Kidnapped by the Werewolf Mafioso

Chapter Five

GIANCARLO

The knife enters my peripheral vision at 3:47 AM, held by hands that know exactly where to place it for maximum damage.

I've been expecting this for six hours. Ever since Isabella reported Akiko was mobile and asking questions about the penthouse layout. My little mate thinks she's subtle, but the bond broadcasts her intentions like a neon sign. Murder-rage tastes like copper pennies and burnt jasmine through our connection.

I don't move. Don't defend. Just continue signing contracts while she ghosts up behind my chair, seventeen years of convent training making her silent as prayer. The knife—one of my own, lifted from the kitchen—hovers at the junction of skull and spine. Perfect placement for instant paralysis followed by death.

"Do it," I tell the darkness.

She freezes. Wasn't expecting words, probably. The blade trembles against my skin, sharp enough to part hair.

"One thrust," I continue, setting down my pen. "Sever the spinal cord between C1 and C2. I'll be dead before I hit the floor. Clean, efficient. Sister Evangeline would be proud."

The knife presses harder, dimpling skin. I feel her confusion through the bond—why isn't he fighting? Why isn't he moving? Her breathing accelerates, heart rate spiking with adrenaline that has nowhere to go.

"What are you waiting for?" I ask conversationally.

"Shut up." Her voice cracks on the command. "Just... shut up."

"No." I turn my chair slowly, giving her every opportunity to strike. The knife follows my movement, maintaining position. "You came here to kill me. So kill me."

Face to face now, I catalog the changes. Three days of fever have carved her down to essential components—all sharp angles and barely leashed violence. She wears my clothes, stolen from my closet. The shirt hangs loose, revealing collarbones that could cut glass. Her eyes burn fox-gold in the lamplight, pupils contracted to pinpoints.

Beautiful. Lethal. Mine.

The knife shakes worse now. Her whole arm trembles with the effort of... what? Not killing me? The bond won't let her, though she doesn't understand that yet. Every thought of real harm triggers backlash, her own nervous system refusing the command.

"I hate you." Tears track down her face, fury and frustration mixed. "I hate what you did to me. Hate this thing in my chest. Hate that I can't—" She presses harder. Blood wells around the blade tip. "Why won't you fight back?"

"Because you need this." I hold her gaze, unflinching. "Need to know you could have killed me. Need to prove to yourself you're not property. So go ahead. I won't stop you."

"Liar."

"Test it."

She does. The knife moves in a blur, redirecting from my neck to my heart. Textbook prison strike, all her weight behind it. I don't block. Don't dodge. Just watch her face as the blade stops a millimeter from my chest, her muscles locking like someone hit an emergency brake.

"No!" She tries again. Different angle, same result. The bond wraps around her nervous system, protecting me from her while she screams frustration. "No, no, NO!"

The knife clatters across marble. She grabs my throat instead, fingernails digging crescents that well with blood. I let her, watching emotions cascade across her face—rage, confusion, despair, and underneath it all, the terrible realization that she can't hurt me. Not really. Not lethally.

"I own you," I say quietly. "But you own me too. That's what the bond means. Mutual possession. You can't kill me any more than I could kill you."

"I didn't ask for this!" She's screaming now, shaking me like that might reset reality. "Didn't want this! You had no right—"

"No," I agree. "I didn't."

The admission breaks something in her. She releases my throat, stumbles backward. Her chest heaves with sobs that sound more like growls, tears streaming freely now. Seventeen years of control shattering against the immutable fact of our connection.

"I was supposed to die clean." The words come out broken. "Virgin martyr if the convent sold me. Quick death if I fought. Not... this. Not belonging to someone who—" She gestures helplessly at me, at the office, at everything. "You're a monster."

"Yes."

"You kill people."

"Frequently."

"You bought me like cattle."

"I claimed you like a mate. Different economy." I touch my throat where her nails left marks, already healing. "Though I understand the distinction escapes you right now."

She laughs, sound like breaking glass. "Mate. Like I know what that means. Like any of this makes sense." Her hands clench and unclench, looking for something to destroy. "I need—I can't—"

"What do you need?"

"To hit something." Raw honesty, surprising us both. "To break things. To move before I explode from the inside out. Everything feels wrong and too much and—" She stops, visibly fighting for control. "Do you have a gym?"

The question derails me. Of all the things I expected—more murder attempts, escape efforts, complete breakdown—asking about exercise facilities wasn't on the list.

"Yes."

"Show me."

Not a request. Demand sharp as the knife she tried to plant in my chest. I stand, noting how she maintains careful distance. No more than three feet, no less than two. The bond's optimal range, though she doesn't know that consciously.

"This way."

I lead her through the penthouse, letting her memorize the layout she's been mapping all day. She counts steps, notes windows, catalogs potential weapons. Good instincts. The elevator requires my biometrics, something she files away with a micro-expression of frustration.

"Basement level," I explain as we descend. "Soundproofed. Reinforced. Designed to handle supernatural strength."

"You mean your strength."

"Among others. Marco tends to break standard equipment when frustrated. Quinn needs space to practice forms from various martial traditions." The doors open on my private training facility. "Welcome to your new temple."

Her breath catches. The gym sprawls across two thousand square feet, every inch optimized for violence. Heavy bags reinforced with aircraft cable. Speed bags that can handle superhuman velocity. Free weights that go up to tonnage most humans couldn't imagine. A full ring for sparring. Weapons racks holding everything from practice blades to firearms.

"This is..." She moves forward like sleepwalking, hands reaching for the nearest heavy bag. "Real?"

"What did you expect? A yoga studio?"

She hits the bag without warning. Full force, no warm-up. The impact echoes like thunder, chain singing protest. She hits it again. Again. Seventeen years of suppressed rage channeling through her fists in combinations that speak of serious training.

I settle on a bench to watch. The bond floods with her emotional release—fury and grief and confusion pounding out against leather and sand. She moves like water, like fire, like something caught between forms. Not fully human, not fully wolf, not fully kitsune. Beautiful in her violence.

An hour passes. Two. She switches from heavy bag to speed bag to double-end bag, working through progressions I recognize from various disciplines. Whoever trained her—Sister Evangeline, presumably—knew their business. But there's more than just convent training in her movements. Something older, encoded in muscle memory.

"Your mother taught you," I observe during one of her water breaks.

She freezes, water bottle halfway to her lips. "What?"

"The footwork. It's distinctly Japanese. Older than modern martial arts. The convent teaches Korean-influenced styles." I gesture at her stance. "That's pure kitsune combat doctrine."

"You're wrong." But uncertainty colors her voice.

"Your body remembers even if your mind doesn't. She trained you young, before the convent." I lean back, studying her. "What else did she teach you that you've forgotten?"

Instead of answering, she attacks the heavy bag with renewed fury. The chain snaps on her fifth strike, sending three hundred pounds of leather and sand flying. It hits the wall hard enough to crack concrete.

She stares at the destruction, panting. "I didn't mean—"

"It's fine. We have more." I'm already calculating what this means. That wasn't wolf strength or trained human force. That was something else, something that tastes like fox-fire and old magic. "Your transformation isn't complete."

"I don't want to transform." She moves to the speed bag, attacking with mechanical precision. "Want to be human. Normal. Not whatever you're making me into."

"I'm not making you into anything. Just revealing what was always there."

She works through another hour on the speed bag before it too fails, leather splitting under impacts that blur too fast for human eyes to track. Frustration mounts with each equipment failure. She's holding back, trying to maintain control, but her body wants more. Needs more.

"Spar with me," I offer.

"No."

"Afraid?"

Her laugh could strip paint. "Of you? No. Of what the bond won't let me do to you? Yes."

"I'll only defend. No attacks. No retaliation." I move to the ring, stripping off my shirt. Her eyes track the movement before she catches herself, fury at her own interest bleeding through the bond. "Unless you're scared of what you might learn."

That does it. Pride wins over caution, driving her into the ring with murderous intent. She doesn't bother wrapping her hands. Neither do I.

"Rules?" she asks.

"None. Do your worst."

She launches without warning, a spinning heel kick that would decapitate normal humans. I duck, letting it whisper past. She follows with an elbow strike, knee thrust, palm heel aimed at my solar plexus. I give ground, blocking only when necessary, letting her drive the dance.

Christ, she's fast. Faster than her file suggested, faster than the drugs should have allowed. Each strike flows into the next like water finding its course. She adapts to my defenses in real-time, switching styles mid-combination. Muay Thai becomes Krav Maga becomes something older, something that makes reality hiccup around her fists.

"Stop holding back," she snarls after I dodge another killing blow.

"Stop pulling your punches."

That earns me a real attack. She stops trying to kill and starts trying to hurt, the distinction letting her work around the bond's protection. Her shin catches my ribs, fracturing at least two. Her elbow splits my lip. When I block a particularly vicious knee strike, she uses the contact to flip over my guard, heel catching my temple.

I hit the mat, seeing stars. She follows me down, arm snaking around my throat in a choke that speaks of extensive ground training. Her legs wrap around my torso, locking the hold.

"Tap out," she hisses in my ear.

"No."

She cranks harder. Blood vessels burst in my eyes from the pressure. The bond screams between us—her satisfaction at finally hurting me, her need to prove she's not helpless. My vision tunnels but I don't tap, don't fight. Just let her have this victory.

When I go limp, she releases immediately. Rolls away, breathing hard. "You stupid bastard. I could have killed you."

"No," I croak, throat already healing. "You couldn't have. But you needed to try."

She stares at me, emotions too complex for the bond to translate clearly. Then she's moving again, attacking the weight stations with single-minded focus. I watch her work through exercises that would exhaust Olympic athletes, adding weight until the bars bend.

Hours blur together. She doesn't speak, just moves from station to station in an endless circuit of physical expression. When equipment fails, she improvises. When her body trembles with exhaustion, she pushes harder. Sweat soaks through stolen clothes, revealing lean muscle and scars that map seventeen years of survival.

I stay. Watching. Learning. Occasionally replacing equipment when she destroys it. The bond settles into something less jagged as she burns through rage, leaving something rawer but cleaner in its wake.

"Why?" she asks finally, twelve hours into her marathon. She's hanging from the pull-up bar, having lost count somewhere after three hundred. "Why let me do this?"

"Because you needed it." Simple truth. "And because watching you move is the most beautiful thing I've seen in thirty-five years of appreciating violence."

She drops from the bar, turns to face me. Exhaustion has stripped away pretense, leaving something essential. Not broken—she'll never be that. But cracked enough for light to enter.

"I still hate you."

"I know."

"This doesn't change anything."

"I know that too."

She nods, accepting the honesty. "I need a shower. And food. And..." She wavers, twelve hours of supernatural exertion finally catching up. "And sleep somewhere that doesn't smell like you."

"Guest room, third floor. Quinn will show you." I stand, feeling every minute of the night in bones she cracked. "Same rules apply. Door locks from inside. You control access."

"Why?" Genuine confusion now. "Why give me any control?"

"Because a mate who stays from fear is no mate at all." I head for the elevator, pausing at the threshold. "You'll try to run eventually. Probably try to kill me again. I look forward to both. But until then, the gym is yours whenever you need it."

I leave her standing among the wreckage of her twelve-hour exorcism. The bond hums between us, raw but stabilizing. She hates me still—that broadcasts clear as daylight. But underneath the hate, something else takes root. Not affection. Not trust.

Respect, maybe. For letting her try. For understanding what she needed. For being exactly the monster I promised to be, without pretense or apology.

It's a start.