OWN HER: A Dark Mafia Romance(46)
Carla was taken aback. He'd started off blackmailing and abusing her, and now he was thanking her?
“Me too,” she said before she could stop herself. She tried to tell herself that was the only response that made sense in terms of keeping him happy, that it wasn't sincere—but that felt like a lie.
“I brought you something,” Gio said, reaching into his pocket. He produced a small tube of ointment, handing it to her. “If you dab that on your welts, they'll heal a lot faster.”
“Thank you,” she answered, putting it in her pocket. She was taken aback by this gesture of concern.
“Listen, uh, I need you to do something for me,” Gio said uneasily. “I need you to use your Fed connections, your databases, all that shit, and find out about a guy named Salvatore my dad knew about twenty years ago.”
Carla blinked, surprised. When he'd said he needed something from her, she expected it to be sexual, not something work-related.
“That could be difficult,” she said. “There are a lot of guys named Salvatore in your line of work, and most of them go by Sal or even Sammy...”
Gio shook his head. “This won't be someone he worked with. It'll be someone he knew personally, like a friend, or...something. Please, okay? It's important.”
Carla couldn't believe he was actually asking her for a favor, or the sincerity she heard in his voice.
“Okay,” she agreed. “I can't promise I'll find anything, but I'll do what I can.”
He looked relieved. “Thank you,” he said. “I'll, uh, see you around, okay?”
Carla nodded, and Gio took his elbow away from the car window. She drove home full of questions, wondering who the hell Salvatore could be.
Halfway to her place, she felt agonizing pain in her chest and lap, and realized the seatbelt was digging into the welts left by the whip. Instead of taking the belt off, she savored the pain, fondly remembering every lash.
Chapter 23
Carla
When Carla got home, she carefully eased herself out of her dress, wincing and hissing as it dragged across the welts from the whip. Once she was completely undressed, she walked to the bathroom and picked up a tube of ointment Gio had given her. She sat on the edge of the tub, gingerly brushing the medicated gel onto her wounds with her fingertip.
Just as she was finishing up, her phone rang. Once again, she cursed herself for not checking it when she got home. These evenings with Gio—and her conflicted feelings about them once they were over—were distracting her.
She ran into the living room, checked the phone's caller ID, and saw Don's number.
“Shit,” she muttered, pacing around the room nervously. “Shit, shit, shit.” She knew he'd probably called while she was out again, and she dreaded receiving another stern lecture from him, even though she knew she deserved it. She briefly considered letting the call go to voicemail, but she couldn't bring herself to worry Don any more than she already had.
Besides, she'd only be delaying the inevitable.
She accepted the call, bracing herself for his disapproval. “Hi, Don.”
“So what was it this time, Carla?” Don demanded angrily. “Locked yourself in the bathroom for a few hours? Abducted by a damn UFO? I'm waitin' for the next fairy tale from you to explain why you ain't pickin' up when I call! I swear, by the time this case is over, I'm gonna end up with about four or five dozen ulcers from worryin' about whether or not they've killed you.”
Carla squeezed her eyes shut. “I'm sorry. I really, really am.”
“You don't have to be sorry,” Don said. “But you do have to tell your handler—that's me, by the way, in case you forgot—where the hell you're runnin' off to when you can't be reached. I need to know your whereabouts at all times, darlin', or else this whole damn thing won't work an' you'll be on your own if you get into trouble. An' I cannot allow that to happen, understand?”
“I understand,” she answered quietly. She could hear the concern in his voice, and she felt terrible. “But all I can tell you is that what I'm doing is crucial to this case, and for it to work, I can't have my cell phone on me during certain periods. I'm sorry. I'll tell you everything when this is over, I promise. But I can't tell you now. I just can't, or it'll all have been for nothing. I need you to trust me, just for a little while longer. Can you do that, Don? Please?”
There was a long silence from the other end of the phone. Finally, Don said, “I think I have a pretty good idea of how you've decided to handle this thing, Carla. An' I guess we both know I can't come right out an' say it on this call, 'cause it's bein' recorded an' we could both end up in a whole mess of trouble later on. But I'm gonna go ahead an' trust you, 'cause you ain't never given me a reason not to, an' that's a damn sight more than I can say for most people.”