The Woman in the Wrong Place (Grassi Framily)

“Nah. This is my specialty. I handle the bodies. That way, I am the only one who knows where the bodies are buried too. It’s a win-win all around. Fill your brother in. Then take a good shower and get some sleep.”

“I appreciate it, Mass,” I said, nodding.

“Don’t mention it. This is how the Family is,” he said, giving me a slightly raised brow. “Which you might know if you spent a little more time in it,” he added.

“Point taken,” I said, nodding.

“The Family misses you,” he added before turning away, climbing in his car, and driving off.

I never really stopped to consider that fact. Sure, I’d distanced myself from the work, but I guess in doing so, I’d also created space between myself and the people who were my blood, not just men I occasionally worked with.

But, now that Mass mentioned it, there was no denying it. When was the last time I went to Lucky’s mother’s house for Sunday dinner? Or someone’s place for their birthday?

I wasn’t even sure.

It had never been intentional.

But I still needed to fix that divide.

You know, after I fixed the mess of a situation I had at home.

I couldn’t exactly get close with my Family again when I was lying to their faces and hiding a witness to a mafia murder in my basement. That shit wasn’t going to fly. They’d sniff the lie on me in a heartbeat. They were good at that kind of shit.

Resigned, I made my way back into work, wiping all the footage from the night from the backup and the cloud, then making my way back home.

I took the shower Massimo demanded I take, then put together a plate of food for the woman whose name I had looked up before I’d left the office.

Josie.

Josie Pearson.

She had only started working for me a few months before.

I had no idea how the fuck I was going to convince her not to say anything, but I figured it would be smart to get a feel for where her head was at after I brought her some food and offered to bring her blankets and pillows—little gestures that I hoped she would see as peace offerings, as evidence that I meant her no harm.

I suspected nothing as she silently listened to me while picking at her food, but refusing to drink her coffee, using it instead just to warm her hands.

I couldn’t blame her.

The basement was cool on a hot day.

And she had that silky shirt on that had a sexy slit all the way down to the waistband of her pants.

There was a tiny little heart-shaped birthmark to the side of her left breast that I found myself having to fight my gaze to stop focusing on.

She just seemed scared and confused and uncertain about me, likely trying to figure out why someone who had bound and kidnapped her had bothered to make her a plate of meats and cheeses.

It wasn’t until I told her I was going to leave that she tensed up.

In my naïveté, I figured she was just terrified of spending the night in her kidnapper’s basement, scared of what might happen to her when she was asleep and unaware of what was going on around her.

Then she’d squealed about the cave cricket.

A cave cricket.

I should have known then that something was off.

She was more afraid of being trapped with a bug than being trapped in general?

Then again, though, I’d known a great many women. And I couldn’t even count how many times I’d heard screaming and begs for help, only to run out of wherever I was to find that there was a spider or shield bug or any other type of creepy crawly that said woman was backed in a corner to stay away from.

So my instinct was to do the manly thing and kill the scary thing and make the girl happy.

I hadn’t even thought twice when there was a slamming noise on the dryer. I couldn’t have imagined that she’d opened the dryer door. Or that she’d taken the time while I was away to stash a weapon inside of said dryer.

I didn’t even know until just a second before the toilet tank cover slammed into the side of my head.

After that, well, I didn’t know much of anything for a couple of minutes.

I came-to slowly, a little disoriented, with a massive headache slamming through my temples.

It took an embarrassingly long time to realize where I was, let alone remember what the hell had happened.

The second the memories came flooding back, though, I was scrambling up and running as the panic spread through my system.

Because I knew she wasn’t going to break free and then flee the state. She was going to go and do what normal people did when they found themselves in dangerous situations.