Owning Beauty (Taking Beauty Trilogy 3)

“Yeah, yeah, just fucking get him off of me!”

“Good. Okay, then. Don’t fucking try anything, because I’m the one holding the gun, you got that? And Bear’s a lot faster than you might think. He’s a big boy, but he has good reflexes, if you know what I’m sayin’.”

“I won’t, for fuck’s sake!”

“Bear,” I called, snapping my fingers and pointing at the ground next to my foot. “Come!”

With a disappointed whimper, he backed up, removing himself and walking over and sitting at my feet, his eye still glued on the man in front of us.

“Now, stand up, and put your hands up,” I commanded. “Nice and slow, no funny stuff…”

He stood up, sweat pouring from his face, his breath ragged and sharp. I pointed my gun at him, gesturing in front of us.

“Drop your weapons. All of them.” He grunted, pulling his gun from the back of his vest, and dropping it to the ground.

“Kick it this way!” It slid across the ground in the dirt and Gabby reached down and picked it up.

“What else you got?” I asked, cocking my gun towards him. He reached down and pulled a knife out of each boot and one out of his front pocket and threw them on the ground. Gabby picked them up and then looked at me questioningly. I avoided her eyes, not losing my focus on this guy for a second.

“Walk!” I yelled, and he jumped slightly.

What a pussy, I thought, as he turned and walked away. He didn’t even try to fight back. His hands were shaking, the back of his neck with slick with sweat, and he stumbled along like a man gripped with terror.

“For fuck’s sake,” I said, as we followed him into the cabin. “What kind of stupid, spineless motherfucker are you? You didn’t shit your pants, did you? What would your club say if they knew you were so terrified of a little puppy dog?”

He grunted an answer as we made our way into the cabin.

“Gabby, there’s some rope in the closet. Tie him up!”

Gabby

“Why do I have to be the one to tie him up?” I asked.

“Because I’m the one holding the fucking gun! Just do as I ask, please,” he replied, rolling his eyes at me.

“Fuck,” I muttered, putting down the knives and gun on the kitchen counter and heading for the closet in the hallway to find the rope. When I opened the door, I gasped. The closet was full of guns. All kinds of guns. In fact, I’d never seen so many guns in one place before, and my father was in the fucking mob.

Dante was prepared for anything, apparently.

I grabbed a bunch of heavy rope that was hanging from a hook inside the door and walked back to the living room.

“Jesus, Dante, that’s some heavy shit you have in there,” I said.

“I told you, I like to be prepared.”

“Yeah, I guess you did, didn’t you?” I replied. He stood in front of Gino, his eyes glued to his every move. He’d sat him in a chair by the window and he was starting to get angry. His eyes shot daggers at me as I began tying him to the chair.

“I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’ve never done this before,” I muttered, shaking my head as I wrestled with the ropes.

“It’s not hard. Just tie them tight, Gabby,” Dante said.

“You’re gonna fuckin’ pay for this, dude,” Gino sneered. “You think you can just get away with this shit? Killin’ my men, snatchin’ Loprinzi’s daughter and whatever else you did to that ass.”

“Shut the fuck up if you want to live!” Dante snapped. My head shot around to him, and I shuddered when I saw his eyes. They were flat, empty, not even angry. As if he wasn’t even there, really. Even the shape of his face was different, his voice robotic and tense.

“Babe?” I asked quietly. “You okay?”

He ignored me, his hand outstretched as he brought the gun closer to Gino’s face. I continued tying him up, moving around to the back of the chair and tying his hands. He was huge, his hands and wrists thick like those of a giant. I tied them extra tight, with extra knots, just in case. The last thing I wanted was to be responsible for this guy getting loose.

I tried to ignore the voice inside of my head that was screaming about the fact that I was actually tying a man to a chair. Fuck, I’d already killed someone, so what did that matter now?

I thought about my father then. All of this was making me wonder what his life was really like. I knew he had hired men that did his dirty work for him, but he was once one of those men. I shuddered to think about the things he must have done himself, to think about the hands that had once gently rocked me to sleep as a baby doing such things made me sick.

That’s why I never allowed myself to linger on those thoughts for too long. I didn’t ever want to imagine that I would be like him.

And now here I was.

Guns.

Rope.

Bad guys.

Dead outlaws.

Maybe the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, after all.

Bella

I should never have gotten on that bike with Romeo and I cursed myself the entire ride.

When I saw he was going into Jersey, my heart sank.

I couldn’t fucking die in Jersey! I was a New York girl, and most of the time I wouldn’t be caught dead in Jersey. By the time Romeo turned off onto a deserted dirt road, I had convinced myself that was exactly what was going to happen.

I’d be the laughing stock of all my friends. My family would be shamed. Fuck, they’d probably tease my hair and make me wear spandex pants for my funeral, just to get me back for the embarrassment.

Committing every twist and turn of the road to memory, the thought of such a humiliating death quickly had me plotting out exactly how I was going to escape. I ran every move that I had learned in self-defense class through my head, going through the motions of executing a finger lock, remembering the mantra of the weakest parts of the human body - eyes, ears, throat, groin. Size doesn’t matter, I could hear my coach saying. I could do this. I could take down this Romeo guy if I had to.

Not long after Romeo pulled off the main road and onto a winding dirt road, he pulled over on the side and turned off the bike. I took a look around and realized we were completely secluded from view of the main road and totally alo

ne. He pulled off his helmet, then turned and pulled mine from my head. My tangled hair fell to my shoulders and I pushed it out of my eyes.

“Where are we?” I asked.

“Just a little pitstop,” he replied, with that damned sexy grin spread across his face again.

“Why?” Fuck, I thought, my mind racing. This is it. He’s going to fucking kill me. Or, he’s going to rape me and then kill me. Or kill me and then rape me. For fuck’s sake, what was I thinking agreeing to go somewhere with him?

With a gentle hand, he cupped my chin, pulling my eyes up to meet his.

“Bella, I don’t know about you, but I felt a connection with you. I know it sounds crazy, but when I look in your eyes, I feel something,” he rubbed his thumb across my bottom lip and my stomach quivered with desire. “I’m going to take you to Gabby, and I promise she’s safe. I just wanted to stop and spend a few minutes alone with you before we get there.”

I probably should have screamed. I probably should have run away, even if I had no idea where I was. It was a little creepy - no, a lot creepy. But fuck, he was hot. And the way he kept rubbing my bottom lip while he was talking, his voice smooth as silk, his eyes peering into mine like they were caressing my soul - well, there was no way I could stop my body from responding.

And he fucking knew it. My breasts were heaving, my lips were parted slightly, my breath shallow and ragged. And I certainly wasn’t screaming no or running away. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was leaning into the delicious heat that was rolling off of his muscular frame.

“You’re just so fucking beautiful, Bella,” he whispered, his voice rough and low, his face inches from mine. He reached out, grabbing my hand and pushing it between his legs. His cock was hard, pulsing against me. He pulled his hand away and I kept my grip, holding him in my palm like a prize. “I’ve been hard as a rock since you walked into Otto’s.”