Stolen Mafia Bride by Mae Doyle

Tess

And just like that, Marcelo left.

Honestly, I thought that he was kidding when he said he was going to leave me alone in the house. I didn’t think he’d ever trust me to be here alone, plotting my escape, but apparently that’s exactly what’s happening.

After he kissed me, I stood in the hall for a few moments. When he left it felt like he took all the air in the house with him. There was a void here now without him and I sucked in a deep breath, trying to figure out how the hell I’m going to get out of here.

If he genuinely thinks that I’m going to sit around and be his little pet, then he’s lost his fucking mind. I’m not anyone’s pet, especially not his, not just to make him feel like a big man. I’ve survived this long on my own and I don’t see any reason for that to change.

Even as I’m thinking all of these empowering thoughts, my knees shake a little bit and I slowly slide down to the floor. My legs feel like jelly after that kiss, even though I keep telling myself that it wasn’t anything.

“Just a kiss,” I mutter to myself, but when I touch my lips and feel how hot and swollen they are, I close my eyes. Tears still manage to squeeze their way out of the corners of my eyes and I feel them run, hot and unwelcome, down my cheeks.

I decide to let myself have a little pity party until I count to one hundred. I count slowly, not wanting to cut this short, but by the time I hit ninety, I’m done crying.

Standing up, I brush my hair back from my face and take a shuddering breath. I honestly don’t know how the fuck I’m going to get out of this one, but I’m sure as hell not going to be sitting here in the hall when Marcelo decides to grace me with his presence again.

“Okay, Tess,” I mumble to myself, “if you were trying to get out of a psychopath’s house and couldn’t get near the exits or into the kitchen to stab him with a huge knife, what would you do?”

It doesn’t sound great when I put it that way.

My main problem is that I don’t know anything about this place. He told me that I have free rein of it, though. Well, if I want to figure out how I’m going to get out then I probably need to do a little exploring.

That thought gives me hope, but first I want to test my boundaries. It’s entirely possible that this asshole put a fake collar on me and is just trying to scare me into submission. I honestly wouldn’t put it past him to do that. He seems like the kind of cocky bastard who just expects everyone to do what he says.

I know where the kitchen is and the thought of ramming a knife deep into Marcelo’s chest thrills me a little as I stalk down the hall. Once I’m down the stairs, I pause, my eyes scanning for him. Just because he told me that he was leaving doesn’t mean that he actually did. I wouldn’t put it past him to be down here waiting, watching just to see what I’m going to do.

When I’m satisfied that he’s not here, I hurry across the living room to the kitchen. The house is incredible, with amazing artwork and beautiful sculptures tucked in every corner, but I barely give any of it a glance. I just want to get to the kitchen and figure out how the hell I’m going to get out of here.

The door is just a few feet in front of me when I suddenly come to a complete stop. Maybe I imagined it, but I’d swear that I felt a slight buzzing around my neck. Reaching up, I touch the collar with my fingertips, but it doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything. It’s cold and hard, sure, but not vibrating or anything like that.

I take another step, my fingers still resting on the collar.

Nothing.

Another step.

My breathing is coming fast and shallow now as I move closer to the kitchen. What I’m doing is probably stupid as fuck, but I can’t stop myself. I just have to know if this is all some kind of elaborate joke and he’s going to suddenly pop out from behind the island in the kitchen and laugh at me.

Another step.

There it is again. A slight buzz, like when you piss of a hornet and it’s just deciding whether or not it’s going to ruin your day. It didn’t hurt by any means, but I felt it for what it was.

A warning.

“Fuck,” I whisper, grabbing the collar now. I want to make sure that if it does it again I don’t miss the sensation. It’s too easy to blame the buzzing feeling on the panic that’s gripping my chest right now.

One more step.

This time, the buzzing is unmistakable, and I let out a gasp as I pull my hand away from the collar, the metal dropping down onto my skin, sending a shock throughout my body.

It’s only light and not painful, like when you accidentally shock yourself folding wool socks on a fall day. The electricity is sharp and makes me blink hard, but it’s certainly not enough to have me on the floor crying and rocking back and forth.

Then again, I still have four more steps to go until I reach the kitchen door.

“The bastard wasn’t joking.” I take a step back, then another, suddenly wanting to put as much space between me and the kitchen as possible. Even though the shock didn’t hurt very much yet, I have a pretty good feeling that the next one wouldn’t be nearly as gentle.

As I back up, my eyes scan the kitchen through the open door. That’s definitely how I could save myself. If I could get in there and get a knife, I’m sure I’d be able to bully my way out of here.

Never mind that he’s huge compared to me.

Never mind that all he would have to do is press me up against the wall, let me feel his huge cock, and I’d immediately second guess what the hell I was doing.

I know that I shouldn’t be turned on by him. Any normal woman would want to claw and fight her way out of here to get as far away from him as possible. But there’s just something about Marcelo.

I want him and no amount of him calling me Kitten and pissing me off by putting a collar on me is going to change that.

And, yes, I realize just how fucked up that really is.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I ask, walking over to a sofa and sinking onto it. I’m pretty sure that it’s leather and cost a few thousand dollars. Once, when I was designing a vision board for what I wanted the rest of my life to look like, I cut out a picture of a Herman Bernard sofa that looked just like this. “Rich bastard,” I mutter.

On the back of a sofa is a soft throw and I yank it, pulling it down over me so that I can curl up while I think. It’s going to take some time to map out my strategy.

First, I have to figure out how I’m going to hurt Marcelo and get past him. For that, I’m going to have to shut my vagina up and convince it that I can get dick from someone else. Hell, at this point, I just need to convince my vagina that I can get dick from anyone else.

It doesn’t have to be from Marcelo, even though I know for a fact that I’ve never had an orgasm like that. No plastic buzzing friend has ever made me feel that incredible before—

Focus.

A knock on the door makes me perk up and I sit bolt upright, the throw blanket slipping to the floor. I know I should answer that, but there’s no way in hell that I can get close enough to the door without getting shocked. And yet it could be someone who could save me.

Standing, I try to weigh the pros and cons of going to the door.

As I stand, frozen with indecision, the knock comes again.