Ruthless Spring

My cheeks grow warm and I want to deny it, but I'm sure I'll only dig myself deeper into the hole. "Amarie-"

"Hmm?" she answers, but her gaze isn't on me. Instead, she's staring over my shoulder, in the direction of the booths.

I turn around, following her gaze. A man is moving along the booths. He's tall with olive skin, his head shaved into a dark buzzcut. Tattoos peek out from under the collar of his suit.

"Amarie?" I ask, but her attention is still on the man.

Her gaze flicks back to mine and it's harder, the slight amusement and mischief from before completely gone. Her lips are pressed into a hard line and her shoulders are tight.

"No worries," she says, her tone emotionless. "I won't tell anyone, little spider. Just take my tables for a moment, would you?"

Before I can say yes or no, she’s turning around, heading to the booth the strange man disappeared into. I watch her until she disappears.

Tilting my head , I note that Enzo is paying attention to the interaction as well, his brows furrowed. He watches everyone in the club from time to time, but this isn't the first time I've caught him paying extra attention to Amarie. I suppose it's hard not to be extra focused on the strange, beautiful woman.

Dave slams Amarie's tray onto the bar and I quickly scoop it up. "I'll be back for mine," I tell him and he gives a quick nod.

I try to let thoughts of the shooting fade from my mind as the night continues but I'm unsuccessful.

I've been worried about Vito, but with Giovanni keeping everything under wraps, I haven't seen or heard anything since that night. I think he's still alive because I haven't seen anyone dragging his or the doctors' bodies from the mansion because there's no doubt in mind that Giovanni was serious about killing them if Vito didn’t make it. So that has to be a good sign.

I hope.

I haven't seen Lucia again either, even though I've thought about her a lot. The first time I met her, I knew on sight she was a badass. But now I'm even more sure of it because she'd taken the hit from Giovanni like a champ. It was clear it hurt, but she didn't show an ounce of weakness. Even if Giovanni's second shot landed and knocked her out, I’m sure she would have gotten up with her head high, prepared to take another blow.

And the nerve to talk back to Giovanni, especially when it was clear he was homicidal, telling him there was no way in hell she'd allow him to sell her off...

If I was even an ounce of the woman she is, I wouldn't be in my current situation.

I would be on top of the world instead of in the dirt.

Or in the basement, like Maximo.

I'd heard the basement mentioned before. It’d been a fleeting moment when Enzo mentioned it, and it'd been clear that the basement of the Costa mansion wasn't a place I wanted to be if it evoked a bad reaction from Maximo.

The reaction had made me feel sympathy for Maximo, something I've been beating myself up over.

I don't have Stockholm Syndrome, I know I don't, there's no reason to. If there is one captor I have no love lost for, it's Maximo.

The things he's done to me, taken from me...

And yet the look on his face after his brother gave him his sentence haunted my dreams that night. I’d caught a chill when Enzo retrieved me from my room the morning after. He looked like death warmed over, his skin pale and his eyes bloodshot. Whatever was happening to Maximo, he'd witnessed it and it was clearly eating away at him.

It's after I nearly spill a drink on one of my customers that I get my thoughts together, forcing myself to forget the torture my captors are currently going through and focusing on my own miserable circumstances.

When the night is over, Enzo doesn't let me help clean up, which earns me a few quick, dirty looks from the other employees that I pretend not to see.

It isn't as if this is my real life or real job anyway, this is just a temporary situation with temporary people.

As we step out into the back alley, Enzo holds a hand out, stopping me in my tracks and my shoulders tense. I know this is a part of our new routine, the extra caution, but it doesn't make me any less nervous as I wait for him to confirm there isn't anyone lurking around the corner, waiting to put a bullet in my head, waiting to make an example of perra.

Footsteps sound in the alley and I take a step back, prepared to run until I find a now familiar face staring back at me. I can't remember what the guard's name is, having heard Enzo say it the first night he was added to my night protection. Every night, he checks the alley before Enzo and I come out as a precursory caution, and every night he only gives a nod before disappearing.

To say it's throwing me off would be an understatement.

Because what prisoner is offered this level of protection?

And this level of... luxury.