Catching Bianca: A Dark Mafia Romance (Shadows of Obsession Book 4)
Catching Bianca: Chapter 2

I pull the hoodie off my head as I enter the room, key card in one hand, bag of essentials in the other.

The door clicks behind me, the soft sound reverberating through the small, silent space like a clap of thunder. It summons Vaughn’s attention.

The lights are off everywhere save for the en suite. Even there, it’s a faint glow escaping through the narrow slit of the cracked-open door.

Vaughn’s stationed in his usual spot by the window, his body so still I often think he’s asleep. For every one of the twelve days since we checked into this hotel, he’s been sitting in his wheelchair in that exact spot for hours on end.

His head swings toward me before I take a single step forward. The dark shadows under his eyes from lack of sleep and constant worrying are so dark they look like fresh bruises. You’d think someone broke his nose and cheekbones, but no. He’s just tired.

Exhausted.

If he gets two hours of sleep in any twenty-four-hour period, it’s something to write home about. Not that I can write home about anything. Not that I would if I could. My parents aren’t wondering where I am. We haven’t spoken in three years. They have no idea I’m missing, running from mafia, hiding in obscure locations with a famous ex-cop.

Ex-cop who’s non-stop on the lookout, hidden behind the drapes, eyeing whichever decoy apartment, hotel room, or house we ‘officially’ live in. He rents out one place—using fake IDs—and then another one across the street, using our real names. We stay in the fake ID place, surveilling the ‘trap.’ Not just the trap. The whole street is under Vaughn’s intense scrutiny.

While the intricate deception he’s devised and perfected over the weeks is impressive, I’ve been wondering whether the sudden, middle-of-the-night, up-and-leave situations are even warranted.

He’s growing paranoid, losing his mind and nerve the longer we’re looking over our shoulders. Every minuscule thing out of place gets him moving.

And I’m growing more and more scared… Though not of our supposed pursuers.

I’m scared of Vaughn’s behavior.

A little more scared every day.

“I was careful,” I recite the line he expects to hear whenever I leave the safety of his protective gaze for longer than a bathroom break. “No one paid me any attention.”

He bobs his head, his gaze holding mine hostage longer than necessary before he zeroes in on my shopping bag.

“What are we having tonight?”

“Mac and cheese.” I pull two identical ready meals out, then his favorite whiskey, leaving it beside the food.

How he stays awake all night after emptying the bottle is beyond me. I’d be passed out in a pool of my own puke if I drank that much, but Vaughn’s not only unaffected—as far as I can tell—he’s also vigilant.

He turns back toward the window, peeking between the heavy curtains, head swinging left and right like he’s watching a child on a swing. We’re in a shady motel on the outskirts of Dayton. A low-budget apartment complex sits across the deserted street and there are lights on in the top-floor windows.

That’s where we ‘officially’ live right now. Vaughn makes sure to keep it on the down-low, choosing private rentals where the owners don’t bother with criminal checks or other nonsense and therefore don’t put our details online.

There’s a risk, of course, associated with signing the documents with our real names, but it’s small. Even if the rental agreements were uploaded, Noretto’s or Willard’s hackers would take a long time before stumbling upon our trail.

Which is one more reason the ‘unusual activities’ we’ve encountered thus far are most likely nothing to worry about.

Some days I get the feeling that Vaughn needs adrenaline. That he wants us to be found.

I told him as much.

It was the only time he praised me for questioning him, then claimed it’s a tactic. A tactic that allows him to stay one step ahead, fleeing the moment Willard’s or Noretto’s men get too close for comfort…

It’s brilliant, but moronic at the same time. I’ve noticed lately that a lot of things Vaughn says either don’t make much sense or contradict things he said earlier.

The night Noretto let me out of his house and into Vaughn’s car, I begged Vaughn to hide me somewhere Blaze could never replace me.

I was petrified of the man. Not because he hurt me—he did no such thing. He was the perfect gentleman and host for my entire stay at his mansion. I was scared because of what he represented. Mafia. Crime. Murders. Imprisonment.

“You should take a nap while I make dinner,” I suggest.

“I’m not tired,” Vaughn lies smoothly, turning his wheelchair around after closing the drapes.

He snatches the remote and flicks on the TV that’s connected to a wide-lens camera on the windowsill. It overlooks the street and the decoy apartment, so Vaughn doesn’t miss a thing while he’s not staring out the window.

“It’s odd,” he mutters, tapping his fingers against the wheelchair’s armrest. “They should’ve found us by now. It doesn’t usually take them this long.”

Agree to disagree.

We’ve moved six times in the past two months, and not one instance felt like a true breach of our location. I keep expecting armed men dressed in black to barge into our fake apartment in the middle of the night.

But it’s not like that at all.

Vaughn’s never spotted a familiar face out on the street. He simply sees something he considers out of place and makes us leave right away.

First, there was a black BMW parked outside the small, run-down hotel across the street from the loft we were staying in. Two men sat inside, chatting. They were dressed in dark suits and drank takeout coffee, paying the world passing them by little attention.

Vaughn watched them for twenty minutes, growing more agitated. Sweat beaded at his hairline. His knuckles turned white with how hard he gouged his fingers into his numb knees, teeth scraping together.

Nothing in the scene had changed when he spun his wheelchair around and looked me dead in the eye.

“Time to go,” he barked, already packing his scarce equipment in a flourish.

He’d gone over the evacuation plan with me every night since we left Noretto’s, drilling every step into my head until I could recite it anytime he shook me awake in the middle of the night. Sixty seconds is all it took us to pack.

We never really unpack.

Our second escape was because an unknown number called Vaughn’s new cell twice in a row. Next time he didn’t even bother explaining, just threw a “You don’t want to know” at me while gathering his equipment.

But I did want to know, damn it.

He gave me more information about our recent move from Kentucky to Ohio. We left because he spotted three suspicious-looking men dressed in black walking down the street. It was convincing at the time. My heart threatened me with a coronary while we fled, but once we’d arrived here and I had time to calm down, I realized that the situation could’ve been easily explained.

It was Saturday morning, past two am. Those men were probably drunk, coming back from a night out…

If that’s the case, it means Vaughn’s paranoid. That maybe no one’s looking for us at all and he’s lost the plot.

Why would anyone be after us? That’s the million-dollar question that fills my days. Vaughn did exactly what Octavius and Blaze wanted. They have the mysterious evidence Vaughn refuses to tell me more about, so why look for us?

It doesn’t make sense.

“I learned the hard way never to trust Noretto or Grey,” he scoffed, shaking his head when I broached the subject. “Never trust a criminal, Bianca.” Running a heavy hand down his face, he huffed. “Besides, even if those two leave me alone, Willard won’t let me live. He doesn’t let anyone who hurts Hailey live, and I’ve hurt her twice now.”

For a reason I’ll never understand, instead of a chill sliding down my spine at his words, I felt a pleasant warmness spread through my insides. Knowing a man would kill for a girl shouldn’t be attractive. It fucking shouldn’t. It’s sick, twisted, plain wrong, but… it’s thrilling.

How much does Carter love Hailey if he protects her so fiercely? How would it feel to be so loved? So cherished that any harm coming your way is met with indescribable wrath?

I’ll never know. It’s the kind of devotion I can only dream about. I didn’t deserve the love and care of my parents, wasn’t good enough for my ex-boyfriends…

I shake my head, vanishing the depressing thoughts when the microwave dings, letting me know Vaughn’s meal is piping hot.

He’s by the small table in the corner of the room, toying with his fork. He disappears inside his head often, staring at the TV screen as if it holds the answers to the world’s biggest questions. He surveys the street, but his mind drifts elsewhere.

“Enjoy,” I say, setting the plate before him.

He gives me a rare, bright smile. So bright it crinkles the skin around his eyes as he shoves a spoonful into his mouth. “Fuck,” he hisses, inhaling air through his mouth. “Hot.”

“You’d think I didn’t need to warn a fifty-year-old that food straight out of the microwave might be hot.”

“You’d think,” he agrees, dropping the fork with a loud clatter.

I take a seat beside him, angling my body to watch the TV. “It’s been quiet the past few days.”

He reaches over, taking my hand in his, eyes boring into mine with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “Where’s your food, sweetheart? You should eat.”

My gaze falls to where his thumb swipes my knuckles. Words are stuck in my throat, a shudder passing through me and raising the hairs at the back of my neck… not in a good way. Far from it. The endearment itself would fly over my head if it didn’t sound so… wrong.

It’s not the first time he called me that. And the more he does, the more out of place I feel. There’s a heaviness in his tone when he says that word. Something loaded. Disturbing.

My appetite dies a sad death.

“I’ll eat later.”

He nods, pushing his food around the plate to cool it off. “I don’t like it. Two weeks is a long time, Bianca. It’s not like I’ve taken extra precautions. They should have no issues locating us with a bit of digging.”

“Maybe they’re not looking for us anymore?”

Vaughn scoffs, shaking his head. “What wouldn’t I give to be this naïve again?” he mumbles.

“I’m not naïve.”

“Yes, you are, but it’s a good thing. It means there’s innocence in you. You’re not tainted by the gore. You still believe there’s good in this world, good in the monsters walking this earth. You believe that just because people have no meaningful reason to hurt you, they won’t. It means you’re trusting. A beautiful… but naïve notion.”

“You talk about them all as if they’re killing machines without a shred of morality or honor.”

“Because they are. They’re—”

“I wasn’t finished,” I snap, rolling my shoulders back.

Deep down, I know Vaughn’s been nothing but kind to me. He risked his life for me. Destroyed his relationship with Hailey in exchange for my freedom.

I’m grateful for everything he’s done, but I fucking hate when he treats me like I’m five years old, incapable of grasping the obvious. And more than anything, I hate when he talks over me.

“If they were all that evil and ruthless, you’d be dead by now, Vaughn. You’d be dead, and I’d be dead alongside you, or at best, working at a brothel.”

Blaze could’ve killed Vaughn the night he arrived with Willard’s men to exchange the evidence for Violet’s visa.

I grit my teeth, a little annoyed that I know this much about the criminals I’m running away from. Vaughn doesn’t let much slip, but he painted me a picture when I threw a temper tantrum three days into our new, on-the-run reality.

I think he knew I’d leave if he didn’t replace a compelling argument that’d convince me to stay. Telling me about Hailey’s accident, the dangers she faced, her captivity at Blaze’s, and Violet’s sex-slavery did the trick.

Ending up like either one of them is the last thing I want. I don’t have a death wish.

“There’s a reason I’m still alive, Bianca,” he reiterates what he’s told me many times before.

I just don’t know what it is yet, I finish for him in my head.

“I just don’t know what it is yet.”

It’s near impossible not to roll my eyes at that. I’ve followed Vaughn almost blindly since day one. Trusted every word, but this… this reeks of a lie.

“The world you know is not the world you’re in now,” he continues. “There are no rules with the mafia. No pattern. No clear moral code. One day Blaze is saving Hailey from being raped, the next he’s turned Violet into his own one-person brothel. One day Willard’s manipulating Hailey by lying through his teeth to her about who he is, the next he’s murdered his own father for threatening her. There’s no black and white in this world. It’s all fucking gray.”