Claimed by the Don Read online

  “Nah, sex dungeon’s full tonight. Tomorrow night, on the other hand...”

  Sharon felt the blood drain out of her face and all her hope fade as quickly as it had come.

  When he caught her expression from the corner of his eye, Vittorio quickly said. “Just a joke.”

  “Oh, uh, okay,” Sharon said meekly, still pale and confused. She stared at the road ahead, watching one unfamiliar run-down building after another drift past.

  “Rough night for you, huh?” he said, a bit of sympathy leaking into his deep voice.

  “Yeah, that’s one way to put it,” Sharon muttered.

  He drove on in silence. Finally, he said. “I knew you didn’t belong up there.”

  Sharon was surprised. Maybe if he thought she didn’t belong up there, he was going to let her go after all?

  “I…” she started, embarrassed. “I don’t really know if, um, if I’m going to end up being worth your money.”

  “Why?” Vittorio asked.

  “Well… I’m not very, uh, good in… bed,” she stammered.

  Vittorio actually laughed out loud, a hearty sound. “I highly doubt that,” he told her.

  “I’m a virgin,” Sharon admitted. She squeezed her eyes shut, afraid of what his reaction might be.

  “I know.”

  She saw Vittorio’s sideway gaze cruise up and down her body. She wanted to cover herself, but with her hands bound, she couldn’t. But oddly enough, there was a part of her that liked the way he was staring at her. A part of her that wanted him to keep staring at her. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re sexy,” he said with a little shrug.

  He actually sounded honest, which shocked Sharon. She’d fooled around with boys before, in high school and stuff. But, especially since coming to New York, she’d felt unwanted. She wasn’t exactly the rail-thin, model-tall beauty that seemed to run wild on the streets here.

  She wanted to tell him that he’s not so bad himself but the words hung in her throat.

  As they drove on in silence, she realized just how true those words would have been. She had noticed before how tall he was. She had always been a sucker for tall men and she found her eyes tracing up the thick muscles of his arms. His swollen biceps strained at the sleeves of his jacket and tattoos peeked over the boundaries of his sleeves. His hair was dark, neatly trimmed and slicked back. His jaw was strong, lined with well-groomed scruff, and his lips were full.

  “So…” Sharon regretted the words even before they tumbled out of her dumb mouth. “What are you going to do to me?”

  “I don’t know yet.” he told her. “But for now, I’m keeping you until I figure out what to do with you.”

  He isn’t like the others. Sharon thought as she recalled how eagerly the other buyers claimed their prizes. Somewhere, those poor girls were probably pinned down those disgusting men, screaming, crying, wishing they were somewhere—anywhere—else.

  “Why were you there?”

  Chapter 14

  Sharon

  “Making sure they aren’t selling any women that belong to any of my guys.”

  “‘Belong’… like their slaves?” How many women are bought and sold like this?! She wondered..

  “No,” he corrected. “Wives, girlfriends, daughters, that kind of stuff.”

  “Oh God…” Sharon whimpered. “Why?”

  “The guy who owned that club?” Vittorio replied. “That old bastard? He’s the head of another family and he doesn’t like me. Bastard can’t touch me directly, so take digs at me by fucking with the men I work with.”

  “Another… ‘family’?” Sharon asked, confused. Sex slavery seemed pretty intense for a petty family rivalry.

  Vittorio looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You haven’t been in New York long, have you?” he asked.

  “No,” Sharon said defensively. “Why do you ask?”

  “I can practically smell it on you.” Vittorio said. He continued to follow the highway heading north.

  Something about the way he said it sent another shiver of heat through Sharon’s body, pooling between her legs. She hoped he was taking her back but realized how foolish that was. Men don’t just spend a hundred thirty grand on a woman to let her go.

  “What do you mean?” she asked again.

  “Ever heard of the Contarini crime family?”

  Suddenly the name clicked. Sharon had seen headlines all over the city about violent crimes. Hikes in drug activity, robberies and lots of murders. What they all had in common were suspects connected to the Contarinis. She remembered the disgust she felt at all the stories. They certainly didn’t have anything like organized crime at home in Kansas. The name Contarini was practically synonymous with destruction. It had been in so many of the articles, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t put it together sooner.

  “You’re a mobster?” she asked skeptically. She truly couldn’t believe it. He didn’t look anything like the slick-haired, tuxedo-clad mobsters she’d seen in movies.

  But a lot of the other guys in that room sure did, she realized.

  “I’m a Don.” Vittorio grunted..

  Sharon’s jaw dropped. She was equal parts shocked and scared.

  A dangerous smile played across Vittorio’s lips.

  “But you’re so young.” Sharon said.

  “You’re right though. I’m only thirty. My father passed about a year ago and it was up to me to take things over. Youngest Don in history.”

  Sharon just sat for a moment, silently reeling as she took all this in. All she had wanted earlier in the night was to go home and finish her stupid homework. Now she was half-naked in a swanky car with one of the most dangerous men in the city. Sweat trickled down her side and she locked her fingers to keep her hands from shaking.

  “Scared?” Vittorio asked after a bit of silence.

  “No.” Sharon lied, but she couldn’t hide the tremor in her voice. Her hands were bound and she was in a car with a criminal, most likely a murderer at that, and still wasn’t sure where he was even taking her. How could she not be scared?

  “Liar.” The sexy smile curved up further at the corners of his lips.

  Despite all her fear and uncertainty, Sharon couldn’t ignore that, Mafia Don or not, Vittorio Contarini was an extremely sexy man.

  Chapter 15

  Sharon

  “Where are we going?” Sharon asked nervously

  “Upper East,” Vittorio said evenly.

  “You aren’t going to kill me and throw me in the river, are you?” she stammered. But as soon as the words left her mouth, she was suddenly aware of how dumb she sounded. Clearly, she had been watching too many tacky mobster movies.

  “I might. If you don’t stop asking stupid questions.” Vittorio said. “I told you, I’m keeping you until I figure out what to do with you.”

  Sharon shrank back. “Sorry.”

  “You’re just lucky I’m the one who got you,” Vittorio said cryptically.

  “I figured…” Sharon started. “Thank you.”

  Vittorio raised his wide hand dismissively. “Don’t mention it.”

  Sharon wasn’t sure what to say, so she said nothing.

  Finally, Vittorio broke the silence. “I would have lost sleep tonight if I had let that other guy buy you.” There was an edge to his voice that made Sharon uncomfortable.

  “Who was he?” she asked.

  “Rocco Anafesto.” Vittorio spat out the name like it had a bad taste. The muscles in his jaw twitched as he ground his molars together.

  “What would’ve happened to me if he’d gotten me?!” She couldn’t contain herself.

  “Nothing good.” Vittorio admitted. “You’re better off not knowing.”

  “Tell me.” Sharon said, her blonde brows still wrinkled in equal parts terror and disgust.

  “You really wanna know?” Vittorio asked.

  Sharon nodded, albeit uncertainly.

  Vittorio sighed. “He’s got this system for training wo
men. He has his capos rape them to break them.

  “The way he saw it, those women had to be shown right away just who was in control.

  “He made them understand that just like they couldn't stop him when he had them snatched off the streets, they sure as hell couldn’t stop him now—that they were powerless to prevent anything else from being done to them.

  “Once he’s done breaking them, they know they can’t go back to their lives, their jobs, their families; not anymore. So, he puts them to work on the streets, and by that point they’re happier to be there than with him.

  “No one acts out, because they’re too scared. Most don’t even want to leave. Because the ones who try always end up back in his hands, and that’s when the real torture starts.”

  Chapter 16

  Sharon

  That… That could’ve been me, she realized. She felt her stomach lurch. Her head involuntarily bobbed forward and her cheeks bubbled out a bit as she tried to suppress the overwhelming urge to vomit.

  “Don’t puke in the car,” Vittorio insisted.

  “Sorry,” Sharon said breathlessly, trying hard to get ahold of herself. “I won’t, I promise.”

  “I heard about one girl he took,” Vittorio continued. Sharon wanted to stop him, but her morbid curiosity won out and she stayed silent.

  “I can’t remember if he just kidnapped this one, or if he bought her at one of those stupid auctions. He took her home, locked her up in his basement in the home he shares with his wife and kids. Fucked this poor girl with progressively bigger vegetables until she started bleeding. Then he cleaned them, cut them, made them into a salad and fed it to her.”

  Sharon had never heard anything so insane in her life. She thought of the size of some of the cucumbers she had seen at the grocery store and squeezed her legs together reflexively.

  “That’s… That’s horrible!” she cried.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Vittorio agreed.

  “Who do you even hear these terrible things from?” Sharon wondered.

  “A lot of those girls get bought and sold a lot.” He explained. “The lucky ones get to tell their stories. Some belong to one man, some work the streets for pimps; either way they get to know a lot about Rocco Anafesto and his… habits.”

  “And me.” Sharon pondered this. “Am I one of the lucky ones?”

  “No,” Vittorio told her bluntly. “Rocco wanted you tonight, and he won’t stop until he has you.”

  Sharon’s heart skipped a beat. She wanted a way to defend herself, but she had nothing. She definitely wouldn’t have been able to handle anything so horrific. She hugged her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms.

  “It’s a good thing I’m the one who got ahold of you, that’s all I’m saying.”

  “Yeah…” Sharon admitted. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” Vittorio told her. “I couldn’t let that bastard have you.”

  With that unintentionally tender statement, he placed a large, warm hand on her bare thigh and Sharon sat straight up as a bolt of warmth shot from his touch straight up to her head. Her blue eyes met his brown ones and her lips parted as a spark passed between the two of them. She froze under the heat of his touch and struggled to find her breath.

  Vittorio drew his hand back, his eyes wide and momentarily blank. Obviously, he’d been caught just as off guard as she had by… whatever that had been. Sharon felt heat rise in her cheeks as he placed both hands back on the steering wheel, giving it a light squeeze and training both his eyes onto the road.

  Chapter 17

  Sharon

  “Where are you from?” Vittorio asked after a long beat of silence. “What brought you to New York?”

  Sharon took a few moments to compose herself. “Flats. Flats, Kansas. I came to New York to study at NYU.”

  “Not in Kansas anymore, are you, Toto?” Vittorio teased, laughing at his own dumb joke.

  “Ugh!” Sharon rolled her eyes. “Definitely never heard that one before.”

  “You got a smart mouth, anyone ever tell you that?” Vittorio said. The words sounded insulting, but his tone was more like enticed.

  “And Toto was the dog, by the way,” Sharon reminded him.

  “I just bought you,” Vittorio reminded her right back. “Doesn’t that make you sort of like my dog?”

  There was a salacious and oddly sexy tone to his deep, masculine voice. Sharon couldn’t help but shiver a bit.

  “And here I thought you might set me free or something. Bummer.” Oh my god, Sharon thought, as she heard her own voice out loud. Was she… was she flirting with this man? She was almost purring as she spoke. But, really, she couldn’t help it.

  Despite her better judgment, he really was very sexy. Charming and funny too.

  “I thought about it,” Vittorio told her. “But now I think I might just keep you around. Get my money’s worth.”

  Sharon’s eyes just about popped out of her head. She felt that familiar surge of heat again, deep in her core. A strange mix of fear, nerves and—if she was guessing correctly—desire.

  “Why bother?” Sharon joked back at him. “I’m just a sad little virgin anyway.”

  “Yeah, I think that might be one of the best parts about you.” Vittorio’s voice was hardly anything more than a sexy growl by then. “Be the only man to make you come? Sounds like an honor to me.”

  Sharon was so surprised, not only by his words but by the growing arousal in her gut, that the best she could come up with was a flustered, “Well, I’ve heard a lot of girls don’t do that their first time anyway.”

  “If your guy friends told you that, they just don’t know how to please a woman,” Vittorio explained. “If your girl friends told you that, it’s only because their first time wasn’t with me.”

  Sharon felt another throb between her legs. He just sounded so sure of himself. She had never met a man so confident or realized how sexy being brash could really be. What is happening to me? She wondered to herself. She tried to remind herself that he was a stranger, a dangerous stranger at that, and she needed to get a handle on her body.

  But that was getting harder by the moment.

  After a few more seconds of loaded silence, Vittorio said, “Yeah, I think I’m gonna fuck you tonight.”

  “What?” Sharon asked, shocked.

  Vittorio looked over from where he sat in the driver’s seat, his arm casually resting on the steering wheel. He slowly rolled his intense gaze from Sharon’s naked toes, up her legs, lingering momentarily on her breasts, before making his way to her full lips, flushing cheeks and nervous eyes.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

  He turned back to the road, a devilish smile on his lips.

  Chapter 18

  Sharon

  Well, Sharon thought, bewildered. She definitely hadn’t expected her first time to be like this. She always thought she’d be able to share a beautiful tender moment with someone whom she really loved and who really loved her.

  That, or at least an awkward romp with someone she was infatuated with enough, like in the stories most of her school friends told her about their first times. There was no way she could have prepared herself to lose her virginity to a tall, sexy, older Mafia Don who had bought her in an auction for prostitutes and sex slaves.

  But, truthfully, the idea didn’t feel as bad as it looked on paper. She thought of Vittorio’s hand on her thigh, of that special spark that had kindled the ends of her nerves. And, despite her nervousness, she felt a little excitement bubble up within her.

  No! Sharon chided herself. This was all wrong. So very wrong. She had to stop letting her hormones get the better of her. She had to start thinking straight and get him to let her go. She had to get back to her life, back to school and work and volunteering at the soup kitchen. She needed to leave this whole nightmare as far as she could behind her.

  But, her more sensual mind countered. Could she sleep with him just once, before
she never sees him again?

  “Struggling with something over there?” Vittorio asked, noticing Sharon minutely shaking her head as she wrestled with her warring thoughts.

  “What? No, no, I’m fine,” Sharon lied.

  “Of course.” Vittorio said, blatantly flirtatious.

  Sharon couldn’t help the fresh blood that rushed to her flushed cheeks. She shifted in her seat, trying to suck her stomach in, hyper-aware of her bare body.