The Woman in the Wrong Place (Grassi Framily)

As things stood right then, though, all that the basement had to show for itself was cinder block walls and cement floors. There was a washer and dryer to one side beside the only room in the whole open space. It was clearly meant to be a bathroom as it had a toilet, but no one had gotten around to plumbing a sink, let alone putting in a cabinet, finishing the walls or floors, or even putting a plate over the light switch.

Glamorous, it was not. But it functioned. And there was a utility sink next to the washer and dryer.

It wasn’t like I was planning on keeping the woman permanently, but I just needed some time to think.

“Look, honey, I just need to keep you here until I can figure out how to handle this. I don’t want anything to happen to you just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time,” I told her as I put her down onto her own feet. “And I’m afraid if anyone else gets wind of you being here, that there’s not going to be a good ending to this. So, for right now, you just need to stay here,” I said.

I watched as her gaze moved around the mostly darkened space since I hadn’t gotten around to replacing any of the blown bulbs further to the right side of the room. There was nothing over there except the HVAC and hot water tank, so it just slipped my mind to get the bulbs.

I could practically hear her head spinning, wondering about weapons or windows. Unless she planned on pulling dangerous equipment apart to get little pieces of metal or something to stab me with, she was out of luck in that department. And while there were the usual casement windows, this was an old-ass house. They were barred for some reason.

The only way out was the stairs.

Luckily for me, the door had a lock.

I would have to put something in front of it just in case, but I felt pretty safe assuming she wasn’t going anywhere for the time being.

“No one is going to come for you here,” I added, trying to give her a reassuring nod, but I guess I really should have rethought those words, because they made her suck in her breath and move several feet back. “Christ. Not in that way. This isn’t a ‘no one can hear you scream’ sort of thing. I just meant no one who would want to hurt you will be coming for you here. I have to go and take care of a few things,” I told her, meaning the body and the crime scene, as well as explaining the shooting to my brother and father. “But I will be back and we will figure this out, okay?” I asked.

To that, she just glared at me.

“Yeah, can’t blame you for the ‘I want to rip your balls off’ look, sweetheart, but this is just how it has to be.”

With that, I ran up the stairs, locked the door, then blocked it with this massive armoire the former owners had left behind that I just hadn’t gotten around to repurposing yet.

And now it was time to clean up my mess.

Well, one of them.

The other was slamming around in my basement.

I would have to deal with that one later.

CHAPTER THREE

Josie

Okay, so I was kidnapped.

That wasn’t a thought you ever expected to think.

I mean, yeah, I was a woman. In a society where women often were kidnapped. But you always figured it wasn’t going to happen to you, right?

But, sure enough, I was duct-taped and in someone’s basement.

Like some horror movie or primetime cop drama.

It was ridiculous.

All I could seem to think about, though, was how wrong I’d been. And how everyone around me had been right.

Matteo Grassi was absolutely in the mafia.

It wasn’t like he was even some distant relative who wasn’t directly involved, either. No. The man was in it. Like shooting people in the head in it. In his office at the banquet hall, of all places. That was brazen.

And he was off to do what? Get rid of the body and clean up the mess, so when everyone came back to work on Monday, no one would know the murder had even occurred?

Everyone but me, that is.

Which left me to wonder what the hell was in my future. Sure, he claimed he didn’t want to hurt me, and that he didn’t want anyone else to find out about me and hurt me. But how the hell else did he expect this to all shake out? What, he was just going to let me go, and expect me not to go to the cops just because he hadn’t murdered me on the spot too?

Fat chance.

I mean, I didn’t think the law was always right. People were in jail for getting high while rapists walked the streets.