Angel's Mafia (gxg) ✓

II | Stranger

THREE WEEKS AGO

I WAKE UP WITH THE kind of headache that can only accurately be described by Bosch's paintings of Hell.

What happened last night?

Vittoria. Lipstick. Wine. Just one more shot . . .

Hot fire bursts against my temple.

Okay. I clap my hand against my forehead―slick with sweat and tangled hair. Thinking isn't a good idea.

Which is when I notice my nightstand.

Except . . . it's not mine.

Water bottle. Gun. Cash―euros spilling carelessly onto the floor.

But it's the glasses that make me realize―this is not my apartment.

And if it's not my apartment, this isn't my bed.

Slowly, slowly I look to the side. At the mound of white bed sheets, rising and falling ever so slightly.

I fight to keep my breathing steady. Who is under there? What will I find?

A half-naked man who took advantage of me?

A gang member who brewed a cocktail of drugs to get me into his bed?

A dangerous Mafia boss who will shoot me when he wakes up?

The pile of blankets stir, and I flinch.

Shit. What if he wakes up?

I slip out of the white sheets. Warm sunlight soaks my back, spilling in from the window. For a moment, I stumble on my feet.

Bare legs. Bare stomach. Bare arms.

But I'm not naked.

I'm undressed down to my bra and panties.

So . . . I slept with him. But only in the literal way.

Next, clothes. I search the floor for last night's dress and heels. There. Folded on the back of a velvet chair. Folded?

No time to think about it.

I tug frantically into my dress. What day it it today?

A grandfather clock, black marble with veins of gold, starts to chime from the corner of the room. My eyes dart to the time. A quarter to nine.

A quarter to nine? Shit.

My first class of the semester starts in fifteen minutes.

And I'm still wearing last night's party clothes.

Talk about a walk of shame.

The heap of blankets begins to moan.

Quick, Cade! Weapon!

I leap for the gun I saw on the nightstand. I wrap two trembling hands around it. I don't know how to use a gun. I've never touched a gun before. Have I?

The pile of blankets twitches, twitches, the person inside struggling to throw them off. With a surprising―and what must be painful―thud, they roll right off the bed.

A string of violent Italian curse words follow.

Except the voice doesn't belong to a man.

"Why are you pointing that thing at me?" groans the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

For a moment, I can only stand shaking, my fingers locked on the trigger. Warm sunlight drenches the woman as she wriggles free of the blankets. The shine of her thick black hair cascades over her shoulders, a river of ink. Her eyes glow like molten honey, basking in the sun's glow.

I tighten my grip on the gun.

So what if she's a woman? I blacked out yesterday, in a way that has only ever happened before in Los Angeles, when Nathan―

Don't think about that.

She must have drugged me. She must have taken me here.

And? And what, Cade? What did she do? She folded your clothes! Does that sound like a murderer to you?

The woman sighs. "Are you going to shoot or . . . ?"

I can't answer. My eyes dart around the room, catching on a large life-scaled portrait of a woman. It's a painting―I recognize it instantly. One of my favourites.

The Desperate Dancer. Hung in the Santa Cecilia Gallery across town.

"1765. Painted by Corinthe Alexandria when she was twenty-six years old. Valued at half a million dollars." I can't help but say the words aloud. What is it doing here?

The woman's eyes flicker to the painting. Then back at me.

"Don't you remember?" she asks.

I shake my head wordlessly.

The woman lets out a colourful curse in Italian. And says, "We stole it last night."