Collateral (Collateral Damage 1)

She’s lying on her back, pretty dark hair strewn around her, the thin blanket pulled up to her chest. One hand rests on her belly, the other is over her head on the pillow. She looks so relaxed, her face soft, her mouth slightly open, thick eyelashes fluttering ever so slightly.

She’s pretty. Her features have changed little since I first saw her on her sixteenth birthday. She was like a woman then too.

But with a father like Gabriel Marchese, I guess it’s to be expected.

I wonder about her. About what she’ll be like.

The first time I went to her house, crashed her Sweet Sixteen, I’d been crazed. After my visit to the morgue, I’d drunk a bottle of whiskey before coming up with the plan to go there.

It was risky, stupid even, but my brother was dead, and his killer had left evidence behind.

I still remember how she’d trembled in my presence.

My glance shifts to the nightstand where her wallet lies open and I can see her driver’s license, some credit cards.

Daddy’s girl.

Daddy’s precious princess.

My jaw hardens.

I’m about to turn away when I glimpse the corner of a photograph sticking up from underneath the wallet. I glance to the sleeping beauty once more before moving her wallet and picking up the picture.

It’s a small square and a little damaged so I have to peer close to see the faces, three of them. Two children and their mother. Gabriela must be six or seven in this photo and has a smear of strawberry ice cream on her chin.

Beside her is a boy. I know who he is, too. He’s two years older than her.

Gabriel. Her brother

Funny how she’s become the image of her mother and her brother looks nothing like either of them but resembles his father instead.

No one’s heard from the younger Gabriel Marchese in two years and the rumor is that his father killed him in a rage.

I put the photo down and glance at Gabriela again. Young. Eighteen.

I shake my head, wondering for a moment who I am. What I’ve become to be able to do this. To take an innocent.

But I stop myself there.

She’s no innocent. She’s Marchese’s daughter. His heir. And her hands are dirty by association.

I wonder if even in sleep she feels this shift in my mood because she stirs, her forehead creasing, her hand coming to her face. She mutters something and I watch her, wondering if she’ll wake. If she’ll scream when she sees me. But she turns slightly to her side and falls back asleep quickly. She must be exhausted from last night and this day of travel.

When she draws her arm in and the blanket shifts, I notice a scar just beneath her shoulder blade. I peer closer. See seven matching scars, actually. Tiny little burns. I touch one lightly, feel the bumpy skin.

She makes a sound but doesn’t wake.

I straighten.

The rest of her back is unmarked, at least the part that I can see. And these are marks that can easily be hidden.

I shift my gaze to her duffel bag nearby and I go to it, rifling through the few things, mostly underthings, a pair of jeans that will be too hot for summertime in Sicily. A book. I pick it out, read the title. A romance. Typical.

She’d packed a gun in here. I wonder if she’s realized it’s missing yet. My men found it when they searched her duffel before checking in at the airport. It’s in my study now. I’ll address that with sleeping beauty when she wakes. When I go over the rules.

I smile. Remember her face when I spanked her ass.

Remember the feel of the plump, supple flesh against my hand.

She’s mine.

All mine.

The spoils of war.

And thinking about the things I’m going to do to that pretty little ass of hers makes my dick hard.

My phone buzzes in my pocket and I lift it out, check the message.

It’s Rafa. He’s here.

I give my princess one last glance before I walk out the door to meet him, telling Millie to wake her for dinner when I pass her in the hallway.

Rafa’s waiting for me in the foyer.

“Stef,” he says, smiling. He’s the only one allowed to call me that. He’s been doing it since we were little. Rafa is a few months older than me and like a brother.

The thought reminds me of Antonio.

Antonio in life.

Antonio in death.

The memory of him on that table at the morgue as vivid as the day I saw it. I’m not sure I’ll ever forget that.

But that’s a good thing. It keeps me one step ahead of my enemies. Revenge may be best served cold, but it’s a churning, burning rage that fuels that vengeance.

Because taking his daughter is only step one in the destruction of Gabriel Marchese.

“Rafa,” I say, going to him, giving him a short, tight hug and a pat on the back. “How did it go? You got it for me?”