ROUGH RIDER (13 page)

A
short drive later
, Romeo and I pulled up to an old cabin in the middle of nowhere.

I’d had a few moments to come to my senses after having my brains fucked out, and my nervousness was back. I didn’t know this guy. We were still in the middle of nowhere. And just because he fucked like a God, didn’t mean he wouldn’t still kill me.

My heart began pounding in my chest. If Gabby was here, I was going to find her and get the fuck out of this place. As far as I knew, the guy who came out of the cabin could have already killed Gabby. Maybe I was next, and Romeo just wanted a piece of me first. Maybe they were both crazy killers hidden behind dead sexy faces.

I guess I didn’t really give them a chance to prove otherwise.

I just started yelling for Gabby. It was impulsive, but that’s how I roll.

When she finally walked out of that cabin, pure joy filled my heart when I saw she was okay. Hugging her had never felt better. I pulled away, looking her over. She looked good. In fact, she was glowing. Her hair had that unmistakable just-fucked look and her eyes were sparkling with satisfaction.

“You look…” I paused, “happy.”

“Happy?” she asked, her voice full of surprise, as if she didn’t even know what the word meant. She glanced over at Dante quickly, and a slow blush crawled up her cheeks. So that was it. This guy was obviously the source of her glow.
What a hussy
, I thought, before a slow chuckle escaped my chest. I guess I was a hussy, too.

“God, I fucking love you!” I grabbed her, hugging her hard again. “Okay, so you’re fine. You know half the fucking state is looking for you, right? Your Dad came to our apartment in person. He’s really worried about you.”

The glimmer in her eyes dimmed, and she nodded.

“I know he is,” she whispered.

“So why don’t you call him?”

“Um…” she looked away, glancing over at Dante again. “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated how?” I asked bluntly. “This guy keeping you prisoner, Gabby? Because I can call for someone to pick us up and get us out of here.”

“She’s not a fucking prisoner,” Dante growled. “I’m keeping her here to keep her safe.”

“Yeah?” I asked, my voice full of skepticism. “Safe from what?”

He looked at me quietly, shook his head, then closed the distance between us. He grabbed my arm and led me towards the front door the cabin.

“Hey —,” I began, before he shoved me through the door, bringing me face to face with a very fat, very tied-up, very angry biker.

“—from this!” Dante said, his voice seething.

I
’d never been so
happy to see someone as I was to see Bella. And yet I knew our situation just got ten times more complicated. Bella could be a grade-A bitch. Stubborn, pretentious, and confrontational were her usual moods and she moved through them like a revolving door. I loved her, but once she got pissed off, I knew to get out of her way.

She reminded me a lot of my father in that way.

So, my dad had come out of his self-imposed isolation, huh? He did that often, locking himself away somewhere until whatever storm was brewing ‘took care of itself’. We all knew what that meant, but we never asked questions. If a body turned up floating in the East River, we still didn’t ask questions. Those lucky breaks were chalked up to answered prayers and coincidence and then never mentioned again.

Our house was full of unspoken rules. Asking why Dad hadn’t left the house in six weeks was one of those rules.

Which meant he must be really upset if he was out searching for me. I was a hundred percent sure my Ma made him do it. She was the only person who made him do anything, and most of the time he hated it, even though he went along with whatever she wanted. Which also meant he was going to be majorly pissed off at me. Both of those things made me happy that I was here, but if Gino had found us, then surely my angry father wasn’t far behind.

And once my father found me, he would do what he always did. Lock me in a room at his house, with his men standing guard to make sure I didn’t leave. He always did want me to be more like him. Isolated from real people. He called it protected. Or cautious. Trusting people to be good to you was naive and weak. If you didn’t expect anything from anyone, you would never be disappointed, he would say.

I called it imprisonment.

We disagreed strongly on this subject and I’d spent years wrestling myself out of his protective grip. It took an act of God just to get him to agree to let me live with Bella. It would take years to get him to that point again, once he saw the mess I’d gotten myself into now.

But what am I thinking?
I killed someone
. I’m going to go to prison for the rest of my life. There will be no more freedom, no more Bella, no more apartment…no more Dante.

I looked over at Dante, his soft hair framing his determined face, and even with the angry set of his jaw, he was breathtakingly beautiful. A vision of him hovering over me in the dark, his massive hardness smoothly transporting me to heaven last night flashed in my head. It had been magical.

But was that really all it was meant to be?

How could that be possible? How could fate be that cruel?

Was I doomed to spend the rest of my life behind bars, remembering such a brief moment in time, torturously yearning for a man that I could never touch again?

I just couldn’t accept it. This kind of thing couldn’t happen to me. I was a fucking Loprinzi, for fuck’s sake, and no matter how entitled it made me sound, this kind of thing didn’t happen to our family.

I always got my way, dammit!

“I really need to talk to my father,” I said to Dante again. “I know you don’t think it’s a good idea. But if Gino found us, then my father will find us, too.”

“How is he going to help?” Dante asked again. I’d never really answered him the first time. We’d ended up in bed, because talking about it was too hard, too painful, too confusing.

“He knows people. Cops. DA’s. Prosecutors. Judges.”

“What about the Feds that are looking for him?”

“The Feds are always looking for him. That doesn’t mean he can’t help us.”

“I’d imagine helping me is the last thing your father wants to do. In his mind, I’ve tainted his precious daughter,” he said, lowering his voice, a slow smile spreading across his face, “and more.” He reached up, pushing a strand of hair behind my ear and brushing his lips across mine.

“Hey, Romeo and Juliet - how about we get back to the matter at hand?” Bella’s voice cut through the moment like a butcher knife. “Call your father, Gabby!” she pushed her cell phone into my hand.

I stared down at it like it was a gun. It was either going to save me, or it was going to be my demise. I looked up at Dante, his eyes questioning, kind, gentle, his hand on my back so warm and comforting, that I couldn’t help but lean into him.

I put Bella’s phone in my back pocket and shook my head slowly.

“Not yet,” I said, ignoring the incredulous look on Bella’s face. “I need to think.”

“
C
ome on
,” I said, grabbing Gabby’s hand and leading her back into the bedroom, leaving Romeo and Bella alone with Gino.

“Watch him, Romeo,” I said, over my shoulder.

“He ain’t going nowhere on my watch,” Romeo said, sitting across from Gino with his gun drawn. Bella stood watching all of us, her arms crossed in frustration.

“I —,” she was just about to start speaking when I closed the door in her face.

I turned to Gabby, pulling her into my arms again.

“If you call him, he’ll kill me. And I can’t let him, or his men, get close enough to do that.” I ran my hand through my hair, trying to find another way to explain this to her without sounding like a monster. “So that’s what we’re dealing with here, Gabby. I don’t want to have to hurt your father. I respect you too much for that. But if it comes down to him or me, I’ll fight to the death. That’s the kind of man I am, and I don’t know any other way of being. I won’t stop you from leaving, either, but I think it’s a disastrous idea to leave alone.”

“So what do you suggest? You haven’t come up with an answer for me yet. You just keep saying to wait. Well, what the fuck are we waiting for, Dante? We’re sitting ducks staying here!”

“I know a place we can go. Upstate. It’s safe.”

“That’s what you said about this place,” she replied, her green eyes looking up at me warily.

“Safer.”

“Dante…what’s the point? Do we just keep running? Until when? When do we stop? Where does it end?”

“I don’t care,” I said, my heart in my throat. “I just can’t let you go yet, Gabby.”

Her eyes widened and her pretty pink mouth opened, a tiny little ‘oh!’ escaping from it. I leaned down, kissing her gently. It was all going to be over soon. Part of me knew it. And another part of me, a much bigger part, was screaming in protest.

“I don’t want to let you go either,” she sighed. “I don’t know what any of this means, Dante. But if by some twist of fate, we don’t end up in prison or dead, then I’d really love to spend some time with you again.”

“Maybe we could go out on a date?” I winked down at her, grateful for a moment of levity. My heart was heavy, and I remembered how good it had felt to laugh with her last night, if only for a fleeting moment.

“Sure,” she smiled. “As long as you don’t take me to Otto’s.”

“Deal,” I said, pulling her into my chest, her soft hair tickling my chin. My cock hardened in my pants, even know, despite all of this, hungry for her.

“Deal,” I said, kissing her again.

L
eaves crunched
under my shoes as I made my way slowly down the trail. The biker and Gabby’s roommate had disappeared down it a half hour ago after fucking like a couple of rabbits on the side of the road.

I’d watched from afar, partially hidden by trees as the biker bent Gabby’s roommate over his bike and fucked her silly. I have to admit I was a little jealous. He was a lot hotter than Tony, and he had a much bigger cock. Maybe if I’d stuck around and fucked him instead, maybe he would have lead me to Loprinzi and the other biker…

Instead, I’d fucked the stupid bartender, who’d given me absolutely nothing but a couple of missing pearl buttons. How gullible was I?

I waited till they’d disappeared down the road before following on foot. The trail, and the road, seemed to go on forever. After a few miles, my loafers had rubbed a blister the size of Texas on my ankle and I winced in pain with every step.

My white silk blouse was soaked through, leaving big ugly circles under my arms. I would have given my left tit for a pair of hiking boots and some nice cool cargo shorts right then. Maybe a light tank top, too. I didn’t even let myself think about water or what it might feel like as the pure fresh coldness hit my lips. I’d barely eaten this morning, instead opting for those last fifteen minutes of sleep and hammering the snooze button. Images of dancing buttery croissants filled my head like sugar plum fairies, and I began to feel a little dizzy.

I wasn’t used to this heat. I stayed in my air conditioned car, office, and apartment most of the time. I wiped the sweat from my brow and kept walking, determined and stubborn.

I wasn’t about to let those assholes at work see me fail. I’d come this far, and if my intuition was correct, then I was close.

As if a sign from above, I rounded a corner and a small cabin came into view. Outside, two bikes were parked. The front door was closed, but I could hear voices coming from inside. Hiding behind a tree, I waited several minutes, watching for any activity, but nothing happened.

I grew impatient, the heat snaking around me like it was hugging me. My breath became ragged and slow, but I soldiered on. Almost there, I thought, as I started walking towards the cabin. I snuck up to a window, staying as low as I could and peeked in.

I swallowed a gasp as I saw a man tied to a chair with something stuffed in his mouth. He fought against his restraints and the biker sat in front of him taunting him and laughing at him. The girl paced in the kitchen, her face locked in anger.

I scanned the rest of the cabin, but there was no sign of Gabriella Loprinzi.

Shit!
I thought.
Maybe I’d made a mistake after all.

I’d come all this way, endured all this fucking heat, and Loprinzi wasn’t even here.

I looked back in the window at the man tied to the chair and noticed his vest. He was one of the Iron Godz. But why did this guy have him tied up and what did Loprinzi’s roommate have to do with it?

Maybe I just needed to wait a little longer. I’d jumped the gun. Maybe Loprinzi would show up here at some point. I’d just wait in the woods and stake the place out. Maybe find a water hose or a stream or something in the meantime.

Crouching down low, I wobbled around the side of the house, my throat clenching with dryness. I walked slowly, lightly, trying like hell not to make a sound. I rounded the corner, staying as low as possible.

Bingo!
A hose was attached to the side of the cabin, directly under another window.

Now, if only I can turn it on without anyone hearing,
I thought. I raised myself to my tiptoes to peek into the window first.

Double Bingo!
Loprinzi stood with her arms wrapped around the man everyone in town was looking for.

Yes!
I thought, my heart overjoyed.
I’ve found them!

I crouched down again, looking longingly at the water hose. I couldn’t risk turning it on now because they would definitely hear me. I would go back into the woods and wait and watch.

I’d taken two steps before I went down - a thick, heavy thud the last thing I heard before my body hit the ground.