I curled my fingers around the blanket and waited.
“Who sent you to me?”
I pulled my legs underneath me and sat on my knees, covering as much of myself as I could.
“Who branded you, Gia?”
I had to swallow several times to get my voice to work. “Why?” The question made me sound weak. Vulnerable.
“I know who you are.”
I stared at him, at this man who held me prisoner. This cruel captor who gave and took as he pleased, who both scared the hell out of me and also drew me like no other. His face, an angel’s face, was etched into the hardest stone, his eyes of steel, colder now, the pleasure he took in mocking me no longer glowing like embers of a dying fire. An anger, a hatred replaced it, and that fire was burning bright, ready to consume. To obliterate.
It was a terrifying thing to see.
“What does it matter, who I am?” I asked, my heart pounding, knowing the thin ice I walked on, waiting, watching to see what this brought.
His expression didn’t change.
“Who sent you to me?”
It was as though he held his breath.
“Victor Scava.”
This seemed to surprise him, because it took him a minute to continue.
“Did he brand you?”
I nodded.
“Under orders from whom?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that he took orders from anyone.”
“Why did he do it?”
Emotion coursed through me, memory and feeling and loss. Before me sat one of the men responsible for my suffering. I didn’t know if he was involved with Mateo’s torture or death, but I did know I owed him nothing.
Gathering my courage, I raised my head high.
“Why do you care? Why do you get to ask any question you like, when you won’t even answer the one I’ve asked you?”
“You still want to know my name? It’s that important to you?”
Maybe he was right. Maybe I should have been asking a different question. But I nodded and narrowed my gaze.
“Dominic. My name is Dominic”—hesitation, then—“Sapienti.”
Even in the dim light, I saw his eyes shift when he said his last name, and I knew it was a lie.
“Dominic Sapienti,” I said, watching him closely.
He nodded once, blinking as he did, and I felt sure I was right.
“He branded me because I wouldn’t fuck him.”
That seemed to catch him off guard. His forehead furrowed, and a crease formed between his eyebrows as he processed my information and waited for me to continue.
