Dom moved.
Kitchen first. He opened every cabinet, every drawer. Plates, bowls, glasses. Utensils in the top drawer: forks, spoons, butter knives so dull they wouldn’t cut warm bread. No steak knives. No chef’s knife. No scissors. The knife block on the counter was empty. Even the corkscrew was gone.
He palmed a fork and slid it into his sleeve. Given the opportunity, he could do damage with it.
He checked under the sink. Cleaning supplies had been stripped to a single bottle of dish soap. No bleach, no ammonia,nothing that could be weaponized by someone with basic chemistry knowledge. Whoever had prepped this place knew what they were doing.
Living room next. The windows were tall, framed in brushed steel, with gauzy curtains that felt like tissue paper when he yanked them aside. The glass was thick. Behind the pane, barely visible unless you were looking for it, ran a lattice of fine steel mesh embedded between layers. Reinforced. This was the kind of setup you’d find in an embassy or a high-security government building. Wilde Security HQ had windows like this. He rapped a knuckle against it. The sound was dead, no resonance. He’d have better luck trying to punch through the wall.
He tried the window latch anyway. It didn’t budge even a fraction when he threw his weight against the frame. Locked. Welded, maybe, or bolted from the outside.
He shoved the gauzy curtain aside and looked out.
Fuck.
He knew New York City from a hundred floors up and from street level and every altitude in between, and what he was looking at wasn’t any version of it. Beyond the reinforced glass, the world opened up in blues and golds that had no business existing in March—water so brilliant it almost hurt, white buildings cascading down a hillside in the middle distance, the silhouette of a windmill against an achingly clear sky.
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in New York anymore.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I’m Toto, then you’re definitely the Scarecrow. Desperately in need of a functioning brain. Of course they didn’t keep us in New York. Your family is in New York and—” She yanked back the current and froze. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. We’re already in Greece,” he said. “Somewhere in the Cyclades, judging by the architecture.”
“Naxos.” Vivi moved beside him, careful to keep distance between them. “Villa Pandora is on Naxos.”
“They got us to Greece.” He said it aloud because saying it made it real, made the scale of it settle in. “They haven’t just had us for a few hours, Viv. They’ve had us long enough to drug us, move us across an ocean, and set up a cage with a view.”
“It’s a lovely view,” she said. “Really softens the whole kidnapping.”
He huffed a laugh and turned away from the window. Transatlantic flight, plus transfer, plus however long it took to get them here. At minimum, they’d lost a day. Maybe more.
And all the while Sabin had been sitting in that concrete room.
Jesus. He had to find a way out of here.
Restless energy screamed at him to do something, fight something, break something. His bruised ribs protested every turn, and his head still throbbed from whatever cocktail they’d pumped into him. He felt sluggish, off-kilter, and he didn’t know what to do with it.
So he paced.
Vivi also turned away from the view, but she wasn’t a pacer like him. Instead, she dropped onto the couch, legs tucked beneath her, and went absolutely still. Still in that black dress from the club, her hair tangled and her makeup smeared, she looked fragile.
But Vivianna Cavalier was a blade wrapped in silk.
“Are you okay, Viv?”
The question was stupid. He knew it was stupid the second it left his mouth. She’d been drugged, zip-tied, abducted, and was now held prisoner by a paramilitary organization that had her brother in a concrete cell with a knife at his throat.Okaywasn’t even in the same zip code as where she was.
She turned her head slowly. Looked at him.
Those eyes.
Green like sea glass, and right now they were stripped bare, haunted. He wanted to go to her, fold her up into his arms, and promise he’d never let anyone hurt her, but that was the last thing she wanted from him, so he stayed put.
“No, Dominic,” she said flatly. “I’m not okay. They have my brother.”
She’d been calling him by his full name ever since they’d broken up. Not Dom. Never Dom. Dominic. The way his mother used to say it when he was in trouble as a kid.
And, fuck, it hurt.
