I scoffed. “You were right. That camera was pretty fucking obvious.” Then I recoiled a bit. “Excuse my language.”
He shook his head. “Don’t excuse yourself. It was pretty fucking obvious,” he said with a laugh, “but no one told you it was there, and you are in new circumstances. It’s not as if you walk around expecting to be under constant surveillance.”
“Iamthe Governor’s daughter,” I retorted.
“That’s true, but…” His voice died there for a little bit, and I could see the gears turning as he mulled over what to say next. “I’m… I’m sorry.” It was obvious it was a struggle for him to say the words, but the fact that he did meant something to me. “I shouldn’t have assumed. I hope that, apart from the circumstances that led me here, you don’t totally regret what happened.”
I’d been trying to figure that out myself for the past twelve hours. I’d behaved so outside of myself, in a way that brought me new shame every time I thought about it, but that pleasure I felt was too good to regret. “Maybe the circumstances, but not the act.”
He seemed to accept that and nodded. “Good.” He rubbed the back of his head and I wondered how much of what he was doing wastotallynew for him. Based on the way Milli had described his childhood, he was a pretty spoiled kid. How often did he have to be the one catering to someone else as opposed to the other way around? “Um… Not too long ago, you told me that you wanted me to trust you. I brought you your phone and let you communicate with your friend. You extended a faith that I didn’t need to worry about you trying to escape or blowing up all of my plans.”
“That was what I was trying to do,” I replied.
“Yeah. I want you to trust me too, so…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few things—my cell phone, a charger, and a wall adapter. “Here., I don’t want you to be totally cut off from the world.”
My jaw dropped a little. I looked from the phone up to Gio, and back again. “Really?”
“Really.” He held it out towards me, and I took it, nervous that it was a trick, but he relinquished the phone without issue. “I trust you, and I’m hoping you can trust me too.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome.” He stepped around me then, making his way back towards the door. Just before he left, he stopped and turned around, gave me a smile, said, “Enjoy your breakfast,” and left without another word.
Interesting.
I completely circumvented my breakfast in the interest of getting my phone plugged in so it could start charging. Though it took a few minutes to get powered up enough to turn on, I found myself standing there waiting for it because I still couldn’t entirely believe that Gio had given it to me. Eventually, it came to life, and then it started going wild with all the notifications that I had missed. I really only spoke to Lorie on a regular basis, but I had other friends who would reach out to me from time to time. I had about a hundred missed work-related calls, and of course, too many calls and texts to count from Lorie.
She was really the only person I was overly concerned with. I didn’t want to call her because I was afraid she’d be able to hear in my voice that I was lying, but I did need to check-in with her in some aspect. Though it would be so easy to text and tell her I was in trouble, part of me didn’t want to betray Gio’s trust. He’d extended a heavy olive branch after what happened last night, and I told myself that I’d make a decision based on his actions. While I tried to decide if staying or leaving was what was best for me, I needed to keep Lorie at bay.
I brought my breakfast over to where I’d plugged my phone in and ate while I texted.
Please don’t hate me for
neglecting you for this man.
I began. I figured as long as I kept the details short and unspecific, I could talk to Lorie a little bit about what was going on. There was certainly plenty I could say without admitting that I was being held captive by a mafia don who kidnapped me as collateral for my father’s gambling debt.
I hate you SO much for it.
You will be forgiven if you
send me a picture.
He’s not a big fan of
pictures, but I’ll try and
sneak one to send you later.
Can you tell me about him
at least? How hot is he?
Scale of 1-10.
A solid 100.
Oh, yeah. You def, need
