Gianni’s sudden change in behavior about Lucia fit more with what Angelo was telling me than what I believed to be true. Even though I couldn’t see, I closed my eyes and tried to push Angelo’s words away, but they settled on my heart like a heavy, lead weight and I couldn’t get them to go away.
Just a toy? Was that why Gianni hadn’t told me he loved me?
Because he didn’t?
Ordinarily, when I got back to the Cavetti’s estate, I was brought through the back door, dragged into the staff quarters, where the bag was finally removed from my head, and I was left to my own devices. This time, however, my shroud was pulled off while I was still sitting in the car. We were parked in front of the Cavetti’s, and Angelo and one of his goons were in the front seat. Angelo turned around and looked back at me and it sent a chill down my spine.
“You haven’t been offered the chance to make many of your own choices have you?” Angelo asked.
I’d been crying under the bag and I hated that it was obvious now to Angelo. “No.”
“I’d like to give you a chance to choose for yourself,” Angelo said. “Typically, you’d be brought back to Gianni’s in three days, but I’d like to give you a chance to see the truth for yourself. Rather than bringing you back to Gianni, we’ll skip a couple of rendezvous, and when you go back, you’ll see that he hasn’t broken stride. I’ll make a deal with you.”
“A deal?” I said.
A disgusting smile knit between his cheeks. “I’ll bet your freedom that Gianni brings up Lucia within five minutes of you stepping through his front door.”
My stomach knotted up thinking of that reality. If Gianni could prove that he really loved me andnotmention Lucia, I would be free, and we could put all of this behind us. “If he doesn’t say it…”
“Then when we pick you up, I’ll hand you all of the money in my pockets, and send you back into Gianni’s for good, if that’s what you’d like. But, if he says it…” Angelo said. “You can never go back.”
Wagering my relationship with Gianni on one of Angelo’s sick games didn’t seem like a good game to play, but I was nearly at my wit's end. After everything I’d been through to be with Gianni, why didn’t he talk about me the way he talked about Lucia?
I looked up at Angelo and he raised an eyebrow. “Do you accept?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do it.”
15
Gianni
Just when I thought I’d gotten a pretty good handle on the schedule my father had designed for Philippa’s visits, they changed. She had been coming every few days, but after her last visit, she hadn’t been back and it had been about a week.
I became afraid that maybe something had happened or gone wrong when I remember that my father took great joy in causing me stress and pain. Even if he believed Philippa was just an object to me, it was an object he had control of, and he could keep it from me at will. Thinking that he exercised any control over Philippa made me so angry I wanted to punch more holes in the wall, but I knew that would only worry her when she finally did show back up and that was the last thing that I wanted.
My day was likely waiting for me to say something to him about it so that he could get off on the power he had over me, but I refused to give him the satisfaction. Philippa was strong and so was I. We’d be together soon enough, so I refused to risk everything by being impatient.
After about two weeks, Philippa was dropped off again. Though she smiled at me and kissed me, she didn’t greet me with the same warmth she normally did, which worried me.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “It seems like something is wrong?”
“I’m okay,” Philippa replied and I didn’t believe her in the slightest. “Just tired.”
“How have things been going?” I asked. “How’s Lucia?”
Philippa hesitated a bit before saying, “She’s doing okay. She’s alive anyway.”
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Are there circumstances bringing her within a risk of her life?”
She barely looked at me as she walked up the stairs towards the bedroom. “Aren’t any circumstances near your father at a risk?”
I followed after her, wondering if she was maybe hoping to jump right to sex to help get her mind off of things. I loved being intimate with Philippa, but part of the excitement when she came over was spending some time talking and enjoying the general glow of reuniting. She wasn’t herself.
“I suppose that’s true,” I said, “but is he doing something specific to her?”
Philippa flopped down onto the bed with a huff. “I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
“Okay,” I said.
