Enforcer’s Obsession

Chapter 2

TWO

Hope

That sound.

I had only heard it once in my life, but I would never forget it.

Just like I would never mistake it for anything else.

My mind flew back until I was once again in my childhood kitchen, the aroma of the beef stew my mother was cooking thick in the air and the sunset coming in through the window over the sink.

That awful sound was the last thing my mother ever heard.

A deep, commanding voice next to my ear shocked me out of my thoughts.

“Stay down!”

I reached for Molly, desperate to protect her. I struggled against the heavy weight on me, panic seizing my chest.

All I found was air, and I looked over to see that she was gone.

“Molly! I have to find her!” I screamed.

“She’s fine,” the man said. “Stay the fuck down.”

I don’t know how I knew, but I was certain it was him.

When I twisted, dared look in the direction of the voice, I was proven right.

“You picked a bad day to go exploring, bellissima ,” he said, his light accent giving his voice an edge of menace and something else, his dark eyes pulling me in.

There was a determined strength in them.

And he wasn’t afraid.

Before I could respond, he was gone.

I watched his feet as he walked, his steps strong and sure. I realized I was still cowering on the floor.

I raised myself up on my hands and knees, listening to my dark protector’s orders to stay down but needing to find Molly.

I looked around wildly, saw the two men still standing at the front door, and Molly nowhere to be found.

My gaze settled on the man who’d tackled me.

Two things struck me.

First, his dark hair was long enough to brush his collar.

Second, he was the most physically imposing person I’d ever seen. Well over six feet tall wearing an expensive suit that barely contained his broad shoulders, powerfully muscled arms, and huge, tree-trunk legs.

Despite his size, he moved gracefully, and continued walking toward the door, while almost everyone else cowered.

He stopped no more than three feet away from the door, seeming unconcerned that the two men in front of him were holding rifles.

“I assume this display is to get my attention,” he said.

Both of the men smirked, and the one farthest from the door lifted his gun.

“No, Nico. But this is,” the man farthest from the door said.

I flinched with each sharp shot, unable to believe what I was seeing as two men at a table crumpled, then fell face-first, clearly dead.

“Any questions?” the man with a rifle who was closest to the door asked.

“No. I got your message loud and clear, and hopefully, your boss will get mine,” Dark Eyes—Nico—said.

Then, before I could react, he reached into his waistband, pulled out a gun, and fired twice.

A fine mist of red marred his pristine white shirt, and the two men collapsed, folding like rag dolls.

Nico gave no reaction, but soon barked something in a lyrical language that I didn’t understand but assumed was Italian like the words on the window.

And then, to my shock, he turned and started walking toward me calmly, like he didn’t have blood on the shirt.

Like he hadn’t just killed two men.

Right in front of me.

That realization hit like a hammer, and I pushed back, landing firmly on my well-padded rear end.

Not that my embarrassment made a difference.

I had just seen him kill two people; how clumsy I looked didn’t matter at all.

My concern right now was far more existential.

Nico stopped in front of me, so close that his shoe grazed my calf.

I let my gaze travel up the long, long length of his legs, to meet his eyes.

They were ice cold, unreadable, and I flinched when he grabbed my elbow and pulled me to my feet like I weighed nothing.

Then he turned me and walked me deeper into the bar.

I heard people moving behind me, but didn’t dare look back.

He pushed me even farther down an ominously dark hall, through what I guessed was a storage room, and out of the building into an alley, stopping in front of a car.

“Where’s my friend?” I asked.

I didn’t even care that I sounded weak.

Bravado wouldn’t impress this man.

And more importantly, I knew false bravado was something a man like him would feed on.

But most important of all, we both knew he held my life in his hands.

The only question was what he would do with it.

“You’re concerned for your friend?” he asked.

“Where is she, Nico?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Too late, I realized I’d used his name, which meant he knew I knew his name.

My stomach clenched, a wave of nausea washing over me.

Knowing who he was had sealed my fate even more fully than what I had witnessed.

He knew it too, the little glimmer of a smile that lifted one corner of his shockingly full mouth telling me so.

“I think you have more pressing concerns,” he said.

“Like what?” I asked, surprised I’d managed to find a voice.

“Like what I’m going to do to you,” he responded without hesitation.

I didn’t want to ask that question, and I sure as hell didn’t want to consider the answer, but I had no choice.

“What are you going to do to me?” I finally gathered the courage to ask.

He said nothing, just stared at me, his eyes searing me, the silence between us tense and unnerving.

The silence and tension were so thick that I screamed when a sharp beep pierced the air, followed by the click of a lock disengaging.

And then he moved closer to me, then closer still, putting us chest to chest.

I flinched again when he reached beside me, and I realized he was pulling open the trunk.

Then he met my eyes. “I haven’t decided,” he finally said.

Before I could react, he scooped me up like I was weightless and lay me inside the trunk.

The scream that had been building in my throat died when he slammed the trunk closed.