Read Ruthless: Mob Boss Book One for Free Online Page A

moment when she would make her escape.
    She started to get car sick. She prayed to whatever god might exist that they would arrive at their destination soon, then felt the familiar sting of Catholic guilt. If she was going to pray, she should be praying to Jesus, or at least to the Virgin Mother. But she hadn’t attended Mass since she’d left boarding school. She wasn’t even sure she believed all the propaganda she’d been fed since she was a child, but it’s not like she could tell her father that. He’d been going to mass nearly every day for most of his life, and she really didn’t want to be responsible for the heart attack that killed him. Plus, he was still getting his head around the situation with David.
    David. Did he know she was missing? Had he tried to text her? What would he do, who would he call when he realized something was wrong?
    The car stopped with a sudden jerk. She waited, wondering if they’d hit another red light. But no. One of the front doors opened, and a few seconds later she heard the noise of the city and felt a cold wind on her face.
    The pillowcase was pulled off her head, and she squinted against the faint light of dusk.
    “What the fuck are you doing?”
    She flinched when she heard Dante’s voice next to her and saw that he was standing at her right shoulder. A dark purple bruise covered his left eye, a crack in his lip dried with blood. His eyes roamed her body, and she turned her attention to the building in front of them, anxious to break eye contact with him.
    They were standing in an alley outside what looked like the rear entrance to a high-rise building. A service entrance, she guessed. She looked around, hoping for a delivery or maintenance person, anyone who might report the fact that two men were holding a woman at gunpoint outside the building.
    But there was no one, and she wondered suddenly if they’d been paid to make themselves scarce. Pulling those kinds of strings would be easy for someone like Nico Vitale.
    “I’m taking her up,” Luca said. “And stop swearing. The boss doesn’t like it.”
    “The boss doesn’t like anything,” Dante said, his voice cold. “Turned into a little pansy ass, and took the rest of you along for the ride.”
    Was he really calling Nico Vitale a pansy? Angelica didn’t know Nico at all, but she didn’t want to think about what might happen to anyone who talked that way about him. She could still feel the chill of his eyes, the animal energy that emanated from him like a warning.
    “Watch your mouth,” Luca growled. She turned to look at him and was surprised to see that his brown eyes had gone cold. It was the one and only time he’d seemed as dangerous as everyone else.
    “Someday you’re going to see that I’m right,” Dante said. “Then you’ll have to pick a side.”
    “I’ve already chosen a side,” Luca said.
    “What am I supposed to do while she’s up there?” Dante asked.
    Luca nudged her toward the doors. “I don’t care. Just be ready when I call.”
    They stepped inside the building and started down a long concrete hallway.
    “What are we doing?” she asked.
    “Following orders,” Luca said, his voice suddenly impersonal.
    She kept quiet after that, assuming Luca was agitated by his conversation with Dante. Clearly they had differences, and while it was obvious Dante was less than loyal to Nico, that didn’t do a thing to help her. Nico scared her, but only because of the raw power she sensed in his presence. Dante was something else; a loose cannon with an undercurrent of for-the-hell-of-it violence. She didn’t know much about the real life mob, but she was pretty sure there was some kind of honor code. That was something, and if it was true, she’d rather wait it out with Luca than roll the dice with someone like Dante.
    They came to a bank of elevators, and Luca pushed the Up arrow. A minute later a set of doors opened, and they stepped into a plush, mirrored elevator that stood in