“Fuck,” he breathes. His grip shifts, still tight in my hair, but his thumb has moved, stroking along my temple in a rhythm that has nothing to do with control. I don’t think he knows he’s doing it. I close my eyes and let myself feel it, that tiny, involuntary gentleness from a man who has none.
The cage throbs. My eyes sting. I hollow my cheeks and suck harder, and his whole body jerks.
He comes with a grunt, his hand fisted so tight in my hair that my eyes are watering. I swallow because there’s nowhere else for it to go, and when I sit up, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, he’s already tucking himself away. Staring out the window as if nothing happened.
We ride the rest of the way in silence.
Vito pulls up to the curb at the house and comes around to open my door for me. But I turn to Damiano. “You’ll come in with me,” I tell him. He opens his mouth to protest, and I add, “Just for a moment. Vito can wait for you out here.”
He trudges down under the portico to let me into the front door, raising the metal security door with his fingerprint access, then waving me in with a mocking smile. By now, I know where I’m going. I beckon him around the corner to the elevator. “I want you to take me down to the basement.”
He stares at me. “I’m not kidding, I got shit to do. I don’t have time to fuck you into being smart again.”
Crude as always. “I’ll stay down there while you’re out. Ask Rosa to send down some lunch in the dumbwaiter like she used to.”
He tilts his head to the side and smiles an unpleasant smile. “You got a taste for it, huh? Getting chained up down there? If that’s what you want, I’m more than happy to oblige, golden boy.”
“That’s not why I’m—” I break off. “Just do what I say. And I swear to God, Dami, if you don’t come back and get me later?—”
“What are you gonna do? Your lifeline to Finch D’Amato doesn’t get reception down there.”
So he’s noticed that, too. “That doesn’t help you, either. If he doesn’t hear from me…” I trail off, letting the sentence finish itself in his brain.
The smirk turns into a snarl. “Let’s get you down there,” he says. We step in and he presses his finger to the panel, taking us downto the basement level. I have thought, of course, about making him add my fingerprint to the scanner. But for now, it’s better to make him control it. To remind him of the consequences otherwise.
Before I step out into the basement, I reach over and hit the lights. The grotesque layout of my family’s home appears before me—but I’m transfixed by my grandfather’s desk.
I’ll start there, but the ring could be anywhere. In any drawer, any compartment, any hidden space in any piece of furniture that Damiano so carefully preserved. He thought he was building a monument to his hatred. He may have been guarding my crown.
“When you return, you’ll come down and get me,” I say over my shoulder. “Clear?”
“Clear.”
I step out.
“I’ll be working late tonight, though,” he adds, just as the doors close.
CHAPTER 16
DAMIANO
I hopethe little prince enjoys his self-imposed prison for the rest of the day. I do stop by the kitchen and tell Rosa to send down meals to the basement, and get myself a furious, tight-lipped glare for my trouble.
“It was his idea to go down there!” I snap. “Just do what you’re told, woman. Unless you want him to starve.”
She mutters something in Italian that I choose not to hear, and then I go back out to Vito and the car.
But Shuffles has appeared across the road, shifting from foot to foot in the shuffle that gave him his name. He gives a jerky up-nod as I appear, and I head over, curious to hear what he has to say.
“Someone’s been driving around here, offering money to kill that boy who’s staying in there with you.” He jerks his chin toward the house.
“He’s not a boy,” I say automatically, even as my gut tightens. “When, where, and who?”
“Couple of hours ago, a few blocks down. Older guy, getting driven around in one of them European cars. No plates. Didn’t get a good look at him, either. Windows were dark and he only cracked it an inch, plus he had sunglasses on.”
That could describe anyone from the Bratva to the Morellis. “How much was he offering?”
“Couple of hundred. But it wouldn’t have mattered if it was a million. I got my integrity.”
