term. Part of me thinks that I’ve been holding the space for when I married Janele, but I’m not a romantic.
Fuck that.
“Your house is really big,” she remarks, hurrying to keep up. It is big but I have a feeling that it’s nothing like any house she’s been in.
I skipped the marble floors and went with wide planks of wood. My dream home would be a cabin up in the woods away from all of the bullshit that comes with living in the city, but that’s not at option when you’re poised to take over a mafia family like I am.
Rather than sculpted busts along the wall, I do have art, but it’s not from big name painters that she might recognize. Call it pretentious, I call it thinking outside of the box.
The entire house is like this, opting for comfort over the cold aesthetic that so many of my family members and friends prefer, all except one room. There’s one place in the house that isn’t as comfortable, and that’s because it has a very specific purpose.
Keeping someone in.
“Are you hungry?” I ask her, pausing in the kitchen. Janele’s eyes are wide as she looks around the room but she shakes her head.
“Just tired,” she tells me. “Can I sleep?”
Gone is the spitfire who wanted to claw my eyes out in her father’s backyard, but I know that she’s just below the surface. Janele may be playing nice right now but I have no reason to believe that it’s going to last.
“Bed’s this way,” I tell her, keeping an eye on her as we leave the kitchen. She eyeballs the knives but doesn’t move for them. Each step is slow and careful like she’s trying to memorize exactly where she is and how to get back out of the house. I know what she’s doing. Cataloguing. Mapping.
She’s making a mental map of where shit is and how she’s going to get the fuck out of here. I’ll be damned if she manages to get her hands on a knife, though. “You know that you can’t escape, right?” I say, spinning around to face her. She has an innocent expression on her face but it doesn’t fool me.
“What are you talking about?” She asks. “I just want to go to bed.”
“Fine.” Bending down, I put my knee into her stomach and stand up before she has time to realize what I’m doing and tries to fight me. She’s just as light as I thought and I throw her easily over my shoulder.
“What the fuck are you doing?” She cries, smacking my back with her fists. “You can’t just pick someone up like that and think that you can get away with it!”
“That’s exactly what I can do and am doing,” I tell her, striding quickly through the living room down a small hall. “You’re taking your time, Janele, trying to figure out exactly how you’re going to get out of here, but you can’t. You belong to me now, darling, and you better fucking start acting like it.”
At the end of the hall is a small door and I look into the retinal scanner then throw the door open when it unlocks. There’s a flight of stairs here and I hurry down them, my weight on each stair causing lights to turn on overhead.
At the bottom is another door and I push through it, closing it behind me before putting her down. She steps away from me, backing up until she hits the wall and stands there, her palms pressed against it, staring at me.
Fucking hell. If I didn’t sign a contract that I would wait, I’d take her right now. I can smell the fear on her and I breathe it in, enjoying the way it hardens my cock. Janele is perfect for me, she just doesn’t know it yet.
“What is this?” She asks, still staring at me.
“Home sweet home. Once we get my ring on your finger and you learn that you can’t just act like you own the place then you can come upstairs, but until then, this is your house.”
I take a step out of the way so she can look past me. Her eyes widen as she takes in her new home.
Her cell.
There’s a bed over in the corner as well as a bedside table and dresser for her clothes. A large rug on the floor warms the room up a little bit, but the tile floors will still be a little chilly on her bare feet.
Closer to us is a table and two chairs. I’ll bring her food each day and she and I can eat together. Everything has been carefully chosen to ensure that it can’t be turned into a weapon, but I’ll still keep an eye on her with the cameras scattered throughout the room.
Off to the side is a bathroom, the shower and toilet fully exposed to the room. I know that she’s going to hate that part of the space, but there’s no way I’m putting her somewhere where I can’t see what she’s doing all the fucking time.
“This is bullshit,” she tells me, turning to me. “You going to watch me shit?”
I grin at her. “Why? Are you into that? I’m not, but I’m happy to play along if it gets you off.”
“Fuck you. You think that you’re so funny, so cute, with your shitty smug smirk and your stupid fucking house? This is a fucking jail cell and you know it! Take me home!”
I let her rage for a moment and then walk over to the door, fully expecting to leave, but she throws herself in front of it, blocking my way with her body. “You want out? You have to go through me!”
Growling, I brush her hair back from her cheek, tucking it behind her ear. “Don’t tempt me with a good time, Janele,” I whisper. “I’m pretty sure that both you and I would love it if I had to go through you to get out.”
She shivers under my touch and slides to the side, her eyes bright with tears. I watch her for a moment, interested to see if she’s going to cry, but she blinks them away.
Good girl.
“I hate you,” she whispers. “You can make me marry you, but there’s no way in hell that I’ll ever love you, and you can’t make me.”
“I’m not worried about that, Janele,” I tell her. “You may not think that you can ever love me, but you will. You’ll love my hands on your body, my mouth on yours. You’ll love my cock in your tight little cunt and the way I make you come all over it. I know that you don’t think that it’s possible right now, but Janele, I promise you, you’re not going to be able to keep your hands off of me.”
“Fuck you. You’re a monster, Xavier, and the only reason I’m even here is because I don’t have a choice. Otherwise I’d never give you the time of day.”
“You think that, darling. If that’s what helps you sleep at night then tell yourself that.” I want to kiss her so badly. My cock throbs in my pants for release but I know that if I let myself kiss her once that it’s all going to be over and I’ll end up fucking her right here and right now. I have more self-control than that.
“So, what? You’re just going to lock me down here?” There’s a note of panic in her voice that wasn’t there before and I can’t help but enjoy hearing it. It’s good for Janele to be a little afraid. This entire time she’s been so cocky and thinking that everything was going to work out for her, but not everything is a fairytale.
“I’m going to keep you safe, and the safest place for you right now just happens to be in here. Get comfy, Janele. I’ll be down later.”
I have to leave her alone. I need to take a shower, relieve some of the pressure she makes me feel, then I have a long day ahead of me. Once I’m out of the room and the door is shut behind me, I pull my phone from my pocket and tap on the security app.
Janele’s still standing right where I left her. When I zoom in on her gorgeous face I can see that she’s crying.
Good. She needs to realize how serious this is. I could sit and watch her all day long if I didn’t have anything else to do, but just then my phone vibrates. It’s Alejandro, with a single message. I read it and my blood chills.
Problem. Wharf.
Janele
For a long time I just stand where Xavier left me.
I feel like I’m having an out of body experience, like I honestly can’t believe what just happened. It doesn’t make any sense.
Rubbing my eyes, I try to stifle a yawn, but it tears through me and I’m suddenly overwhelmed with how tired I am. All of the excitement and hope that had been coursing through my body at the thought of getting away from my dad and from this fucking arranged marriage has disappeared, leaving behind a bad taste in my mouth and utter exhaustion that’s threatening to bring me to my knees.
I want to sink to the floor and pass out. It honestly feels like I can’t go on for one more moment, like anything else that I ask my body to do for me is just one thing too many and I’m going to fall apart.
Instead, though, I turn, eyeballing the bed. I can reach it in just a few seconds as long as I start moving. There aren’t any windows in the room and I worry about how dark it will be when I turn off the light, but then I realize that I don’t care.
I can sleep through anything, including bright recessed lighting that seems to make the entire room glow.
Shuffling, I put one foot after the other and make my way slowly across the room. When I finally reach the bed I kick my sneakers off, leaving them where they fall, and collapse onto the bed. It’s more comfortable than I thought it would be just looking at it and I grab the blanket that’s folded at the bottom of the bed.
It’s cashmere, or something equally as soft, but that barely registers as I pull it up over me and curl up under it.
I don’t think that there’s any way that I’m ever going to fall asleep, not in this strange bed in this strange house with Xavier wandering around upstairs somewhere. I don’t trust him.
I may have to marry him, but that doesn’t mean I ever have to trust him.
When I wake up my tongue’s sticking to the roof of my mouth, I’ve sweated through my clothes, and I sit up so quickly, panic coursing through my body, that the room spins.
“Holy shit,” I say, grabbing the blanket and closing my eyes. I feel like I have to try to get myself under control before I look around me, but then it hits me.
I’m not in my room.
I’m not in my house.
Xavier took me from my house last night when I tried to run away and failed.
Xavier.
The thought of my future husband terrifies me and I open my eyes, fully expecting to see him standing at the foot of my bed. I don’t put it past him to be waiting there for me to wake up, but when I do, I’m not really surprised to find that the room is empty.
He’s probably upstairs sleeping off the long night that we had last night. Rolling over, I put my feet on the floor and stretch, then look at my Fitbit.
Nine thirty. I don’t remember the last time that I slept in this long, especially in a room as light as this one. Glancing around the room I’m hopeful that there will be more to it than I thought last night, but it’s just as bare and sparse as I remembered. There aren’t any creature comforts here, probably because anything extra could be used as a weapon.
On closer inspection, I see that even the furniture has been designed so that it can’t be broken apart and used to hurt anyone. The metal bed frame is completely soldered together, and the table and chairs are just as solid.
The only thing that could be used for harm are the sheets and blankets, but I’d have to figure out how to hang myself with them and I don’t have any real desire to kill myself.
Xavier, on the other hand…
I wouldn’t mind wrapping something around that asshole’s neck and pulling until he turns blue in the face. Nevermind the fact that he’s gorgeous and I’ve had an uncomfortable throbbing between my legs since he popped back into my mind.
Trying to ignore that, I stand, then walk over to the toilet. There are cameras all around the room but I have no way of knowing if he’s watching me. He might be asleep, or at work.
I grimace, then look at the toilet again. I really need to pee and shower but I hate the idea that he can watch me without me knowing. Sighing, I grab the blanket from the bed and hold it one hand while I strip down to pee.
With it held up in front of me I feel like I have a shield, but there’s no way that I can hide from the cameras when I’m in the shower. Peeing feels great, but I’m not going to feel all the way better until I’m in new clothes.
After washing my hands and digging through my go-bag, I pull out an outfit for the day and put it on the bed. My goal is to spend as little time as possible fully naked, which means that I’m going to have to shower as quickly as possible and then dry and get dressed.
The shower heats up quickly and I strip down as soon as it’s hot, trying to ignore the cameras facing me from all directions. Once the steaming water hits my skin I feel myself relax but I soap up quickly, rinsing the suds from my hair before turning off the spray and grabbing the towel to wrap it around myself.
I’m not sure how long I was fully naked, but it couldn’t have been for more than a few minutes. Turning to the camera I flick it off, holding the pose for long enough to ensure that if Xavier is looking, he gets an eyeful of my middle finger, then I saunter to the bed.
I figure that I can change under my sheets and he won’t be able to see me. It’ll be a pain in the ass, sure, but that’s still preferable to him seeing me naked.
After I’m finally dressed I stand up and face one of the cameras. There’s no way for me to know if he’s watching me all the time but I have a feeling that he’s going to want to know what’s going on in here, so I wave my arms above my head to get his attention.
Nothing happens except my stomach grumbles at me. I can’t remember the last time I ate so I give up trying to signal to Xavier and cross to my go-bag, digging through it for a granola bar. I had to sneak these out of the pantry so that my father didn’t wise to what I was doing, so I only have a few of them.
I don’t have a cup so I walk to the sink and cup my hand under the stream to drink while I eat my bar. The entire time I’m thinking about how to get out of here. He’s already told me what will happen if I try to use the retinal scanner, but I’m locked in as it is.
