Marked For Love (Mob Romance) by Cristina Grenier Read Free Book Online Page A

him to distraction.
    He was never distracted.
    It was one of the reasons Giorgio favored him so highly. Vicente Acconci always got his man. Always .
    Women, however, seemed to be a different matter. He couldn’t believe the tiny girl they’d ambushed in the park had attempted to run from them. She was half his size at best, and dressed in a ridiculous outfit that barely allowed her to move properly. It was no surprise that she hadn’t gotten far before being captured, or that she’d been so frightened on the car ride to their hotel that she’s fainted.
    Getting her back to the hotel had been a neat trick concocted by their contacts in Boston – they’d snuck her in wedged into a large cello case procured from an orchestra friend. The orchestra player was completely legit, and so there was no reason for them to be suspected carrying such a large case into the hotel; So, just like that, they easily had Grace tucked safely inside.
    She’d only been out for about twenty minutes or so, and the bitters he’d placed under her nose had woken the girl almost immediately. She was still frightened – that much was easy to tell from her nervous, darting movements and the way she gazed at he, Giovanni and Matteo as if they would devour her at any moment. Vicente was of the opinion that a healthy fear on the part of the captive was normal – even desired.
    He’d sat with some very chatty women who were convinced they were the centers of the universe, droning him into boredom and beyond. They, of course, had already been initiated into the lives that their fathers, husbands, and boyfriends had chosen. The sight of guns didn’t give them pause, and violence seemed almost second nature – at least, if it wasn’t happening to them.
    Grace Trellis, however, was different.
    He’d known it the moment he’d taken in her wide blue gaze, utterly horrified at the guns they had out in their room. It was, he realized, as if she’d never even seen one before; something he couldn’t even fathom considering the extent of the gambling ring her father ran. Surely, she must have encountered someone – a patron or a business associate - who had toted a weapon into her presence.
    Perhaps not.
    Rather than being cowed by her captors in and of themselves, Grace seemed more frightened by the situation she found herself in. She fairly trembled when she looked at them, trying desperately to think of a way to extract herself from her dilemma. In her position, many women automatically blamed those they knew in positions of power, while Grace’s mind had turned immediately to herself.
    The mere idea that she might think they assumed she had half a million dollars was nothing less than utterly ridiculous. The woman had a day job. Where would she get that kind of money from? Nonetheless…the look on her face…for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, Vicente found himself wanting to take a woman into his arms – to taste those full lips and burn away her fears with his incessant, hungry caress.
    Such thoughts, he knew, would get him no-where. It mattered not if Grace was a decrepit old woman on her way out of this world or the finest woman he’d ever encountered, Giorgio had sent him here to do his job – and that was exactly what he would tend to. This girl, she was no different than the rest who had passed through his hands. Prettier, softer spoken and more frightened, but that was all.
    So why did he lay awake in the wee hours of the morning, thousands of miles away from the man who caused all of his sleepless nights? If anything, he’d thought his time in Boston might be a reprieve from Giorgio’s watchful eye, but instead, Vicente merely found himself pondering the young woman in the room next door to his.
    He, Giovanni, and Matteo had taken shifts in the room adjoining hers. Of course, before they’d even brought her back to the suite, anything that she could possibly use to injure herself or cut her bonds had been removed