My Husband, the Mob Boss Who Thinks I Love Him

"Get in, you idiots! What are you waiting for?"

The two men in ski masks stared at me, their burly frames frozen in the dim light of the parking garage.

One of them, the one holding the roll of duct tape, finally found his voice. "Ma'am, we're the ones kidnapping you."

I rolled my eyes, hoisting myself into the back of their windowless van with an impatient grunt. "I'm aware. And you're doing a terrible job. The target is literally helping you. Let's go!"

I crawled to the back, settling onto the cold metal floor. It wasn’t exactly a limousine, but it was a one-way ticket out of my gilded cage.

Finally, they scrambled in after me, slamming the door shut and plunging us into darkness.

The engine roared to life, and the van peeled out of the garage.

Freedom. Or at least, the beginning of it.

We hadn't been on the road for more than five minutes when a succession of high-pitched squeals echoed from behind us.

The driver glanced in the rearview mirror, his knuckles white. "We've got company!"

I shuffled forward, peering through the front windshield.

A convoy of identical black sedans was on our tail, moving with the terrifying precision of a predator pack.

The lead kidnapper’s voice was shaking. "How did he find us so fast?"

My eyes darted to my wrist.

Of course. The custom Rolex he'd personally fastened there two days ago, with a soft smile and a chilling warning: "Never take it off."

I ripped the black duct tape from my mouth, ignoring the sting. "It's the watch! It has a GPS tracker! Get it off me and throw it out the window!"

The kidnapper just stared, his mind clearly unable to process a hostage giving tactical advice.

"Are you deaf?" I roared, fumbling with the clasp myself. My fingers were clumsy, shaking with adrenaline. I finally tore the watch free and shoved it into his hand. "Throw it!"

I punctuated the command with a sharp kick to his shin.

He yelped, scrambling to the side window and hurling the expensive timepiece into the night.

The driver kept glancing back, his panic palpable. "They're still gaining on us!"

"Then drive faster, you moron!" I snapped, slapping the back of his headrest.

The van surged forward.

The other kidnapper was looking at me with a mixture of fear and awe. "Lady," he breathed, "are you sure you're not some kind of deep-cover agent?"

Before I could answer, a brutal impact sent us lurching sideways.

A black sedan had pulled alongside, grinding against the van's cheap metal frame. Another appeared on the other side, boxing us in.

A third sedan rammed us from behind, again and again, the sound of crunching metal filling the small space.

It was over in two minutes.

The van's doors were torn open. Men in sharp suits, their faces grim, dragged the two failed kidnappers out onto the pavement.

And then, he appeared.

Rafferty Gresham.

He stood silhouetted against the harsh glare of the headlights, his tailored suit unruffled, his expression carved from ice.

His hand, when he reached for me, was bone-chillingly cold.

He pulled me from the van and into his arms, his grip like steel. His voice, however, was a soft, dangerous murmur against my hair. "It's alright. I've got you. Let's go home."

I looked over his shoulder at the two kidnappers, now being systematically beaten into unconsciousness.

I burrowed my face into his chest, my voice a perfect, trembling whisper. "Oh, Rafferty, I was so scared."

He held me tighter. "I know. It's over now."

It wasn't. It was just getting started.

§02

The next day, the parking garage surveillance footage played on a loop on the massive screen in Rafferty’s study.

There I was, in crystal-clear HD, practically leaping into the kidnappers' van with an expression of pure, unadulterated glee.

He sat in his leather armchair, calmly rewinding the clip, playing it, rewinding, playing.

The only sound in the room was the faint whir of the projector and the clinking of ice in his glass of whiskey.

This, I knew, was the calm before the hurricane.

"You look happy," he said, his voice deceptively mild.

I swallowed hard. My brain was racing, trying to spin a narrative that could possibly explain away the joyous hop I’d done right before diving into the van.

"They… they threatened me," I began, my voice a little shaky. "They said if I didn't cooperate, they'd… do terrible things. I was just, you know, acting. To put them at ease."

He took a slow sip of his whiskey, his eyes never leaving the screen. The clip played again. My gleeful hop.

"You're a very convincing actress," he noted.

"I do my best."

He finally turned his gaze from the screen to me. It was intense, searching, and utterly unreadable. "You weren't trying to leave me, were you, Cleo?"

"No! Of course not," I lied, the words tasting like ash. "They forced me. Every second."

He stood up, walking towards me. For a terrifying moment, I thought he was going to strike me. I flinched, raising my hands to shield my face.

He stopped. His hand came up, but it was slow, gentle. He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers cool against my skin.

"They threatened you," he repeated, not as a question, but as a statement. A fact he was choosing to believe.

"Yes," I whispered.

His thumb brushed my cheek. "It's my fault. I should have had better security."

A cold smile touched his lips, a chilling glint in his eyes. "It won't happen again. I promise."

And just like that, the storm passed. Or rather, it went underground, where it would gather strength.

To understand why I was so desperate to get kidnapped, you have to understand my situation.

Twenty days ago, I was Zara Petrova, an ordinary woman who died in an ordinary car crash. The next thing I knew, I woke up in the body of Cleo Callaway, the cannon fodder wife of the ruthless syndicate boss, Rafferty Gresham, the protagonist of a dark romance novel I'd been reading.

In the book, their marriage was arranged. He was honoring his grandfather's dying wish to marry the granddaughter of the man who saved his life. He treated her like a piece of furniture, a beautiful vase to be displayed in his Long Island estate. The original Cleo was miserable.

Me? I thought I’d hit the jackpot.

A huge salary, a light workload, and a husband who spent ten months of the year overseas. Best of all, according to the novel, Rafferty Gresham was impotent. We were destined to be neighbors under the same blanket.

It was the perfect gig. Until he came home.

§03

It was a Tuesday, unannounced and inconvenient.

I was lounging on the grand staircase, spitting Doritos crumbs onto the marble floor below, when the front doors opened.

Rafferty Gresham strode in, looking like he’d just stepped off the cover of a magazine about terrifyingly handsome billionaires.

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