Presley looked at Liborio and then measured her next words carefully.“You’re wrong, Liborio. I think you believe you’re saving me but you’re wrong.”“You will see things differently in time.”“Have you never said anything in a fit of anger you didn’t mean?”“No.”“Lucky you. I do it all the time. Do you know who else shoots their mouth off when they’re angry, frustrated, panicking?” She thought of Cruz earlier calling her a child and yelling at her and knew his fears for her were not faked. He loved her. This man sitting opposite her was never going to convince her otherwise. “Cruz does, Liborio. He’s a big man with big emotions and it is why he says things he doesn’t mean. I also know there isn’t a bone in his body which would truly hurt me.”“He broke your arm when you were kids. He literally and physically hurt you. You brought it up yourself at the restaurant.”“Stop.” She took a breath. “He broke my arm because he didn’t see me riding my bike behind his car. He cried more than I
Cruz felt his head throbbing painfully as everyone whispered around him. It had been more than an hour since he woke up on the floor of the room he shared with Presley. Anderson was still hovering over him as he continued to lay on his side on the bed.According to Algernon, who was also in the room, he’d been tased and then when he was on the ground someone injected him with a sedative. He was then transported back to his room and dumped there with Presley nowhere in sight. His heart clenched painfully.“Cruz, you need to sit up and help us.”“He took her,” Cruz whispered sadly.“He did but we can get her back. Algernon knows people.”“My Russian friend is on his way,” Algernon spoke seriously. “I believe Liborio Bartoli underestimates who I am and what I do. I tend to lay very low and operate more in shadows. I have a very public image here in Europe which makes a good cover for my more,” he made a face, “illustrious activities.”Cruz noted Algernon was speaking to him in French as
Presley returned to her room on the ship and immediately noted pajamas laid out for her. She gave a sideways glance at Estrella who stood in the room her back to the door.“You’re staying?”“I presume you’ll want to brush your teeth after eating.”“I didn’t eat.”“Are you hungry? I can get you something and bring it to you.”“No.” When the woman continued to stand there she rolled her eyes angrily. “Estrella, what the hell do you want? Why are you still standing here? You can leave.”“I’m to take your dress with me. You get one change of clothes only. There are straps on the dress you’re wearing which could be used to strangle.”“Oh my god, I’d never strangle anyone. I can barely write violent scenes in my books without feeling nauseated and you think I can do it with my bare hands?”“In your last book, your heroine used the neck of a wine bottle to stab someone in the neck. In another one the heroine used the metal chain of handcuffs to choke out her opponent. My favorite,” Estrella
“I’m not crazy,” Liborio regarded her angrily. “I have spent the last several years looking out for you and being concerned for you.”“Yeah, not buying it.”“We will discuss this later. A particularly good friend of mine, someone I hold in high regard has been told I’ve kidnapped you and taken you against your will.”“You have.”“I merely enacted what we agreed upon earlier than anticipated. Do you forget you agreed to be with me? You agreed to be the mother of my children.”“You also threatened to destroy my entire family if I didn’t. This is very much against my will.”“You were given a choice. Option A or B and you chose.”“Telling me it was a choice, doesn’t make it better. Man, you are sick in the head.” She rolled her eyes at him knowing how much it really was grinding his gears to be so disrespected. “What makes you think I want to talk to your friend.”“My friend and I run an operation together. In exchange for his services, which include providing cover when we’re doing riski
After permitting herself a good cry, Presley decided enough was enough. She wrote heroic heroines all the time and she needed to find a way to get the hell out of this situation. Realizing she couldn’t do a lot in a dress she made a change into the silk pajamas left out for her on the bed.“Why did the nicest pjs I ever put on my body have to have come from a mad man?” she grumbled as she smoothed them over her hips. She walked around the room in them reminded of the times as a child when she was certain new sneakers would make her run faster or her corduroy pants could catch fire if she rubbed them together enough. These things could get her down a slide in a playpark in under a second, she was sure.She knew it was fruitless to try the door knowing Estrella told her more than once she would be locked in this room but imagine her surprise when the door opened under a simple tug. In his rage, storming out of the room, Liborio forgot to lock the door behind him. She almost danced with
Chapter 63Presley fell asleep in the room with the mechanic watching over her unaware the twelve men on the ship not associated with Liborio were planning a fight of their own. As they stood in the kitchen eating cookies, they agreed their boss would not go lightly on them if they didn’t do everything they could to help a woman in trouble.When Presley woke in the early morning, in the darkened room, she was aware of two things. One. The mechanic was standing by the door of his room, his face set in an angry mask and a weapon at his chest as if ready to use it. Two. Estrella’s voice was on the other side of the door yelling at someone in the kitchen about breakfast not being ready for her boss.Presley sat up in bed and watched as Rami clutched his firearm as if struggling not to shoot through the door into the woman. Interesting. Nobody else liked Estrella either. While she’d never hurt a fly, Presley wasn’t opposed to someone giving the snappy bitch in the next room a good smackdow
Presley’s heart couldn’t be beating any harder as she followed the men down the dark corridor and then into a very loud room. She was surprised at how easy it was for these men to dupe the men who took over their ship. A couple of men in blue coveralls she hadn’t met yet easily distracted the ones by the top of the stairs. Then near the part of the boat they were taking her towards, three more men were there as if still searching for her and out of nowhere two more men in blue coveralls were offering their help to the searchers and distracting them from seeing her or the three men dragging Estrella along.Estrella wasn’t protesting much but Rami twice asked in English to Presley if they could simply toss her overboard and it seemed to settle the other woman down tremendously.“What is this place?” Presley put her hand over her nose as the smell made her gag when she looked around the room.“Refrigeration room. Keeps the fish fresh and keeps the other cargo nearly undetectable with the
She had just settled into the chair when the door sprung open again and Rami came in rushing, “come, come.”“What?”“They know we brought you this way and Liborio has rounded up everyone but the three of us. We need you as a hostage.”“I’m sorry, what?”“We are going to use you as a hostage.”“Rami.”“Not for real. It is a stall tactic. We are going to use you as a way to get our men back. We won’t turn you over to him. We’re going to hole up in the kitchen where it is warm and with food. One way in. One way out. You will be surrounded by all of us, but he is going to kill our captain and five of our men and,” he was waving his hand.“No!” she held her hand up. “Do not explain. Let’s go. Hell. I’ll even go with him if it means I’m saving your lives. I can’t let you all die.” She was racing to follow him.“We need to make this look good. We want him to think we kidnapped you from the beginning, so he doesn’t punish you for hiding. It is important. I don’t want him to hurt you.”“I unde
Wandering through the casino she now owned, Presley was trying to get a feel for the way people gravitated to the flash and noise of the scene.She couldn’t understand it at all. Perhaps because she’d never felt a desperate need to make ends meet or to find a quick way to make cash, the appeal to throw money into a machine in hopes of a jackpot never appealed to her. There was more than one person sitting at the slot machines who were greasy-haired and reeking of desperation. It reminded her she was better off than most for the entirety of her life. Now, though, she was far wealthier than any of these people at the machines would dream of being even if they hit it right and won a jackpot.She didn’t deserve any of it.She was taking it though. Presley lifted her chin defiantly. If for no other reason than to thumb her nose at the man who thought he’d be able to convince her to be his wife and steal her life from her, she was taking what she knew he never intended to hand over so soon.
“Where are you?” Belkin’s voice was gruff in her ear.“I’m on my way to talk to my editor. I told you. I’d come to you when I was done my meeting.” Presley was as gruff back to Belkin.“I will meet you there. I have an update for you.”“It can’t wait until I meet you at the holding cells in the casino?”“No.”“Good grief,” she muttered when the phone went dead. She looked to her driver who was watching her in the rearview mirror and shrugged. “Do you think I’ll ever get used to dealing with cranky mob bosses?”“You are one of them now, Miss.” Her driver grinned at her.“Fair.” She nodded her agreement and then turned her attention back to looking out the window. She missed being able to walk everywhere and to have anonymity and freedom to come and go as she pleased. What was only a thirty-minute walk from her home to her editor’s main office, was now impossible to navigate on foot because she needed to travel with guards, paparazzi were chasing her since Liborio’s death was announced
Sitting at the dining room table in Cruz’s condo overlooking Coal Harbour the next morning, Presley wondered why she was clinging to her teeny, tiny, little apartment so much. The view from here was incredible. In other rooms of the condo, you could see Stanley Park and from the balcony you could see beyond the ferry terminals. It was stunning from a location perspective. Add in the fact it was a four-bedroom condo, tons of wide-open space, warm and inviting and Cruz’s bed was a king-sized bed, and she could probably fit her entire apartment in his bedroom alone, well she was almost dreading going back to her miniscule hole in the wall.She took another bite of her sandwich while Cruz was in his home gym, another perk of his condo despite the building having an entire gym of it’s own, she listened to the clanging of metal. According to Cruz, the shared gym didn’t have weights which were heavy enough for what he usually lifted. The grunting sounds as he began lifting whatever he’d put
“I can’t stop scratching,” Presley muttered as they loaded into the waiting SUV to go home. “I’ve never had lice, but I think maybe I have them now. Did your guys get the shampoo?”“Stop saying lice,” Cruz hissed at her as he scratched the top of his head.“It’s what they are!” She peered at him carefully, “I can’t help but think of how you hugged your assistant while she was crying.”“You cannot be jealous.”“No! I’m not jealous. I mean Ramona kept their heads pretty tight together. Then you hugged the poor girl while she came apart, and rightly so,” she glared at him, “but your heads were close and if one of those things crawled from Ramona to her and it crawled to you, you might have lice.” She paused. “I hope she is okay.”“She is going to be fine. Her husband was meeting her at the clinic and I already arranged for a psychologist to meet her there and to do a debrief with her to make sure she gets some help for what she went through today. I also gave her paid leave and told her
“That might have been the hottest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”She snickered at Cruz’s comment when they were back in the SUV.“Where to next, boss?” Cruz waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed.“You were supposed to go to work today and you didn’t. You should probably get something done for your own business.”He gave a sigh, “yes. I know but this was fun.” He made a face, “I also am not quite ready to let you leave me.”“What if I hung out in your office? Is there anything happening there which is top-secret or confidential? Can I hang out on the sofa?” She’d been to his office earlier in the week and there was a giant plush suede sofa he confessed to having for naps when he needed a break.“I would love this.”“Can we swing by my place, grab my laptop, and outline book? I’m feeling really inspired after this morning and I want to jot dot some ideas and maybe begin the framework of my next story.”“Definitely.”It didn’t take long before they were back at Cruz’s office and she w
She was standing in the lobby of the Hawley Telecom building, holding Cruz’s hand feeling like the most powerful bitch on the planet. Truth be told, she might even be her, and the thought sent a shiver of excitement down her spine.Their meeting with Belkin had been long but in the end, he’d told her the four other families, his included, would manage all the illegal activities for her as proxies or she could sell those businesses to them outright and they would split it. She’d decided on the latter because peddling drugs was not anything she wanted part of. Then when she’d had a mini panic attack over suddenly being responsible for several large companies, she was reassured all of the companies had CEO’s at the helm. She was the president of them all and everyone would report to her, but each company was very effectively managed. Cruz and Belkin both promised to guide her through the process while making sure she could still have time for her writing and anything else she wanted to
“I’m so very confused,” Presley rubbed her forehead and with her other hand reached for Cruz. She needed his strength as all of hers seemed to have seeped from her body to pool somewhere under the table. She felt comforted as his large hand engulfed hers completely and then he moved sideways and pressed his lips to his temple.The lawyer spoke, “Miss Brookmore, my name is Atticus Marella. I am the legal advisor for multiple families associated with the Phoenix Initiative.”“Phoenix Initiative?”“Yes,” this time it was Belkin. “When we were coming up with a name of the organization where five families who usually fought one another for territory and profit were teaming up together, we came up with this name. Our goal is each woman we rescue to be like a Phoenix rising from the ashes. Liborio, when drafting our insignia, insisted we use the same shade of auburn in the flames which matched the hair of his sister and mother in tribute to them. I digress of course,” Belkin sighed, “however
Cruz looked at Presley sideways as they sat in the back of an SUV worriedly.“You didn’t have to come.”“It’s me he is threatening.” She rubbed the leather upholstery of the bench seat they were on. “This is nice. Maybe having to be driven everywhere won’t be so awful if I get to sit on buttery leather, have a hot driver and you in the backseat.”He turned his torso to face her pursing his lips in annoyance, “hot driver?”“Cruz look at him,” she whispered mockingly to the man on the other side of the glass partition. “Your security team found me a guy bigger than you! It’s my type.”“You’re not his. He likes men.”“No way.”“You think jacked up guys can’t be gay?”“Yes, they can but not him. He looked at my ass.”“When?”“When I was getting into the car. I saw him checking me out.”He shook his head and frowned, “you’re trying to get me going.”“Am I?” she made wide eyes at him.“Distracting me because of where we are going.”“Well, you’re squeezing your cell phone so tight I’m surpri
Presley looked down at Cruz as her shaking fingers unbuttoned his shirt to push it back off his shoulders. His hazel eyes were clear and focused on her as if memorizing each tiny detail of her features and yet she was mesmerized by the golden flesh she was uncovering. Vacation sunshine gave his skin a sun kissed and burnished glow Her palm ran over his thick pecs, stroking his nipples and cupping the taut sinew of his flesh. His cock twitched under her as she explored the curves of his abdomen and then back up his shoulders and it forced a smile to her face.“What are you grinning like the Cheshire Cat for?” he asked as he wriggled his arm out of the sleeve of his shirt to allow her further exploration.She ground her pelvis against his, “ten seconds of touching you and you’re already getting hard.”“Ladybird, I can get hard thinking of the smile on your face, let alone having you touch me.”She continued letting her hands search as he pulled his shirt from under him and tossed it asi