Free Taken by the Italian Mafia: A Dark City Romance by Sadie Black, BWWM United

call the police. Set me free. There isn't much time."
              The man at the end of the hall looked at her. From the distance they were at, Whitney could see his body in full. No taller than 5'4, pudgy but also muscular, with dark messy hair and blue eyes, there was a troll-like quality to him. His broad square jaw pocked with old acne scars and red with ingrown hairs, and his brow was low and flat like a caveman's. There was evil in his eyes.
              "Well, well, well," the man muttered, stretching his head from side to side until his neck popped. Each snap sent a shiver down her spine. "What do we have here?"
              "Please let me go," she begged him. "This is a misunderstanding. I'm not supposed to be here. I just wanna go back to work and go on like nothing ever happened. It's all just a mistake."
              "A mistake, huh?" the short man asked as he approached. "How is it a mistake that I come into my house after my pops has been locked up, thanks to a meddling of a black slut, only to find another black slut tied up to the stairs? That doesn't sound like a mistake to me. To me, that sounds like cosmic justice, like all the little tiny coincidences in the universe led up to this beautiful moment."
              Step by step he drew closer, taunting her like a cat stalking its prey. Only Whitney was no bird — her liberty was tucked away in Rocco's coat pocket, the small key to the handcuffs far beyond her reach.
              "I have no idea what you're talking about," she breathed.
              "Nah. Ya do," the man insisted. He stood just a few feet from the stairs now, eyes glittering with malicious intent. "It's not by chance that you're here. Now I know what Rocco meant when he said he was in the middle of some business. I think this runs much deeper than a 'witness' situation, now doesn't it?"
              Whatever he was implying, Whitney didn't understand. Instead she struggled against the railing that much harder, desperate for mobility.
              "I have no clue what you mean," she said, some of her inner desperation leeching into her tone. "I didn't do anything."
              "So what, you were Tyrone's lover?" The man leaned down over her, nose nearly brushing hers. The blue eyes he fixed her with looked like Rocco's, but their intensity was all wrong. Instead of gorgeous, they were crazed. Frightening. "Sister? Cousin? Because all you black sluts end up related to that shit somehow. I know it."
              "I don't even know a Tyrone," Whitney squeaked. The man's breath was rancid, and every time she inhaled she could taste it. Stale and pungent, like yeast mixed with tobacco. It turned her stomach.
              "Well," the man said dismissively, clucking his tongue, "I guess in the end, it doesn't matter. It's all going to end the same way, anyway. Going to start the same way, too."
              Both of his hands squeezed at her breasts through her vest, and Whitney yelped in surprise and pulled back. There wasn't far to go, bound to the railing as she was, but it was enough to knock the stranger's hands off of her.
              "No! Stop!"
              "I don't stop for no one," the man hissed, "dumb slut."
              The hands returned, but this time the fingers sank into the tightly woven cotton and ripped it apart. The buttons shot across the room and skittered across the hardwood in all directions. The destroyed garment fell onto her arms. Whitney hadn't been wearing a bra. Her bare breasts were exposed. The short man drew back to ogle them.
              "Guess my big brother isn't so stupid after all," he said to himself. "Hooking up with this piece of dark chocolate before it's all gone is the smartest thing he's done in a while."
              "Stop!" Whitney begged, tears starting to pool along her lids as fear and helplessness set in. She would have