I don’t have time to repeat my little mantra of calm. It’s too late, I’m twelve again. They’re going to hurt me. Or hurt my cousins and I…
“Get off get off get off me!” I moan, yanking on the chain. “Get off!” My back is tingling, painful little nerve twitches that make this feel as horribly real as when I was twelve.
“Getoff-”
The door opens and the man who bought me leans against the wall, frowning.
“I can hear you shrieking from across the hall,” he says coldly. “Be silent.”
“Let me go!” I shriek, yanking mindlessly on the chain. The cuff around my ankle is thick and unyielding, almost medieval-looking. This sick bastard definitely has a dungeon somewhere.
His head tilts as he examines me. “No time like the present…” he murmurs and holds up his phone, snapping a few quick pictures.
“Don’t!” I moan, “Why are you taking those? Oh, god, you’re not sending them to my brothers?” I look horrible, I know. Still in this disgusting lingerie, black tear tracks running down my face, and oh, god. The chain. And I’m on a bed. “Please don’t-”
He’s ignoring me, thumbs tapping out a rapid message on his phone. “I will take that cuff off your ankle and allow you to clean up if you calm down.”
“Calm down?” I’m half laughing, half crying, “When in the history of the world has any woman calmed down when a man told her to?”
He simply arches a brow, watching me with bored curiosity. I am calming down, though. Enough to notice that he’s wearing nothing but a thin pair of sleep pants.
And covered in tattoos.
His thickly muscled chest carried half a dozen images. A snake twines up his left arm and ends with a hissing face over his heart. There are some beautifully drawn Celtic images and a dagger, inked to look like it was piercing the skin over his ribs. Some of those tattoos are Mafia-related, even though I don’t see anything that gives me a clue to his affiliation.
“Good. You stopped screeching.”
He examines his watch, a silver Patek Philippe. My Da’ gave all my brothers the same one when they turned eighteen. I got a diamond necklace. I would have rather had the watch, at least it would have been useful. Striding over, he reaches into his pocket for the key. Before he puts it in the lock, he glares at me again. “If you kick and scream, or try to get away, you will stay shackled for the next week. Do you understand?”
Pressing my lips together, I nod. I can’t get away from him if I’m stuck, chained in this room. The only good thing about thosehumiliating photos is that one of the MacTavish hackers can surely trace them back to him.
Stifling a shriek when he picks me up, I twist away. “I can walk!” His chest is hard and he radiates heat against my chilled skin. He’s too close. I don’t like his face so close.
“Your feet are bandaged,” he says sharply. “I’m not going to let you walk on them and open up your wounds again.” He’s gripping me so tightly that my squirming is useless. Seating me on the marble countertop next to the sink, he starts the tub.
Wiggling my toes, I wince. I’d been too terrified and adrenalized last night to notice, but now I can feel a deep gash on my left heel and the toe I’d crunched against a chair when he’d dragged me out of that hell factory.
The bathroom is huge, and there’s an elaborate shower along with the claw foot tub he’s filling up. There are vases of flowers here and in the bedroom. He must have a housekeeper. I can’t imagine this man having anything to do with the mauve and yellow roses other than enjoying crushing them under his Dior shoes. Could I break one of the vases and use the sharp edge as a weapon? Reaching out to touch the flower arrangement, my hopes deflate when I realize the vase is thick acrylic. There’s nothing else in here to use, no razors or even a pointy comb. Does he keep this room weapon-free for prisoners on a regular basis? Does he buy girls often?
“I’m guessing this maintenance means you’re not planning on killing me right away,” I croak, clearing my throat.
He doesn’t answer me.
When the tub is full, he eyes me for a moment.
“Take that rag off.”
I’m shaking my head before he can finish the sentence. “No! Just go and I’ll do it. I promise.”
With a faint sigh, he wraps some kind of plastic booties over the bandages on my feet and picks me up, moving over to lower me in the bath. He’s surprisingly gentle about it, which makes him suddenly ripping the crappy silk teddy off me even worse. It pulls against my arse as he tears it away from me.
“I would have done it!”
He settles in a chair by a cabinet filled with perfectly folded, snowy white towels. “You will learn to obey me the first time.”
“Or what?”Why did I just say that?
He grins, handsome and utterly horrifying. “Then you’ll go naked. In here. Eating dinner. In front of my men.”
