Sniping Her Mafia King

Arwen sighed as she strolled up her driveway late Saturday afternoon. She'd spent the night at Bellona helping the girls who were working the overnight shift track a couple of missing girls in LA and then sending out a team to recover them. Then she'd gone down to the Bellona barracks in the middle floors of the building and spent a couple of hours on a cot getting extraordinarily little sleep. When she'd gotten up, she went to the women's center and after Cat finished teaching her self-defence class, they had brunch and Arwen confided in her what had happened.

Cat had been pissed and then ecstatic at how she'd escaped the mafia don. She'd clapped exuberantly and said she was going to make a point to swing by the hotel just to see the heights she'd dealt with. Cat also confirmed she would have done the exact same thing. It was one thing to role play in a bedroom but another thing entirely for a man to demand he can do and say whatever he wants in public, but she has to shut her mouth.

According to Deidre, he hadn't called or shown up and she was glad. The last thing she had wanted was for him to harass her cousin. Deidre and Miley had gone to the library to work on assignments for school and she was going home to punch the hell out of her punching bag. She was so sexually frustrated it ached.

The screech of a car pulling up behind her made her grimace as she reached the bottom stair of her driveway. She turned to look and sure enough it was a black Escalade.

He slammed out of the car, his eyes narrowed and his face stony with rage. "We need to talk." She considered this was more passion than he'd displayed while making out with her.

She looked at him with a look of disgust. "We do not need to do anything of the sort. We talked last night. You made a choice. I respected the choice."

"I made a choice?"

"Yes, you said I should leave if I wouldn't bow down to the almighty mafia king's demand for silence. I left."

"You f*****g jumped out of a goddamned thirty floor building." He slapped his hand on the hood of the car in what she was certain any of his friends would consider an uncharacteristic display of temper.

Arwen considered this was likely as irate as Mr. Calm and Collected ever got. She smirked, "you're pretty when you're mad. Now f**k off." She waved him away and then turned to walk up the stairs. "What the hell were you thinking?"

"I was thinking a man was keeping me in a hotel room against my will and refusing to let me leave unless I capitulated to his demands. I found an alternate way out."

"An alternate way out?" his voice was raising again as he started stepping toward her.

"Yes. I'm really good at escape rooms too. Deidre and I have a lot of fun at them." She looked at him, "I learned a new word today in Italian. Ciao. It means goodbye." She waved at him "Ciao!"

She hopped up the stairs ignoring the fluttering of her heart at the way he was chasing her. She reminded herself Jesse had said he didn't chase a woman. Evidently, he was only there to tell her off for scaring him and then he would leave. She paused and wondered if she should just let him get it out and then be done with it. She shrugged and turned to face him, "get it off your chest and then go. I have s**t to do. It's laundry day."

"Excuse me?"

"Obviously, you have more to say to me than just telling me to leave last night. Say what you want to say and then go. My shoulders are big. I can handle it." She gave an exaggerated roll of her shoulders to mock him and then wiggled her fingers in his direction, "come on then. Spit it out."

When he stood there with his mouth hanging open in disbelief at her attitude she rolled her eyes, "is it because I didn't give in to your archaic misogynistic demands, you're angry? Did you think telling me to leave would make me cave in and just say 'oh Addy I'm so sorry for saying no. I'll even wear a dog collar and a lead when we go out?' like some stupid bimbo?" she made her voice high-pitched and mocking. "Sorry to burst your bubble but I have pride and I'll be damned if an arrogant schmuck thinks he gets to treat me like the court jester. Or" she continued not leaving her perch on the top stair of her porch and glaring down at him, "are you upset I didn't just agree to let you take me home and let you be the ever gracious yet condescending host forever protecting the damsel in distress. Perhaps you thought you could change my mind in the car? Maybe you're pissed off as you realized I have my own strength and my own power and I don't need a barbarian of a man doing what I can do for myself and I just left, whether you liked it or not?" She waved around, "in case you missed it, I'm telling you off in my driveway and I'm sure a neighbor or two can hear you. You should have already gotten into your car and driven away from my disrespect. I'm unclear why you're still standing here." "You're f*****g insane." He said simply shaking his head. "No other person on the face of the earth who knows who and what I am, would dare to speak to me this way."

"What are you going to do, mafia king?" she sneered at him. "Feed me to the fishes? Concrete shoes? How about take me to a warehouse and torture me?" Arwen noted there was a noticeable bunching of his jaw and a small tic at his temple the more she pushed. It made her delirious with glee. "I'm not frightened of you. I know who you are and what you are and as I said to my cousin previously, you're just a man. Two legs, one d**k, no heart." She motioned at his vehicle, "now take your overpriced jalopy out of my driveway. I have a date tonight and I need to get my chores done before I go."

She didn't wait to see his response to her comment and very quickly entered her house and slammed the door behind her, sliding every deadbolt in place and then resting her head against the door, grinning broadly at her bravado. Her head bounced on the door when he punched it from the other side. She ignored it and went downstairs to her basement.

She punched a button on the wall and immediately loud music started pulsating through the space blocking out any noises upstairs. She stripped off her clothes and changed into her workout gear and immediately went to the body bag and began letting loose her rage.

The unmitigated gall of him to show up at her house and yell at her. She hadn't done anything wrong. Okay, maybe jumping off a thirty-floor hotel balcony was a bit risky, but she'd done far worse. Their teams had sat in jeeps which drove out of jets over deserts and jungles and parachuted down. She'd gone with Jesse and Cat cliff diving, and she had rappelled larger buildings than the one he was staying in. The adrenaline rush was incredible, and she would do it again. She had half a mind to go back to his hotel suite just to jump it. Well, maybe not. She punched the bag again.

Her watch buzzed and she noticed she had a text message from Jesse asking her to call. She paused her workout and music, grabbed her phone from where she'd tossed it on the treadmill. "Hey, Jesse what's up?"

The gasps of hysterical laughter greeted her on the other end, "did you jump out of Addy's hotel balcony?" Wheezing punctuated the question.

Arwen grinned as she tucked the phone to her ear and punched the body bag again. "Yes, well he blocked the call button to the elevator." "Why wouldn't he let you go?" Suddenly Jesse wasn't laughing.

"Because we were reviewing a list of rules required for dating Adrianu Cavallaro and the last one he gave me was not one I would agree to. He said it wasn't negotiable. I told him I would need to leave, and he suggested the only way I left was if he accompanied me. I had no need to have him escort me home after telling me I needed to behave appropriately in public and never speak back to him."

"Ugh, he has a thing about respect."

"See, if he respected me in public then I would have no need to disrespect him in public. Dude didn't see it my way. Felt he should be able to say and do what he wants, and I'm supposed to just keep my mouth shut unless we're behind closed doors and away from his men or any other people."

"Dick."

"Yup." Arwen agreed as she punched the bag again imagining his face on it.

"He didn't tell me any of this. Just said he was concerned for your mental health after you jumped from his balcony last night and then stood in front of him today and told him to go f**k himself even after he warned you not to. He just called me to ask you to let him in because he's worried for your mental state. He thinks you have a death wish."

"Don't I?" she grinned as if Jesse could see it.

"No more than I do." Jesse retorted. "He asked me to tell you he's not leaving until you come to the door and let him in to discuss what transpired. He used those words."

"Let him know I consider his behaviour akin to that of Trace's. No means no. He can go to hell."

"He won't like that," Jesse said quietly.

"I'm not doing it to make him like me, Jesse. I took a chance on him, and it didn't work out. I had a nice dinner, a good glass of whiskey and then gymnastics to round out the evening."

Jesse sighed, "I really don't want to be the one to tell him."

"Well, my other option is to get a firearm out and shoot up his Escalade."

Jesse giggled at her words, "I almost want to dare you to do it."

Arwen c****d her head as voices in her house carried down to her. "Mother fucker."

"What?" Jesse was serious again.

"Deidre is home and I think she let him in."

"F**k."

She looked over her shoulder at the man bounding down her basement stairs. "I'll call you back." She hung up the phone and tossed it aside. "Get out of my house before I get a gun and shoot you in the balls."

"A date? You have a date?" His eyes glittered with fury.

"Yeah," she stopped the swaying of the body bag with one hand. She looked to the top of the stairs where she saw a pair of feet, "Deidre, room, headphones now!"

"This sucks!" she yelled from the top of the stairs.

"You're grounded for letting a man in our house." Arwen yelled at her.

"He said please," Deidre called back, "and I'm nineteen. You can't ground me. I'm going to Portia's. Dylan is working tonight, and she wants to watch movies."

"Fine. Headphones."

"Ugh," the woman shrieked impatiently and the stomp of her lumbering steps up to the top floor of their home echoed down.

Arwen turned her attention back to the man in a three-piece suit standing in her basement with his arms folded over his chest, his face twisted in a demonstration of barely controlled rage. Arwen noted the tic was still there. She found herself wondering why he's wearing a full suit on a Saturday. "What do you want?"

"Are you ill?"

She scrunched her nose up at the question, "no. I'm healthy as a horse. Had a physical two weeks ago."

"Mentally?" he tapped his temple.

"No. Psych eval two weeks ago as part of my physical." At his inquisitive look she shrugged, "my dad was killed in an IED and my aunt and uncle three years later. I might have side effects from it. I go to counseling. Big whoop." The big whoop was she was the one who had to identify her aunt's raped and battered body and her uncles destroyed face by his tattoos on his arms. Only part of the farmhouse had exploded, and it was the part her cousin was in. Even now she occasionally saw their images in her nightmares. "Arwen," he swallowed as he struggled to contain his fury, "you jumped off my balcony."

"Twelve years of parallel bars. I knew I could it."

"Do you know how insane you sound?"

"Do you know how insane you were to refuse to let me leave?" she countered not missing the way his fingers bunched around his bicep as he curled his arms over his chest again. The man in front of her was pissed off. "You don't get to hold a woman against her will. Not even the mighty Adrianu Cavallaro gets to kidnap a girl."

"It wasn't kidnapping. You were being unreasonable."

"Why?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why was my request unreasonable? I was in your hotel room for one reason and one reason only. s*x. It wasn't going to happen. I don't have to explain to you or anyone, why I decided I no longer wanted to be in your company. If I choose to leave, I get to leave. The fact I didn't want to leave with you had no bearing on the situation."

"It is not safe for you to be out with me and then to go home in a rideshare. Anyone of my enemies could have seen us together and then hurt you when you were leaving unescorted."

"Bullshit," she turned her attention back to the bag and punched it again.

"Not bullshit. You should have let me take you home."

"If a guy took Deidre out and she decided she didn't want him to drive her home?" At his silence she waved her hand at him. "Exactly. I neither wanted nor needed you to drive me home. I found my own way. Now, can you get out of my house? I need to finish my workout, get showered and get ready."

"You really have a date?"

"Yes. Did you think I was going to come home and sulk and cry because the great Mr. Cavallaro didn't want to f**k me? Sorry to disappoint you." She mocked him openly.

"You are serious?" he was incredulous.

"Do you really think you're the only man in all of New York?" She didn't even spare him a glance as she began punching the bag with steady rhythm. Jab, jab, hook. Jab, jab, hook. Uppercut. Jab, jab, hook. She breathed as she made the strikes. One, two, three, one, two, three.

"And if I go out with another woman?"

"Again, do you think I'm going to cry into my satin pillowcase tonight?" She didn't miss a beat. "You can eat with, sleep with, f**k with, whoever you want. I don't own you. I don't give a s**t what you do or who you do it with." She was lying but she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Her date tonight was an old friend with benefits she hooked up with on occasion. They barely tolerated each other now but they knew each other's likes and dislikes. Sometimes s*x was just s*x. She needed the release, desperately. "I myself will be suspended from a ceiling and being flogged with a riding whip while getting f****d hard and fast. You do you. I'll do me." She punched the bag again, one, two three. Jab, jab, hook.

His arms came around her to stop the bag from moving and pinning her to it. "Care to repeat what you just said?" His voice was a hot angry whisper in her ear.

"Which part?" she looked straight ahead, her heart rate accelerated from exercise and his proximity. She could smell the cigarettes on him. She had never seen him light up and had forgotten to ask him about it. Why was it a turn on? "You want me to repeat I don't care who your bimbo of the day is, or I can get what I need from someone else?"

"Why are you being like this?" his nose was in her hair as he breathed in deeply.

"You'll need to be more specific. I'm being myself. I refuse to be anything other than me, not even for the potential of getting railed by you." She kept her eyes averted and her jaw was clenched tight as his arms held her captive against the bag. She could feel his power behind her, his strength arousing in the worst possible way.

"You should just give in," he whispered. "You want to."

"Maybe," at his breath she cut him off, "but I'd much rather be able to look myself in the face in the morning and not think I sold myself short. I was willing to do a one-off last night to scratch the itch and you declined and for that, I'm grateful. The truth is, I'm not a doormat. I won't ever be a doormat. Respect in my household, my family, is earned and it's a two-way street. You don't get to come into my life and make demands on me, especially ones you have no intention of keeping for yourself. Now," she pushed backwards and then ducked under his arm, "see yourself out of my house and don't come back."

"If I leave, I won't be back."

"Do you expect me to cry or beg you to stay?" she started up the stairs with her phone in her hand. "You're mistaken if you think it's going to happen." She noted the other large man standing by her front door. She gave an annoyed glance. "Get out of my house before I make you get out."

The man grinned at her. "I dare you to try."

She walked up to him and before he could stop her, she feigned a kick to his balls. When he instinctively moved to push his hands in front of his junk, she smashed her fist into his windpipe and then used a vase on the side table to smash him in the side of the head. She yanked her door open and shoved his staggering frame out the door and down the stairs where he fell to his knees gasping for air. She turned on her heel and glared at Addy, "you're next. Get out."

At his curse of stunned surprise at the way she'd easily manhandled his security agent, she realized she was over the drama of Adrianu Cavallaro. She reached into her table and pulled her pistol out and c****d the hammer. "Now. Out."

He lifted his hands and sidestepped past her. "Arwen, you need help."

"What I need is you out of my house now." She was done playing. "Don't make me shoot you."

He walked out of the house and down the steps and with the help of a third man, assisted his bodyguard to his feet.

She pulled her phone. "I need a sweep of my house. There were two men in it, and I don't know if they bugged it." She hung up the phone and put her firearm away safely. She watched through the window overlooking her porch to ensure the men left ignoring the way Addy looked at her shaking her head as if she were a crazy person. Maybe she was. Because strangely, she missed him as the car pulled away.