This was the first time he’d gotten that rough with me, though.
The accusation he’d made after practically breaking down my bedroom door came back to me.
Bet you liked all the attention you got tonight in that dress, didn’t you?
I frowned, still wondering where that had come from. Hardly anyone had given me a second glance. No one except Tristan, the guy who’d been forced to babysit me while Gino went to talk to Luca. And I would hardly call the way he stared at me sexual.
You think you can just leave me? Is that what you think?
It was pure rage, not the haze of alcohol, that had darkened his eyes when he’d thrown me into the window.
Blinking back tears of pain and humiliation, I scrubbed myself clean, ignoring the tender spots that would surely be bruises by tomorrow. When I came out of the bathroom, as predicted, Gino was gone. So I curled up in bed and went to sleep, trying not to think about what had happened tonight, and hoping this wasn’t going to be what my life would become.
When I got up the next morning, a covered tray was on the dresser. My stomach growled as I lifted the lid to find a hunk of bread and a glass of water.
What the hell was this?
Ignoring my aching bladder, I hurried over to the bedroom door and tried the knob. It was locked. I banged on it with my closed fist. “Gino! Open this door!”
Of course, there was no answer. I pressed my ear to the wood and listened. Nothing. Not so much as the scuff of a shoe on the floor. Closing my eyes, I pressed my forehead against it.
I had no idea what I’d done to deserve this. And if I were a smart woman, I would beg his forgiveness for whatever supposed infraction had made him lock me in here.
But, apparently, I was not a smart woman. I was a stubborn one. And one of these days—probably when I was nothing but skin and bones and too fragile to walk across the room—I would regret not swallowing my pride.
However, today was not that day.
Neither was the next.
There were no more dinners. No more anything. Just me in my bedroom with nothing to do but look out the window and wait for the occasional hunk of bread and glass of water.
By the third day alone in this room, being fed just enough to keep me alive, I was starting to fucking think about it. I rolled over on the bed, ignoring the tears gathering in my eyes as I stared at the door, willing Gino to walk through it with a four-course dinner for me. Of course, he didn’t.
The fucker had even taken my cell phone away, my only connection to my brother.
I was a prisoner.
CHAPTER 5
Tristan
“What did you do, Tristan?”
Luca stared at me across the floor of his office. He’d just poured himself a generous dram of whiskey and still held the full glass in his hand.
“Which time?” I asked him. If I was about to confess to something, I wanted to ensure it was the correct thing. Otherwise, my rule was what Luca didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. And there were quite a few things Luca—and even Enzo—didn’t know.
“At Gino’s. Last night. One of his guards is missing. You went there against my orders, didn’t you?”
I folded my jacket and draped it over the end of the couch in front of his desk. Then I slid my hands into the front pockets of my black slacks. “Mmm. That.”
“Yes,that.” He raised one eyebrow at me and waited.
“He won’t be found. I called Milo, and he took care of it.” Milo was excellent at his job. He could clean up a body spread out for a quarter mile and the cops wouldn’t find a scrap of DNA. He was also good at keeping secrets. I had no idea what the other guards, such as they were, had told Gino about their missing friend. Nor did I care. It wouldn’t be connected to me or Luca, so it was no longer my problem.
He stared at me for a long moment. Then, he sighed. “Well, there’s that, at least.” Finishing off what was in his glass, he poured himself another. “May I askwhyyou felt the need to kill one of Gino’s guards?”
“He got in my way. And I thought it best if I didn’t leave any witnesses.”
