Romeo The Mafia Casanova

From her position, the deep bass of music couldn’t penetrate the thick walls and silence reigned.

Several legal-sized folders drew her eye on the end of the table. Not no marking or label to be found on the manila-colored paper. The hair on the back of her neck prickled.

That wasn’t the case for what she found inside. Her brain couldn’t focus on a single detail but drank it all in at once. A flicker of light from the side of the room caught her eye.

Image after image scrolled across the screen. She’d seen something like this process before on some cop show or another. They’d been hunting some fictional murderer through a database. But nothing about this screamed fake.

Thousands of questions popped up faster than she could process.

She took a step back and slowed her mind long enough to let her brain play catch-up and digest what her eyes were seeing. An assortment of images was displayed along the bank of monitors.

Various faces stood out from bits and pieces she could recall from the evening news, only these shots didn’t feature men in flashy suits and broad smiles with some socialite clinging to their arms or stepping from some fancy restaurant. In these shots their faces were bloated, and from her untrained eye, she’d say tortured, from the black stains on their mutilated bodies. As if a predator had ripped them apart.

No glamour, no glitz. Then again, crime scene shots rarely were. A shudder of fear started in the tips of her toes and worked its way up until her hands shook. What the hell was going on here?

To her left, another monitor was sectioned off in six angles, each shot showcasing different rooms within Haven, constantly rotating. She suspected they hid cameras throughout the dungeon-like structure, but she couldn’t help but be surprised at seeing how closely they monitored the rooms.

Hello, blackmail material. “I guess nothing is kept a secret for long.”

A few of the other monitors held what looked like mugshots and rap sheets while yet another monitor displayed more shots of people she didn’t recognize, all organized in a pyramid as she’d seen on detective shows.

She took a few steps back and made a beeline for the bank of keyboards that controlled what was displayed across the screens. Her mind turned over all the information at her fingertips. More than she could ever have hoped for.

Someone would be back sooner rather than later and from the looks of it, there was only one way in and out of this room. She flipped the slightly out-of-focus photo around and traced a finger across the glossy surface.

Rage tightened around her heart before a deep pain settled over the aching wound as though a blade pierced her.

Staring back at her was the gold of her father’s company logo painted across the side of several containers used for transatlantic shipping.

All the prayers she’d whispered in the dead of night for her father’s soul were for nothing. Deep in her gut, the truth sat, putrid and rotten. On some level, she knew, but now she had proof.

Her father was a criminal.

Her heart rate suddenly fell flat.

She took a step back and then another. Clammy and confused, she nearly forgot her surroundings and the seconds ticking by.

“What were you into, Father?” She shook her head and dislodged the fog of questions that clouded her thoughts.

She’d asked for proof and found it. Hadn’t she? Then again, she knew her father. Kind, loving, a bit of a gambler and he laughed way too loud at parties, but that never made a man guilty. Nor did having a picture on a table in the bowels of a sex club, for that matter. All the support and love he offered her when he could have turned her away deserved the benefit of the doubt in her book. Her brothers would probably agree. No, they’d jump first and then ask. She didn’t think that way.

Still, a rarely felt inkling of suspicion clung to her like a pesky weed.

Determination pushed her thoughts toward a dangerous cliff. She either jumped or backed away to safer ground. But no one ever learned anything hanging back in the safe zone. She had proof tucked away in her clothes and her phone, of what exactly she didn’t know, but that was a problem for after. But it was a start in the right direction.

She pulled out her phone and snapped a quick shot of the picture, her hands shaky.

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Adrenaline mixed with panic. The concoction wrapped around her heart.

Scared soulless, she took one last look over her shoulder before she retraced her steps back up the spiraling staircase and into the darkness.

Her thigh muscles burned from the extra effort of backtracking.

Something snapped, causing her to fall forward, hitting the side of her face. She looked back to find her heel broken, sticking out of stone.

Great.

She forced a shaky breath into her lungs to help calm herself.

All hope of getting out of there undetected dissolved instantly as the heavy wooden door gave and she rolled forward onto her stomach.

Rhia scrambled to her knees and hands, lunging from her broken-off heel before the door snicked closed.

Eyes wide, she jerked her fingers back before the massive swinging bookcase could pull them between the steel frame. Eyes wide, mouth hinged open, she froze.

This was her worst nightmare. Scratch that. Her worst nightmare was her being caught or locked behind the huge secret door with no known way out. She shivered just thinking about it.

This she could do. Breathe, Rhia.

On her knees, she patted her breasts and silently thanked God for the small token of luck she still had her phone neatly tucked between her skin and the leather of her bodice with the stolen papers.

A panic-induced meltdown threatened to overthrow any rational thought she could conjure.

How the hell had she opened the door in the first place? She rushed to her feet and wobbled from the lack of half of a shoe.

With little choice, Rhia dove for the bookcase and moved every single item within reach until she found the bookend needed to reopen the door.

The latch sprung and seconds later she had the offending missing heel spike in hand.

So she didn’t look like a complete drunk trying to wobble on a broken shoe, she slipped the heels off.

Muffled sounds caught her attention.

Shaking, she crossed the office and pressed her ear to the door, but the sound of blood pounding against her temples blocked everything out.

“Even breaths, Rhia.” She knew the routine. Performed it since childhood when panic attacks took over. Fourth grade had been particularly hard. The year her mother left her. “One.” Inhale, hold. “Two.” Let out, pause. Repeat.

She continued until the count of five and slowly relaxed, nerves dropping from extreme panic mode to a more moderate level. Truth be told, it was always there, though. Right below the surface. Her brothers were right even if they didn’t know it yet. She’d been dumb to walk into the lion’s den and prance around like a damn lamb.

Ear pressed to the door again, and she listened.

“Thank God.” Only silence came through. If she made it out of here, a midnight stop-over for mass and a confessional session sat firmly in her future.

She caught sight of the clock she’d heard chime early from the corner of the office. Security would be making their rounds in a few minutes. After a night of tequila, a game of truth or dare, and more tequila coupled with Indigo’s inability to hold her liquor, Rhia had walked away with a wealth of information. Like which guard liked to break the rules when he thought no one was looking. And why she picked tonight for her breaking. Information truly was the most destructive weapon a person could wield.

She mentally ran over the blueprints and her knowledge of the building’s layout. Nothing in them suggested secret entrances, but they did mark the normal routes through the weaving and ever-turning hallways. To the left-and the way she’d ascended to the offices-she’d run into a guard or worse, Volkov for sure.

To the right, she’d still be caught by the guards at the bottom of the stairs who ensured the higher echelon of the one-percenters had their own ‘special’ section of the club. The inner politics of the club still baffled her on a good day, but she knew one thing. Only a few of the hostesses cut to tend to clientele on the second level and she wasn’t one of them.

Rhia crouched, trying to cling to the darkest parts of the room, and slipped out of Volkov’s office. Relief filled her the second she heard the door click into place behind her. At some point, while she’d been on the inside someone had turned the lights off.

Careful not to tip anything over or risk more secret compartments popping open, Rhia patted around in the darkness until her fingers brushed against cold brass. A couple of twists and a low light filled the room. Anyone could forget to turn off a lamp so leaving it on didn’t bother her. At least now she wouldn’t run into any walls.

“Imagine seeing such a lovely creature emerge from the darkness.”

Russian accent. Sevastyan. Shit.

“Imagine indeed, Hermano.”

Spanish accent. Matteo.

Rhia’s heart stopped.

Two rich, masculine voices from behind her froze Rhia in her tracks. Some days she questioned her reason to be put on this earth. Nothing ever seemed to work out for her.

She turned her head until a white crisp shirt came into view. Her gaze climbed to find the darkest set of whiskey eyes rimmed with a set of thick, black lashes.

“Mr. Volkov.”

To her right stood Matteo. His eyes grew dark as midnight yet just as sexy and penetrating as Sevastyan’s.

Both men stepped into the light, their attention narrowed down to one thing in that room.

Her.

Rhia stiffened.

She’d never been one for theatrics but she couldn’t deny one thing. She had little reason to trust the men’s calm voice and all the reason on God’s green earth to fear their wrath.

Sevastyan pitched his head to the side, eyes fiery. “Moya okroshka, mind telling me what the fuck you’re doing?”