I was unconscious when I was first brought to Velvet House and when Adriano and I left to go to the hospital, my brain was full of Zia Teresa. And I’m not lying, my sense of direction is terrible. I got lost in my own neighborhood all the time. “Um, I don’t know. There were a lot of trees around…”
“Fuck it. We’re going to Dreams.”
For a second I have no idea what he’s talking about and I think of pillows and unicorns and soul music. Then it clicks. “You’re taking me to a strip club?”
“Gentleman’s lounge,” Archie corrects. “I can make contact with Domenico Valente there. Or at least someone he knows.”
Fear spikes through me. Domenico Valente. Doc.
Yesterday, I’d have said that Adriano was the scariest of the four Velvet House men, but in his bed, I saw the truth. He is huge and tormented and possibly broken, but he has a tenderness for me that could have killed both of us. That’s why he let me go to the hospital. Why he called for me to run as Mr. Parker’s men strangled my Zia.
If he survived—of course he survived—he might go easy on me.
Doc won’t.
He hates Mr. Parker with every bone in his body and used that hatred against me like a weapon. He spat in my face, stripped me naked and barely consented to give me the small freedoms Bobby and Eli allowed me. Once I’m back in his grasp, any shred of dignity I have will be torn away.
Doc will hurt me. Spank me, use my body in every and any way he wants. I will be drugged with Orchard and forced to comply with his every wish, possibly to dance in his clubs and sleep with his customers. Certainly, to endure his insults and dress in skimpy clothes and act however he wants me to.
And even as my skin crawls I can feel a twisted sense of longing. Doc is evil, but he also has cornflower blue eyes and a perfectly tattooed body and when he tosses his blond head back and laughs he’s beautiful.
I can’t go back.
“Please, I beg Archie. “Take me somewhere else, anywhere else. I’ll give you money. I’ll… I’ll call my uncles and have them pay you or—”
Archie’s friendly face goes hard and for the first time I see how he’s worked for Mr. Parker, how he’s dangerous too. “Don’t push me, Kitten,” he says. “I don’t want to hurt you, but one way or another, you’re going back to Morelli. Alright?”
I shrink back in my seat. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be.” Archie pulls out his phone and taps the screen. “It’s a couple of hours away, you hungry? Need to pee?”
I shake my head, my fingers tightening around my St. Christopher. Archie puts on Johnny Cash and as my mind fumbles along to ‘Ring of Fire’ I wonder if I’ll die of panic before we ever get to Dreams.
Chapter Three
January Whitehall
It’s dark whenwe arrive at the sprawling, ivy-covered mansion.
Archie smiles at my shocked expression. “Not what you were expecting?”
“I thought it would be in the middle of a street and there’d be like… flashing lights and girls in tube tops.”
He laughs. “Valente owns a few places like that, but this is the classy one.”
It’s funny to hear him mention Doc so casually, as though he’s existed for years without me, which of course he has. But to me, he was born the day he showed up in the cathedral dressed in a priest outfit for my marriage counseling. It’s hard to believe that his raging energy was out in the world without me knowing about it.
Even now I swear I can feel him coming closer, his brow contracted, his long fingers itching to tear the clothes from my body and punish me.
I cast another glance at Dreams. Its brick façade is as intimidating as any fancy home I was taken to by my stepmom. “Are we, um, allowed to be here?”
“As long as we got money.” He pulls the cap off my head. “Look alive, Kitten. I know you’ve had a hell of a day, but you need to keep it together. Are you ready?”
Am I ready? I’m more tired and strung out than I can ever remember being, but I can’t just sit in Archie’s car for the rest of time. I push my shoulders back. “Of course.”
Archie and I open our car doors and head to the entrance. I pause when I see a bouncer. “I don’t have any ID.”
“How old are you, Kitten?”
