Page 83 of Reign

No.

No, no, no.

I do not look at him.

Looking at him would be fatal.

“Yes?” I say, with the steady dignity of a woman who absolutely has not been sweating through a private nervous breakdown for the last twelve minutes.

There’s a pause. A small one.

A terrible one.

Then his voice comes low and calm from beside me. “You can breathe, Elena.”

I shudder in a humiliating breath of air. It’s not an inhale. I don’t gracefully recover.

I shudder.

Like my lungs have been waiting for his permission to work, which is mortifying enough that my dignity tries to claw its way out of the grave.

I clear my throat and straighten in the seat. “What hotel are you taking me to?”

“You’re not going to a hotel.”

I wait.

He offers nothing else. Not an explanation. Not a comforting addendum. Not even a casual little clarification meant to make the woman he kidnapped feel less like she’s been kidnapped.

He just stops talking.

And that irritates me.

“So I am going to Angelo’s penthouse?”

“No.”

“Santo’s house?”

“No.”

I finally turn my head to look at him. His eyes stay on the road, one hand steady on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift like he has never once been emotionally inconvenienced by another human being.

“Are we playing twenty questions, or are you going to tell me where the hell you’re taking me?”

The SUV slows at a red light.

Luciano’s eyes move first.

Just his eyes.

Hazel, impossible, and suddenly focused entirely on me. My spine reacts before my pride can stop it. I sit up straighter.

Wonderful.

My body has decided posture is survival.

Then his head turns towards me. Slowly. Fully.