Captivated with Them (Dirty Twisted Love, #3) Read online

  Kodee must have noticed. He knew my body almost as well as I knew it myself.

  “Relax, Ryan. Breathe.”

  I did as he suggested, exhaling long and slow, forcing myself to open up to him. Kodee shunted forward, and then he was inside me, ramming deep into my back passage.

  “Oh, fuck.”

  Yes, it hurt, but it also felt incredible.

  I reached down and took hold of my cock, rubbing myself while Kodee leaned over me, his dick embedded in my ass. His expression was contorted with pleasure, and he grunted each time he slammed into me.

  The position allowed him full control, so he could thrust deep and hard. Having Kodee’s massive cock in my ass was easily enough to pull my thoughts away from any kind of pain, mental or otherwise.

  The room was filled with groans and gasps, flesh slapping against flesh, and the stink of sex. I wanted more, harder, rougher, faster. I lifted my hips, trying to meet him thrust for thrust, fucking him with my ass.

  As my arousal built, I could feel myself pulling away from the real world and all the agony it contained. I was better here, swirling on these eddies of pleasure, able to forget everything else existed.

  I grunted and jerked, the pressure building inside me. I knew I wouldn’t last much longer. I worked my dick with my hand as best I could, but my movements were compressed by Kodee’s substantial weight pressing over me. It didn’t matter. The feel of him in my ass and the hold on my cock was enough to tip me over the edge.

  “I’m gonna come,” I hissed. “Fuck, yes, don’t stop.”

  Kodee groaned as well. “I’m here. I’m right here with you. I’m filling you up.”

  A hot stream of cum spurted from my dick, my balls tight and hard. It splattered across both our stomachs. My mind spun in pleasure, and I felt Kodee’s dick jerk as he held himself deep, releasing himself inside me.

  We both fell still, breathing hard, our hearts racing. Kodee dropped his forehead onto my shoulder as he grew soft inside me.

  He pulled out, and my ass felt sore and empty. Hot liquid trickled out of me. We’d made a mess of the bed, and I didn’t even care.

  Kodee dropped to one side, his brown skin dappled in sweat. He was so beautiful, it made my heart hurt.

  He wrapped his arms around me, holding me close as our breathing slowed. I loved the feeling of our naked, sweaty skin pressed together.

  “You were right,” I admitted. “I do feel better.”

  He kissed me hard. “Of course I was right.”

  I loved him so much, I thought my heart would burst, but that still didn’t change the fact two of us were missing, and that hurt. It hurt so fucking much. It might not be the same kind of pain as my amputation, but it didn’t make it any less real.

  As though he could read my thoughts, Kodee said, “We’ll get them back.”

  I pressed myself closer to his solid body. “Will we survive if we don’t?”

  He didn’t answer, his silence meaning more than words ever could.

  Chapter Seven

  Rue

  MIRACULOUSLY, I’D BEEN left alone after the dinner party that had gone wrong. I’d struggled to sleep, though, my head filled with thoughts of Dillon, and Kodee and Ryan, but eventually exhaustion had taken hold and I’d fallen into a slumber filled with dreams. The dreams had been fragmented and confusing. At one point, I’d believed Dillon was dead, and had cried in my sleep, but then he was alive again, and I didn’t know what to believe. I’d been relieved to wake up, only to remember that my reality was almost as bad as my nightmares.

  I’d barely wiped the sleep from my eyes before a knock came at my door. It opened to reveal Frankie Capello standing in the doorway.

  I scooted up against the bare wall at the back of the bed and pulled my knees into my chest. I eyed him warily. Would I be punished for what happened last night? He’d told his guest that I couldn’t be injured physically, but there were plenty of other ways to hurt someone.

  He held something in his hand—a hanger holding clothes covered in a bag—and stepped into the room. “Here. Put these on.”

  Frankie hooked the hanger onto the knob of the closet and unzipped the bag, revealing the contents. It was a dark blue skirt suit and a white shirt to wear beneath.

  The outfit didn’t look anything like the usual skimpy dress I was forced to wear.

  “What’s this?” I dared to ask.

  “What does it look like? Clothes.”

  I still didn’t understand. “For what?”

  “You have a meeting with the prosecutor for Joe Nettie’s case. You need to look the part.”

  Now I understood. The outfit was for me to wear to court.

  A ripple of nerves went through me. This could be an opportunity for me, but I didn’t want to screw up.

  “What if I say the wrong thing?”

  A muscle twitched beside his eye. “You just have to tell them what you saw. No more, no less.”

  “Okay.” I could do that.

  Being around any kind of authority intimidated me. I was hugely conscious of my lack of education when I was around men like that. Men who might not admit they looked down on me and my life, but still did. They knew what I was, as though it oozed through my pores, and I was always filled with shame.

  “Be ready in twenty minutes,” Frankie said then left me alone to get dressed.

  The smart suit was a welcome change from the skimpy dresses. Even as I buttoned up the shirt, I felt myself standing taller. I understood why businesspeople wore them. As I pulled on the skirt and jacket and caught sight of myself in a mirror, I looked like a different person. My dark hair fell around my shoulders, and I lifted my chin. I risked a smile, but even though my lips moved, there was no happiness in my eyes.

  I finished off the look with a little light makeup I’d been provided with. I kept it natural. The last thing I wanted was for the lawyer to take one look at me and think ‘whore,’ even though it was obvious what I was. They already knew I’d been at Joe Nettie’s the night rival gang member Cisco King was killed because I’d been a part of the ‘entertainment.’ What else would I have been entertaining with if it wasn’t sex? It’s not as though I was there to make fucking balloon animals.

  Maybe it was stupid of me to care about what other people thought, but I couldn’t help it.

  A light knock came at the door, and it opened without whoever was on the other side waiting for me to respond. It was Otis.

  “Time’s up,” he announced.

  I sucked in a breath. “I’m ready.”

  His gaze flicked up and down my body, and I deliberately stood straighter.

  “You look the part,” he said.

  What part? The part of a girl whose life wasn’t her own, who had been dressed up by a rich and powerful man to get what he wanted? That was the only part I could see I was playing.

  But I managed to keep my mouth shut. If I kept running my mouth, I was going to get myself in trouble, and that wasn’t going to help anyone.

  I followed him down the stairs and through the wide corridor that led to the front of the house.

  The other girls were held in this wing of the house as well, but I didn’t know which room. Were they being kept together, or apart? I experienced a twinge of jealousy at the idea of them getting to share a room. I loved Kodee, Dillon, and Ryan, but a part of me had missed female company. There was something special about the support women could give each other, even in the terrible circumstances we had found ourselves in.

  Outside the front door, a car was already waiting. Frankie stood beside the open rear doors. He caught sight of me and nodded approvingly.

  “Good to see you can look respectable.”

  His words implied that I was anything but, and I clenched my fists and put my head down so he wouldn’t see my reaction. I hadn’t chosen this life. I’d been forced into it by my mother at an age where a girl should never have gone through what I had, and then been passed from man to man ever since. This was the onl
y life I knew, but it wasn’t one I would have chosen for myself.

  No, the life I would choose for myself now would be with Kodee and Ryan and Dillon. The four of us, together. Would that be considered respectable—one woman and three men? Probably not, but I discovered it didn’t even matter. I guess I cared less about what others thought of me than I’d first believed.

  Frankie jerked his head toward the open car door. “Get in.”

  I brushed past him and climbed into the back seat.

  Otis slid into the passenger seat, and a man I assumed was Frankie’s driver got behind the wheel. Frankie rarely went anywhere without an entourage, though I didn’t know if that was to protect him from others, or others from him.

  We drove through the city.

  I peered out of the window, my stomach churning with nerves. What if I did or said something wrong when I was with the lawyer? It would only take the tiniest slipup for me to say something I shouldn’t. I was worried some crazy part of my brain would take over, and I’d end up blurting everything to the lawyer, telling him how I was being held against my will and that Frankie Capello was as guilty of as many, if not more, crimes than Joe Nettie.

  But Ryan and Dillon had killed as well, and if I told part of the story about what I’d gone through, I was sure they’d get the whole thing out of me eventually. What would happen then? Would we all end up behind bars? I couldn’t risk it.

  We pulled up outside Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.

  “It’s just you and me from here,” Frankie said, taking his gun from a holster hidden beneath his jacket and pushing the weapon under the seat in front. Of course, he wouldn’t be able to take a gun into the building. We’d most likely have to walk through a metal detector on the way in.

  “We’ll be here waiting for you, boss,” Otis said.

  Frankie and I climbed out, and I stared up at the courthouse.

  The seventeen-floor, concrete monster loomed over us. A seemingly endless stream of people flowed in and out of the doors. Armed court officials wearing bulletproof vests lurked at the entrance. Handcuffed defendants were guided in by police, and there were a lot of men and women in suits, mainly lawyers, I assumed.

  I experienced a brief flash of fear that Joe Nettie would be here, too, and that he’d see me, but I shook the thought from my head. There was no reason he would be here. Besides, I was going to have to face him in a few days, anyway. It wasn’t as though he didn’t know who I was. He didn’t know for sure that I was going to testify against him, though. He’d done everything he could—including sending a whole heap of his men after me—to try to stop me. Perhaps he thought after everything I’d been through, I would be too frightened to take the stand, but the truth was that I was more frightened of the Capello brothers and what they might do to Dillon and the others than I was of Joe Nettie. It didn’t mean that I wasn’t frightened of Nettie—I was, and I’d have been stupid not to be—it was just that right now my fear of the Capellos was far more prevalent.

  A hand shoved me from behind.

  “Time to get moving,” Frankie growled.

  I nodded and ducked my head, focusing on the ground rather than the intimidating view ahead of me. My heart thumped, and my mouth had run dry. My legs didn’t feel like my own as I joined the steady flow of people and entered the building.

  Ahead of us stood a metal detector, security guards on either side. Now I understood why Frankie had left his gun in the car. It seemed the guards were also taking cellphones, not allowing them into the courtroom, their owners having to return to collect them later. I didn’t have anything on me at all. That was something that made me stand out as not quite fitting in right away. What woman would leave the house for an appointment like this without bringing a purse?

  The only item of jewelry I owned was the necklace the guys had given me during my fake birthday. Everything else on me belonged to Frankie Capello. I had nothing I needed to empty into trays to go through the machine, so I simply joined the line of people stepping through the metal detector.

  The overwhelming feeling I’d done something wrong and I was going to be pulled aside swept over me. I sensed Frankie’s gaze on me, watching me for any attempt I might make to signal for help, but I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. I kept my head down, not even meeting the gazes of the guards as I walked.

  No alarms sounded, but I remained rooted to the spot, still certain someone would demand to know what I was doing there.

  “Stand to one side, miss,” one of the guards said. “Let others through.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  I hurried on a few steps, getting out of the flow of foot traffic, then waited for Frankie. He’d placed items in a tray, so he was a few people behind me. Would Frankie get through okay? What if he had something on him that was going to get him noticed by the security guards? What if they recognized him and arrested him, and I was left here alone? What would I do then?

  I honestly had no idea.

  I hated feeling as though everyone was looking at me, knowing I was something different, but I guessed they saw all sorts of people here. Some of the worst kinds of city scum—drug dealers, wife-beaters, murderers, and pedophiles. One lost girl was of little interest to them.

  But, just like me, Frankie made it through without gaining any more attention than anyone else, and he joined me. He wrapped his fingers around my upper arm and led me away from the security, toward a bank of elevators, which we took to another floor. We navigated down the corridors to our destination.

  We reached the D.A.’s offices and were shown through to where we needed to be. My stomach churned with anxiety, and I felt lightheaded, my hands trembling. I kept telling myself I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I couldn’t escape the sensation that I was the one who was in trouble.

  I guessed, in many ways, I probably was.

  Frankie knocked on the door, and a voice called for us to come in. He opened the door and gestured for me to step through.

  I was surprised to see a woman sitting behind the desk positioned at the far side of the room. Two chairs were on our side, clearly intended for us.

  The woman, who I guessed to be in her mid-thirties, rose from her chair and offered me a smile. She wore her black hair in a severe bun, but her green eyes were kind.

  “Miss Andrews,” she said, directing the surname and title at me.

  Andrews? Rue Andrews. Was that my actual surname, or something that the Capellos had made up for me?

  “Thank you for coming,” the lawyer continued. “My name is Caroline Simpson, and I work with the District Attorney’s Office.”

  She offered me her hand over the desk, and I quickly crossed the room and shook it. I hoped she wouldn’t notice how my palms were sweaty despite my fingers being ice-cold, or how there was a tremor in my hand.

  “Pleased to meet you.”

  Even in this expensive, brand-new suit, I still felt as though she must know I was an owned woman. I was horribly self-conscious, my cheeks heating. I could feel sweat patches forming beneath my armpits, soaking into the white of the new shirt, and I hoped she wasn’t going to suggest I take my jacket off.

  “Mr. Capello,” she said, offering Frankie a nod, though she didn’t shake his hand.

  I shot Frankie a nervous glance.

  “We can take this from here, Mr. Capello,” she said, still wearing her smile, though now her features were tight.

  “I think it would be better if I stayed,” he insisted.

  “I’m afraid that simply isn’t possible. I’m sure you understand we can’t do anything that would give the defense a reason to have this thrown out of court, and tampering with a witness can be considered a felony.”

  He scowled. “Fine. I’ll be right outside.”

  I loved that she’d just dismissed him. I wanted to give her a high five, or even a hug.

  I sank with relief when he left, folding myself into the chair opposite Caroline Simpson’s desk.

  “Are you all rig
ht?” she asked kindly. “Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? Water?”

  I shook my head. “No, I’m fine, but thank you. This has all just been very stressful.”

  “I can imagine. Are you okay to proceed?”

  I nodded, both hands clenched in my lap.

  “You understand the defense is going to do everything they can to make you look like an unreliable witness. They’ll ask you the same question, but in different forms, to try to get you to give different answers.”

  “I’m not the one who’s on trial.”

  “Not directly, no, but they will treat you as though you are. They’ll make out you have a vendetta against Joe Nettie, or that you’re doing this because you’re being coerced into it.”

  My gaze must have shifted away, and Caroline Simpson jumped on it.

  “That there is exactly what I’m talking about. If you look guilty, the jury will see it right away.” She placed both forearms on her desk and leaned toward me, lowering her tone a fraction. “You’re not being threatened or coerced into doing this, are you? Of course, I know exactly who Frankie Capello is. You can talk to me, if you need to.”

  I knew she wouldn’t want me to say I was being forced to do this. A large part of getting Joe Nettie put away was because of my testimony. She would want to believe me when I told her I was doing this of my own free will.

  I straightened and looked her in the eye. “I saw Joe Nettie shoot Cisco King twice in the head. I was standing in the corner of the room when it happened. I saw everything.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Good. That’s exactly how I want you to be on the stand.”

  I wasn’t lying. I did see the shooting. Maybe I was being forced to take the stand, but nothing I said about what I’d seen was an untruth.

  I just had to do what they asked and get Nettie locked up for the rest of his life, and then I could figure out what to do with my own.

  Chapter Eight

  Dillon