Page 3 of Captive Souls

Four days later, I was in Central Park, following my target.

If I was the kind of person to smile, I would’ve grinned at the dark irony of her heading into a dense part of the park, me following her, her clothed in red.

Like some kind of fucking fairy tale. The monster following her into the woods.

Except this wasn’t a fairy tale. And she wasn’t going to triumphantly defeat me. Or outsmart me.

Piper Matthews was doomed the second I laid eyes on her.

Piper

I didn’t mean to get involved with the mob.

To be fair, I didn’t think anyone reallymeantto get involved with the mob.

Sure, there were the select few who watchedThe Sopranosand decided that’s exactly what they wanted out of their life then dove headfirst into the world of organized crime. But I’d bet that most people tried their hardest to avoid it, beyond enjoying arguably one of the best television series to be written.

I was one of the latter people.

My sister, unfortunately, was one of the former.

She did not want to be a ‘Made Man’—was it still a Made Man if the person in question was a woman? Did they even let women fill that role? I’m guessing not, since the patriarchy was still going strong, but maybe the mob was progressive. She did, however, get tangled up in the ‘romance’ of what it would be like to be with a morally- gray man who looked tough and didn’t live by the word of federal law. An outlaw. The ultimate bad boy in an Armani suit.

Yes, all of this wasromanticto her, and she got swept up with the wrong man.

Trouble ensued, as it tended to do with my sister.

I tried to come to her rescue, as I always had and always would with my sister.

Usually, I was a dab hand at dealing with trouble.

Not this time. Not only did I not get her off the mob’s radar, but I somehow got myself in the crosshairs of the don of the mob. The don being the big boss. And though he seemed polite enough in the scant interactions I had with him, I was under no illusions that one got to the top of a ruthless, international crime syndicate by beingnice.

I knew he was a murderer, among other things. And that did not charm me.

It sickened me.

His suits, his shiny, Botoxed skin, the manicured hands, the smiles that never reached his eyes... All of it.

He wasn’t unattractive, but he turned my stomach, nonetheless.

I didn’t let this show. Though I might not have been practiced at moving around in the criminal underworld, I’d been in the dating scene since I was eighteen, so I understood that even the ‘safest’ of men could turn deadly if they were rejected.

As I’d been trying to do, all while slowly coming to the realization that if I didn’t want to be involved with this gross murderer, I would either have to learn how to fight off him and his underlings for the rest of time, go to the police, or disappear.

I was competent at defending myself, no slouch at all. I didn’t own one, but I knew how to operate a weapon. Though I understood that I wouldn’t be a match for men who literally killed for a living. And again, my knowledge of the mob was based solely on my love forThe Sopranos, but I understood that going to the police in any capacity was likely a death sentence,especially since I had no actual evidence of anyone breaking the law, merely them grossing me out with unwanted advances.

Therefore, disappear it was. Disappear from the job I loved, the friends I’d made, the home I’d finally settled into and the cat who had just recently decided he might tolerate me. Not to mention I’d have to figure out a way to bring my sister with me. Most likely I’d have to chloroform her because she wouldn’t go willingly. And even then, if I did manage to convince her we couldn’t come back to New York, she would probably make some slip-ups when it came to disappearing from your old identity so that killers couldn’t find you and punish you for running.

It was somewhat of a conundrum. And though I’d done a lot for my sister, I would do almost anything for her, I didn’t think I could date—and maybe marry, if he was to be believed—a crime boss.

With all of this chaos swimming through my mind, I’d understandably been distracted during my run this morning.

Running in Central Park at six in the morning wasn’t exactly a dangerous pastime; there were plenty of other people around. But as a woman doing it alone, it was risky. Made even riskier when you were on the radar of a mob boss who you very politely rebuked. Multiple times. And he just kept coming.

Half of me was expecting it. Some kind of attack, or at least an intimidating man in a leather jacket coming to tell me what might happen if I did not accept Stone’s not-so-decent proposal.

What I didn’t expect was the man in a bespoke suit, looking like midnight against the sunrise, standing directly in my path.