OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(30)

What's more, Carla doubted Gio's claim that he'd find a way to make her photo go viral without somehow implicating himself as a made guy who knew about a rat in the Mancinis' midst and didn't report it to his father.



But she found that no matter how much she doubted it, she was still terrified of it. What if he had some plan she couldn't guess at because she wasn't thinking clearly? What if there were angles she wasn't considering, and they ended up with her as a meme while Gio got away with it?



Her thoughts kept returning to Patricia Kurtz. Patty'd once had a moment just like this one, when she had to decide between compromising her own values—and the strict policies of the Bureau—or leaving her job undone. Carla tried to think of what it must have been like for Patty to climb into the filthy bed of a pickup truck with that sweaty coyote and submit to him when every fiber of her being must have screamed for her to just walk away and let someone else bring down her intended target.



But instead, all Carla could think of was how good it must have felt to bring down such a vile and far-reaching human trafficking operation—one that had resulted in hundreds of immigrants baking to death, suffocating, or dying of starvation and thirst while locked in the backs of trucks during their trips across the border. Carla thought about how triumphant Patty must have felt, knowing that no matter what happened to her after that, she was personally responsible for ridding the world of a monster who preyed on the weak and desperate.



It was a rotten choice: Risk humiliation and degradation among her peers by not showing up at 11:00 tomorrow, or do it and risk the same things anyway if she managed to bring Gio down and people found out she'd done it by giving in to his violent perversions.



So if both options put her at risk, she reasoned, why not at least try to see this mission through to the end? Why not do what she could to bring down Gio and the rest of the Mancinis in the process?



If this blackmail scenario Gio cooked up had demonstrated anything, it was that he had a tremendous amount of pride. Instead of just telling Mario about her, he felt like he could somehow control this situation to get what he wanted from her. Carla knew she might be able to find a way to exploit that.



Maybe I can even find a way to make sure this ends with Gio dead, she thought. If I manage to take down the whole Mancini family and I have to claim Gio's death was a clear case of “him or me,” who'd question that?



But she'd have to go along with it at first.



And she knew that based on Gio's probable plans for her, there'd be no place for her to hide a gun, at least in the beginning.



Carla thought about how it would feel to be tied up or handcuffed by Gio and forced to cater to his every desire. She got out of bed and went to the kitchen, tempted to pick up the phone and tell Don to call the whole thing off.



Then she thought about how it would feel to return to her desk at the field office in disgrace, feeling her male co-workers' eyes judging her and hearing them whisper to each other about how she'd failed when a man would have succeeded.



She left the phone where it was.



As the first pale rays of sunlight crept in through the windows, Carla went to the closet, and started looking at her pantsuits as she considered the best one to wear tonight.



This one's for you, Patty, she thought. Because no matter what happened or where you ended up, you're still a hero in my book and you always will be. If the men you worked with were too stupid to see that you did the right thing and reward you for it, well, then it's up to gals like us to save the world in spite of them.





Chapter 15




Carla



Carla parked her car in front of Gio's house and checked the time on her cell phone with a trembling hand.



It was exactly three minutes to eleven.



Carla had left early to make sure she arrived on time. She didn't necessarily think that Gio would pull the lever on his plan to publicly humiliate her exactly at eleven—she was fairly certain that his overconfidence and his need to possess her would make him wait a while longer, certain that she'd show up anyway.



She also knew she couldn't be sure of his behavior, which meant she couldn't afford to take that chance. She'd spent enough time with Gio to see that he had the quick temper and whims of a spoiled child, and now that he had the upper hand, it would be a mistake to provoke him.



But despite Carla's careful preparation, she still managed to hit unexpected traffic on Lake Shore thanks to a five-car accident. The police and emergency vehicles had blocked off all but two lanes of the expressway, and they were conducting cars through at a maddeningly slow pace. As Carla edged her car forward a few inches at a time, she felt her nerves being shredded with each passing minute and cursed herself for not leaving even earlier.