Free Lace and Bullets: A Hitman Romance by Marie Carnay

noise and went to investigate. I found a woman hiding in the coat closet. She watched the entire thing through the slats in the door. She knows you hired the hit.”
    Silence.
    “She’s alive. I’m holding her at the safe house.”
    “Who is she?”
    Damien ground his teeth together. “The district attorney’s daughter. Mia Davenport. She’s a real stunner.”
    Even over the phone, he could hear Marcelo suck in a breath. “What is it you want?”
    “I want to make a trade.”
    “You give me the girl, alive, and I give you what?”
    “Two things. The truth about what happened to Melanie and payment for all my debts. I want out. Angelo was my last hit.”
    Marcelo didn’t say a word. As the seconds ticked by, Damien’s apprehension grew. The man knew where he was. He could take him out at any time. A bomb. A shootout. But then the cartel would lose one of the best safe houses in the city. Risk more media attention.
    “You have a deal. Tomorrow night. Ten o’clock. You bring the girl to the Derrick warehouse on the pier. I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
    Damien exhaled. “I’ll be there.” He pulled the phone from his ear to end the call when Marcelo spoke again.
    “Getting out’s not as easy as it sounds, Damien. You know how hard it is to break away.”
    “I’m older now. It’s different.”
    “If you do this, there’s no coming back. You’ll be dead to me.”
    Like I’m not already. “I understand.”
    The call ended and Damien shoved the phone in his pocket. Twenty-four hours. That’s all he had left before he found out the truth and had a chance to start over. He shrugged off the hoodie and hung it on a hook on the wall before walking back to the last bedroom.
    Mia lay on the bed, hands cuffed to the bed frame, feet tied together. She’d knocked the lamp off the table, kicked the bed sheets off the bed, and almost managed to topple the whole frame onto its side.
    A vicious little thing when she wanted to be. But in her sleep? With the fire of her eyes hidden by a thicket of black lashes and her golden skin glowing in the dim light?
    She was a princess in one of those stories Melanie used to go on about. Too bad he wasn’t a prince who could kiss her and make her dreams come true.
    He was a bad guy in those stories. Not a savior.

10
MIA
    “ Y ou don’t have to do this.”
    “Be quiet.”
    Mia tugged on the rope wrapped tight around her wrists. “They’re going to kill me.”
    Damien’s lips thinned into a line. “Not right away.”
    Oh, God . This was worse than any nightmare she’d had as a child. No boogeyman could compare to Anthony Marcelo and his gang of thugs. She’d read the papers. She’d heard enough from the lawyers in her father’s office.
    If a woman got tangled up in the cartel, she was sold over and over until she was all used up. Then they just threw her away. Mia fought down the wave of bile rising in the throat. She wasn’t anyone’s whore. No fucking way.
    “I thought after the other night…after we…” She paused. She wasn’t going to beg. “Don’t you have any feelings? Don’t you give a damn about anyone but yourself?”
    Her captor didn’t respond. His jaw ticked as he slowed the car to a stop on the side of the road.
    After a moment, he turned to her. “If there was any other way, I would turn this car around and take you away from here. But they know who you are. Even if I let you go, do you think you would be safe? One of Marcelo’s henchmen would put a bullet in your head before you even hailed a cab.”
    Mia looked out the window. They had stopped at the entrance to the docks. The waterfront was home to grifters and low-lifes, drug dealers and pimps. Not a place for a good girl like her.
    “You could help me.”
    Damien didn’t say a word. Instead, he put the car back in drive and eased through the open gates. They cruised down the barren road, the intermittent street lights shining down on graffiti-covered walls and trash-riddled