Consumed by the Mafia (De Salvo Family #5)

14. Coming Alive

fourteen

Coming Alive

Ryōma’s directions wound them back to the edge of the Passaic, this time inside Newark city limits. Abigail parked the hijacked cab in front of a small, two-story building that was nestled between larger, newer, and better-kept buildings. The one in front of them resembled a clichéd portside warehouse. When they hauled the man responsible for her parents’ murders inside the building, that sense of cliché only escalated.

Two long, parallel tubes of fluorescent lights flickered to life and revealed a wide-open, high-ceilinged space that was undoubtedly the stuff of many nightmares. A lone steel beam ran the length of the ceiling between the lights. Hanging down to the floor from that beam was a thick, ominous chain that reminded Abigail of the one from the basement of the safehouse. Around them the space was sparse. There was a lone chair shoved off to the side, up against the row of lower cabinets that spanned most of one wall. An undecorated butcherblock countertop sat atop those, as if purposefully left open and available.

There was a door off the other wall that, logically, led to another—likely smaller—space. From her current angle, Abigail could see no windows. The concrete floor beneath them had a couple of suspicious gouges, but she couldn’t identify more than that.

“Grab me that chair, baby girl,” Ryōma said as he walked Wells into the center of the room.

Abigail gave herself a shake and moved forward. This was exactly the kind of space she had been hoping to find not even a week ago. Now here she was, being brought into it as an ally and knowing full well she wouldn’t take the action she should. She could hide behind the fact that they were there because Ryōma had taken a captive for her sake, but it was more than that. She knew it, even if she wasn’t ready to put that understanding into words. Instead she grabbed hold of the chair and carried it over to him.

Wells started struggling again. “What the fuck is this? You can’t do this!”

Ryōma shoved him down onto the seat and kept his hands on the man’s shoulders as he leaned forward. “I can—and will—do whatever the fuck I want with you, dirtbag. If that means I want to slice you up and watch you slowly bleed out or die from the terror, that’s what I’ll fucking do. If that means I let Abby empty her clip and mine into your twig-ass body until she feels sated , that’s what I’ll fucking do.”

Abigail pulled in a breath as Ryōma’s words tangled up in her chest. She ought to have felt disgusted. At herself and certainly at the situation. She ought to, but she didn’t. Watching her lover growl into the face of one of her lifelong nightmares both satisfied and triggered something in her that she had no name for. At the same time, his particular choice of wording ignited a feeling she was becoming much more familiar with. She definitely had no business feeling that in this sort of situation.

“Baby girl,” Ryōma said again, snapping her out of her increasingly uncomfortable fog. “Could you grab me out some zip-ties? First cabinet. I’ll need three.”

“Wh-what the fuck?” Wells mumbled. He sounded equal parts confused and petrified.

Abigail nodded, walked around them, and took herself to the indicated cabinet. “Are you going to get in trouble for bringing me here? And showing me around?”

“Only if you’re still playing me,” Ryōma replied, a grin in his voice that definitely shouldn’t have been there.

She rolled her eyes, though he couldn’t see, and crouched in front of the cabinet. For a moment she was overwhelmed by the surprisingly organized selection of things displayed before her, but then her mind snapped into focus and she quickly spotted an entire tray full of zip-ties. Which was sort of alarming. Grabbing out three, she made her way back to Ryōma. “Want me to tie him up? Or hold him still?”

“Let me fuckin’ go!”

Ryōma pointedly ignored the outburst as he met her gaze. “Lady’s choice.”

Abigail bounced the options back and forth for a beat, matched his grin, and dropped to a knee in order to hike up his pantleg and retrieve the wicked knife once again sheathed out of sight. “I’ll take requests, but I want the fun.”

Ryōma laughed. “I can see that.” He waited until she was standing again before he added, “Once you cut the tape off his wrists, pull his arms around the back of the chair. Then tie his wrists together and make sure you get at least one of the chair posts as an anchor, too. Pull them tight enough to bite into his skin, but not break it. We want him uncomfortable, but we want to control when he starts to bleed.”

“Y-you’re fucking crazy…. Crazier than I thought…” Wells said.

Abigail nodded and walked around behind the chair. She raised the zip-ties to her mouth to free her hands and set to work following Ryōma’s instructions.

She wasn’t prepared for Ryōma’s low growl. “ Oi . What did I tell you about that?”

Abigail’s gaze snagged on the darkening, improperly bent middle finger on Wells’s right hand and she nearly misjudged the angle she needed with the dagger. Which she wouldn’t have been heartbroken over, in all honesty, but it wasn’t her intention. Shaking herself back into focus, Abigail swept the blade through the tape, caught one immediately forward-swinging arm, and hauled it back around as she lifted her gaze up. She adjusted her grip on the blade and wrangled the other arm under control as she willed her confusion across to Ryōma.

He leaned forward, shifting to press an elbow into Wells in a way that was undoubtedly painful and also enabled him to retrieve the zip-ties from her mouth, eyes narrowed. “I warned you about putting unfamiliar shit in your mouth, baby girl. Did you think I was joking?” He pulled one from the selection and passed it over, helping hold Wells’s arms in place while she worked.

Abigail blinked, still confused, and dropped her gaze to her task as her mind raced. She didn’t immediately remember what he was talking about. Not until the morning in the hotel popped up in her mind, when he’d kissed her senseless after his phone call—when he’d said something ridiculous about her having put the pen cap in her mouth. She swallowed hard and jerked maybe a bit too hard on the zip-tie.

Wells cried out.

Ryōma eased off his collar bone. “We’ll each do a leg,” he said, already holding out another zip-tie.

Abigail nodded and mimicked him, waiting until he sliced off that tape to grab a leg and haul it to one of the chair legs for anchoring. “You were serious about that?”

Wells struggled, trying to kick against their hold.

“Baby girl.”

Shit. Her heartrate spiked. She licked her lips. “I—It was just a reflex.”

Ryōma finished first, standing again. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

Her hands hovered for a second after she finished as she mentally tripped over his response.

“Are you two fucking serious right now?” Wells exclaimed. “Let me the fuck go, you nutjobs!”

Ryōma sighed.

Abigail stood. “Can we gag him?”

“Definitely.” Ryōma faced her. “We’re gonna leave him to stew for a while, and like it or not we have work to put some effort into. Tomorrow, hopefully, we’ll come back to play with him.” He stepped up and lowered his lips to her ear, lowering his voice to match. “He might not be the only one I play with, but I promise you’ll enjoy the entire experience.”

Heat flashed through her and Abigail barely bit back a moan. If he’d ripped off her pants right then and there, she wouldn’t have stopped him. She really had a problem.

Ryōma reached up, twisted a hand in her hair, and pulled her head back to expose her throat. The motion arched her bodily into him and she felt his rumble of approval. “Tonight, when we’re alone, I’ll dole out your punishment.” He leaned in and ran his tongue up the center of her throat, nibbled along her jaw, and murmured, “But only because we don’t have time right now. So keep that in mind, baby girl.”

Abigail shivered, her fingers curling over his arms. She’d never so looked forward to any kind of punishment in her life.

“Jesus Christ,” Wells said, “you could pay someone to watch you fuck, you know.”

Abigail sucked in a breath.

Ryōma chuckled low, released his grip on her hair, and cut a sarcastic grin to their captive. “Where’s the fun in that?” Without waiting for a response, he stepped around Abigail and headed back to the row of cabinets. A few seconds later he returned with what looked like a pair of balled up socks and the duct tape from the cab hanging off his arm.

Abigail watched as he proceeded to shove the socks into Wells’s mouth, then stretch the duct tape across his face to hold them there.

Wells tried to scream, but the sound was too muffled to carry.

Ryōma walked around the chair, lifted the chain, and wound it through the poles at the back of the chair before clipping the open end onto another link. Then he returned to her side and propped his hands on his hips. “Now all we need is to ditch the cab and get ourselves a proper ride.” He grinned over at her. “Shall we?”

Abigail eyed the man in the chair for another moment. For most of her life, he’d haunted her nightmares. He was the one who’d messed up the address and therefore gotten her parents killed. In her mind, even though he hadn’t been the triggerman, Corey Wells was the most to blame. The biggest monster. The fact that he’d gotten out first had upset her so badly her therapist had urged her grandparents to put her on medication. The fact that he’d promptly returned to a life of crime had only made her fears and her anger worse.

Seeing him bound, gagged, and visibly petrified was unspeakably satisfying. Knowing she had helped put him there felt like icing on the cake. Knowing she was going to get to be a part of taking him permanently off the streets was disturbingly euphoric. This man—if he even qualified—would never hurt another soul. And, finally, she would get to make sure of that.

Abigail grabbed hold of Ryōma’s face and pulled him in for a wet kiss, uncaring of anything else around them. A strange, heady combination of urgency and elation filled her, compelled her, and she pushed her tongue into his mouth. His hands came up to her hips, dragging along her sides as he vibrated with a low groan and kissed her back. The kiss was hot, the kiss was delicious, but it wasn’t enough. “Now,” she gasped against his lips, stretching her arms around his neck and tugging at his shirt and hair. “Need you now. Please.”

Ryōma held her tighter. “It’ll have to be quick and dirty, baby girl.” He ground against her, one hand sinking into her ass. “You good with that?”

“Yes,” she breathed. She angled her head to tease his neck with her lips and tongue, the way he had to her. In the background, she heard something like a muffled protest. The sound spurred her on.

Ryōma made a rumbly sound that vibrated into her, and then his hands started moving. He tugged her shirt free, pilfered her gun, her pants were loosened, and the next thing she knew he was shoving them down right where they stood. When he got to her feet, he managed to loosen her laces without entirely untying them, and popped her shoes off. Then her pants and panties were removed and he arched up, craning his neck to slip his tongue between her legs.

Abigail cried out and shoved both hands into his hair. It wasn’t what she was after, but damn did she love what he could do with his tongue .

Except he also didn’t linger. He licked, teasing, and stood swiftly. “Fuck, you’re so wet already. What a dirty girl, getting all hot and bothered while we worked.” He took one of her hands and moved it to his pants. “Take out my cock if you want it.”

She didn’t need to be told twice. She unfastened his belt, popped the button, and swept down the zipper to let his beautiful dick spring free. Before she could do more than graze her fingertips over it, however, Ryōma caught her wrist again and started moving, guiding them toward the row of cabinets. And the bare countertop.

“This’ll have to do. I’m not fucking you on a concrete floor, sakurasou .” He leaned close and whispered in her ear, his voice rough. “We can still put on a good show from here.”

She shouldn’t have felt another surge of heat from that admission, but she would have been lying to herself not to acknowledge it. So she helped get herself comfortable when he hefted her onto the counter, uncaring of the cool surface beneath her butt, and she paid no mind to the weapons he set just out of the way before he hooked her knees around his hips. “Fuck me,” she begged as his hands slid up her thighs. Abigail reached for his shirt, for his shoulders or his chest or whatever part of him she could catch. “Please, fucking fuck me.”

In the distance, she heard another muffled protest. The faintest scrape of solid wood on concrete.

Ryōma grinned devilishly, hands anchored on her hips, and held her stare. “As you wish.” He surged into her in a single, powerful stroke, filling her completely .

Abigail clawed at his shoulders through his shirt, a scream of pleasure pushing out from her chest. She crossed her ankles behind his back, barely having drawn breath by the time he started moving, thrusting in and out of her at an unforgiving pace. He was practically using her and it was exactly what she’d wanted, what she’d needed. She managed to reach higher and wrap her arms around his neck, tangle her fingers in his hair, as her choked cries filled the air between them.

“Fuck, that’s it, dirty girl,” Ryōma said. His fingers dug into her hips as he held her in place for him. “Look at the way you take my cock. You’re fucking loving this.” He leaned closer and ran his tongue across her neck again, adding another layer of sensation. “Should we give the bastard a little more of a show?”

Abigail tried to find a sensible word, her breathing unsteady and her brain scrambled. “Wh-what?” All she wanted was for Ryōma to keep doing what he was doing. It felt so goddamn good.

Ryōma stepped away from the counter, his arms circling around her to anchor her to him on his cock, and turned them so that he was facing their captive. Before she could understand his move, he’d unlocked her legs from his waist and spun her around, setting her feet splayed on the floor and bending her over. He took hold of her forearms and she felt his dick slide between her legs like a teasing promise before he adjusted his angle and drove himself inside her once more. With her bent forward, arms stretched behind her, facing Wells, and half-dressed.

Wells’s eyes were blown wide and his face was red. There was a pouch in the front of his pants she didn’t remember having seen there previously. He couldn’t seem to tear his gaze away from them—his own personal porn.

Abigail released a breath as Ryōma filled her again. Of course the man was getting something, on some level, out of the sight they were making. But the sight was all he’d ever get, and it was the last. She knew that. She knew Ryōma knew that. She closed her eyes and let herself feel her lover moving against her, sliding through her. Feel his fingers digging into her wrists as he held her upright.

Ryōma let out a low groan. “Now we’re on the same page, dirty girl. Don’t hold back on me. Clamp that hot pussy around my dick and scream my name. Show this motherfucker how alive you are.”

Her eyes blew open as his words, and his cock, slammed into her. The orgasm crashed through her body in the next instant, tearing a scream she could never have contained from her lips as her body shuddered from the intensity. Tears pricked her eyes. Her blood felt hot as it pulsed through her veins.

Alive. That was exactly how she felt.

Like she was living .

Ryōma curved an arm around her middle as he bent partially over her, roaring his own release in her wake. Filling her with his own proof of life. “ Fuck , baby girl, I might need you on all my jobs from now on,” he murmured against the back of her neck.

Abigail pushed out a breath and squirmed. “One job at a time, maybe?”

He chuckled, kissed her shoulder, and straightened them both. “Fair.” He tucked himself away and strode forward to retrieve her clothes, tipping his head toward the mysterious door. “There’s a bathroom through there if you need. I gotta call this in.”

She was fucking perfect. Except for the FBI thing. His standards were probably shit, but Ryōma was hard-pressed to care. She was fierce, she was feminine, she was sexy as fuck, she knew how to handle a gun, she didn’t cry or faint at the sight of blood, and beyond all of that, she met his absolute top criteria. She was exactly the kind of woman his father would never have accepted.

They had a mission they needed to be actually prioritizing, and while they were doing that, Ryōma was going to seduce her into falling in love with him. It was only fair, since she’d seduced him into her trap in the first place.

“I get the distinct feeling we’ve already pissed people off today,” Abby said as she walked beside him.

Ryōma grinned, barely managing to keep his hands tucked in his pockets. “Today’s gone a little off-course,” he said, “and despite the very fucked up way he responded to it, Gerardo’s unease is probably a shared sentiment.” He bumped his elbow into her arm lightly. “You gotta give people the chance to see how you work. ”

Abby arched a brow at him. “You have an awful lot of confidence in me. What if the case was only dragging so long in the first place because I suck at my job?”

He came to a stop. “You were never gonna accomplish what you were after without more resources. More importantly, baby girl, from now on, the only thing you suck is my dick.”

Abby sputtered. “Did you seriously just say that?”

Ryōma reached out and dragged his thumb along the underside of her lips. “Well. Maybe not the only thing. But you get the idea.”

She batted his hand away. “No more of that right now. We have to work.” Her gaze shifted out, toward the property across the street. “Speaking of, why did you take me here?”

Ryōma let his arm fall to his side and refocused. She was right about that, at least. A frown tugged at his lips. “Remember the guy who chased you down after your run-in with Silva and Coughlan?”

“Sort of hard to forget.”

“The middle unit there is rented in his name. Or so I’ve been told.”

Abby gaped. “So we’re going to break in and snoop through his stuff? I assume he’s still … in your family’s custody.”

His lips twitched again. It was like his face had whiplash. It was the strangest damn thing. “Yeah.” Ryōma took her hand and guided her toward the crosswalk at the corner. “Keep in mind, if the Irish really are tryin’ to move into town, and Coughlan’s as organized about it as we think, the units on either side are probably Irish-occupied. If not them, then Ink Blot. ”

Abby’s head moved in a slow swing down the street. “Middle class neighborhood,” she said quietly. “Not so likely it’ll be filled to bursting with Blots, but there could definitely be some.” She curled her fingers around his hand. “How are we doing this?”

“We’d have to cross a presumed enemy yard to get in through the back,” Ryōma said as they neared the paved walkway. “So we go in through the front door.” It was early afternoon. Chances were low, but not entirely zero, that there would be anyone home in the surrounding area. A risk they had to take. There was the possibility of important information inside that rental.

“And if the police get called?”

Ryōma released her hand in order to retrieve his lock-picking tool. “Don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like getting arrested by a group o’ people who’d rather see me dead.”

“Well, when you say it that way,” Abby said, her snark almost catching him by surprised. “I assume you’re capable with that thing?”

Ryōma scoffed, feigning insult, as he stepped up to the door. “I am a very capable man.” She was half a foot behind him, but he felt the eye-roll all the same. Still, by the time she actually started to voice her response, he popped the front door open.

Abby cut herself off for a beat before mumbling, “Damn.”

He bit back the amused chuckle, pocketed the tool, and led the way inside. The unit opened up into a small sitting area, with a split staircase ahead on the left acting as a room divider between living and kitchen. It wasn’t Ryōma’s personal taste, but he hadn’t been asked to live in it, either.

Abby clicked the door softly shut behind them and quietly asked, “What’s the game plan if this turns out to be a bust? There’s no guarantee that guy has anything useful.”

She wasn’t wrong. There was always that risk.

A bright, yellow-white beam of light split through the shadowed interior of the rental, shining almost directly into Ryōma’s eyes. A second later an unfamiliar, definitely not Irish, voice said, “Oh, I don’t think you gotta worry about that.”