Page 160 of Sins of Arrogance

Mick looks around the room. “Where is your duf­fel?”

“In the closet.” It won’t help him make a quick and easy ab­duc­tion. “I un­packed ear­lier.”

His jaw goes taut and he heads into the closet.

Know­ing I have maybe a minute, or two, while he packs my stuff, I quickly bend for­ward and try to find a re­lease on the an­kle cuffs.

If I can get them un­done, I can run.

These may be like the cuffs he uses when we make love, but they aren’t them. There’s no dis­cern­able way to re­lease them, or to un­hook them from each other.

I try press­ing against the leather, over and over, ev­ery­where my fin­gers can reach. Then I run my fin­gers be­tween the leather and my an­kle, look­ing for a hid­den re­lease. Noth­ing.

“They re­quire a key.” Mick is stand­ing in the door­way to the closet, the duf­fel dan­gling from one hand.

“Take them off me.”

“No.”

I try a dif­fer­ent tack. “Where’s Fitz?”

Mick heads into the bath­room, pre­sum­ably to grab my toi­letries. “In a he­li­copter on the way to where we are go­ing.”

“So, you kid­napped our son too?” I raise my voice so he can hear me.

“I didn’t have to,” Mick calls from the bath­room. “Fitz is happy to go on a trip with us.”

Only he’s not with us. He’s al­ready on the way there and I can’t help feel­ing that’s on pur­pose.

“What about school?” I de­mand.

Mick comes back into the bed­room, the duf­fel zipped. “I ar­ranged to get his school­work and the learn­ing goals for the week from his teacher. You will be able to work with him so he does not fall be­hind.”

“We’re go­ing to be gone a week?” My voice rises, but I can’t help it.

“We’ll be away from the man­sion as long as it takes.”

I don’t ask takes to do what be­cause I’ve got a pretty good idea. Mick’s a pos­ses­sive guy. His out­look is pretty ba­sic. Me and Fitz? We’re his.

He says he’s mine too, but it’s not true. There’s a big part of him I can­not touch be­cause it be­longs to the mob.

He doesn’t ac­knowl­edge that and in his prim­i­tive view, mar­riage is for a life­time. Even if that mar­riage is noth­ing but a con­tract and good sex.

Okay, mind-blow­ing sex, but that’s not love.

“How do you plan to get me out of the house with­out me scream­ing my head off?”

“It would be eas­ier if I could drug you, but I can’t,” he says con­ver­sa­tion­ally.

“Be­cause of what hap­pened be­fore.” For the first time ever, there’s some­thing about that time in my life that works in my fa­vor.

“Be­cause a man does not drug his wife.”

“Uh…” I’m se­ri­ously at a loss as to what to say to that.

It’s okay to kid­nap me, but not drug me?

“I don’t want to kill our men, but I will if they try to stop me.” His face re­flects not a sin­gle re­gret for mak­ing that threat.