Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

"If this fails, I'm blaming you, Henri." My hands smoothed the front of my white suit for the seventeenth time in twelve minutes to hide how nauseous I felt. This was make or break. If this failed, I failed. I'd be f.u.c.k.e.d. "Oh my god, do you think I should have put out flavoured sparkling water instead of the plain one? Do we even have flavoured sparkling water? Shit and they'll be here any minute."

I had been so busy welcoming my new employees and negotiating contracts with them that I completely forgot to look after the last details.

"There is a crate of ice cold assorted flavoured waters on the way, they will be here in less than ten minutes." Dominico let me know from his place at the desk beside mine. Thank goodness I kept him as my assistant, Henri couldn't do everything for me when he was at home and I was here.

"You darling man, remind me to confirm your therapy appointment with Dr. Ghuram," I told the man, who nodded before tapping away on his tablet. Dominico had some anger issues and PTSD I could sense lying beneath the surface, and I needed him to work on those before I put him in defence classes. After all, he couldn't go with me everywhere if he couldn't protect me.

Actually maybe therapy would be a good option for everyone… I'd put that in their insurance coverage.

"Did Marco specify whether we were having lunch here or somewhere else? Because I didn't prepare to have lunch here, I thought we were going somewhere else. Someone straighten out the armchairs in the lounge, I can see them contending with each other!"

Despite my screaming exterior, I was very nervous on the inside. This time Marco wouldn't be alone, and I would be the only head operator in a room of men who were all on Marco's side. This could not go wrong. I couldn't afford it.

"Madame, are you sure you are fine?" Henri looked worried for me. "I am worried for you."

"Of course I'm fine, why wouldn't I be fine? I'm just about to have the most make or break meeting of my life. Wait, scratch that, losing my v.i.r.g.i.n.i.t.y was the most make or break meeting of my life." I took a deep breath and had a moment to straighten out my hair. It was almost to my shoulders and I was determined to keep it at my neck.

"Madame," Henri blinked and suppressed a sigh. "Perhaps it is best if you postpone this meeting. Until you are collected again."

"Henri, do I look uncollected to you?" I motioned to my outfit. My hot butler made a little face like he didn't want to tell me the truth, so I glared at him. "Shut up."

The small office space descended into anxious silence, filled by my pacing on the hardwood floor, Dominico's typing on the desktop keyboard, and Henri tapping his fingers on the arm of the vegan leather sofa. The small clock on the wall above the couch didn't tick, but I could feel an imaginary clock ticking as the seconds went by.

Was I waiting for the sparkling water or my arch nemesis? For the sake of my own sanity, I'd pick sparkling water for $400.

"The delivery is here." Dominico thankfully broke the silence. He stood up from his desk and grabbed his tablet. "I'll go see that it's put in ice."

"Thank you dom." I nodded and waited for him to leave the room. As soon as he was gone, I turned to Henri and started pointing at the arm of the couch where he was resting. "Hit the arm twice with your fist."

Henri did as I asked and raised an eyebrow at me when a hidden compartment came flying out of the side, presenting him with a shiny firearm loaded, locked, and completely ready to use. The vintage revolver was completely wiped clean with a fingerprint resistant film that wasn't slippery, for the purpose of the shooter.

"I know you have an appreciation for vintage weapons so I got you that. In case things go wrong, you know how to access it. The room is full of compartments so I'll have to show you later, but there's that one, and there's this one over here." Intent on showing him the one on the floor, I rounder my desk next to the safe in the wall and pushed back a false panel. A little keypad showed, the Mockingbird, and I entered the combination for the gun safe.

"What did you just do?" Henri pushed the revolver shelf back in place and came to my side. "What was that keypad?"

"I had the Mockingbird modified to access safety points as well as weaponising the building. There's a special key for that, and the self defense sequence can't be activated without it. Don't worry, though, there are multiple panels around the club to activate it whenever necessary. Oh, and you remember the employee keycards?"

"Yes…" Henri looked like he wasn't really sure where I was going with this.

"Built into the Mockingbird system too so the cameras can recognize our face and body. That way, when the building self sabotages, it'll let the employees off Scott free. Can't say the same for the guests but I guess I'll figure that out when the membership card readers get here."

My butler looked at me with a lot of surprise on his face, which I would take as a compliment because nothing surprised Henri.

"You thought of everything, didn't you?" He looked around the room. "How many compartment of these are there in the building?"

"Around thirtysomething." I couldn't remember if I'd installed one for the bar. "Give or take." I'd have to look at that blueprint again.

"How many guns in total?"

"Over sixty."

With a roll of my eyes, I closed the wall back up and decided to head for the room where Dominico was at to wait for Marco's arrival. "You're such a negative Nancy, Henri."

"I am simply trying to protect you, miss." Henri trailed out of the office behind me with his hands in his pockets all cool as shit. God, he was s.e.xy.

"I can take care of myself, thank you very much. And I didn't hire you to be my nanny."

"You didn't, but given the onslaught of your bad choices and that Miss Willoughby can't watch you all the time, I thought you might like a voice of reason."

I turned around with crossed arms to meet his cool smirk, like he knew he'd won an argument.

"I agreed to this shit in your presence. Why weren't you my voice of reason then?" His smirk was met by my raised eyebrow.

"Because, you told me to stand against the wall ." He maintained his smirk, which I didn't like, so I told him so.

"Shut up, Henri."