The Woman on the Stage Read Online Jessica Gadziala

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Crime, Mafia Tags Authors: Jessica Gadziala Advertisement

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Sure enough, there she was.

Where she definitely didn’t belong.

I mean, it was possible she did belong there. She could have been hooking up with Dom. And we had no footage earlier to see if maybe they’d come into the suite together the night before or something.

But it was something.

It felt good to help.

Milo was hiding it well, but I knew he had to be worried sick about his cousin.

Because whenever he spoke about his family, it was with a warmth I could hardly relate to.

He couldn’t have one of them missing and be as calm as he was trying to appear.

I imagined that now, with me gone, he was running around like a crazy person.

I probably should have felt guilty about keeping him from searching earlier. But, well, there was nothing about the time we spent together that I regretted.

If anything, I was just frustrated that I had to go to work because every part of me wanted to stay in his room, in his bed, in his arms.

I was almost a little afraid of how much I wanted that, how much I wanted him.

I wasn’t sure I’d ever had such a strong, immediate sense of connection with someone before. It was thrilling and terrifying and delicate.

Which was why it was probably a good thing that I was getting a little space to make sure I kept my head on right.

I was so distracted by all the memories of the night before (and that morning) that I forgot to even be nervous about work, about how things stood with Frank, about anything that had to do with my little spying mission.

I figured that whole thing was on hold until Domenico was tracked down anyway.

So I got on stage.

I sang my flirty, sultry songs.

Only they had a lot more personal references in them as I imagined what Milo and I shared, as I thought about singing only to him.

I finished my last set, my heart set on getting out of here, texting Milo, and sneaking back to the hotel for more alone time with him.

And I was heading toward the door when one of Frank’s guys moved in my way.

“Frank wants employees to use the employee doors from now on,” he said, his tone absurdly condescending, seeing as he was also an employee.

“Okay,” I agreed, not caring which way I got out of the place, just that I got to Milo and got us both undressed as quickly as possible.

I turned to walk back toward the side of the bar, pushing through the hidden door that brought me right into the long, dark, windowless hallway system that made up the back of the casino.

I’d been avoiding the whole area, coming to work fully dressed and made up, ready to get on stage and get the job done. No more silly romanticism about the process.

Everything felt shabbier than I remembered. The faded paint, the random junk lining the walls.

I turned up the small hallway to get back to the main one.

I was distracted.

I was so busy thinking about how I might be able to sneak into the hotel without being seen that I didn’t notice the shadows moving, didn’t see them closing in.

I didn’t know anything until it was too late.

Until a hand slapped over my mouth as another wrapped around my waist. I was dragged off my feet, my legs pedaling in the air as a scream muffled against a man’s large hand.

My blood whooshed in my ears.

My heartbeat thundered in my chest, my neck, my temples.

I couldn’t think.

I just… flailed, grabbed, scratched.

But whoever this guy was, he was huge, solid. Even if I were on my own two feet, I didn’t think there was a way to get away.

That didn’t mean I didn’t keep trying. Even as he carried me like I weighed nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum through the inner workings of the casino.

He turned down a hall I’d never been in before as my belly flip-flopped, as bile rose up the back of my throat.

I didn’t know whether to choke it back down or get sick all over him. I remembered advice about being as disgusting as possible when a man tried to take you. That sometimes that alone was enough to make them drop you and run off.

But before I could even make up my mind, my attacker was kicking an unmarked door.

Then we were moving inside.

If I thought I’d been afraid before, it increased tenfold when the door slammed shut behind us.

Because until then, I was able to think this was just a simple opportunistic crime, that some guy saw something he wanted and set to taking it.

But it was worse.

It was so, so much worse.

There was hope when it was just one guy with bad intentions.

But inside the small, windowless room with a thick black security door, was not only another large man.


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