When the device halts ringing a few seconds later, I lock my eyes with the camera in the corner of my room, glare at it as if the only meal I’ll ever agree to eat is Dimitri’s balls when I rip them off with my bare teeth, then I roll back onto my side.
I’ve barely sucked in two body-cooling breaths when the annoying buzz starts up all over again. It rings and rings and rings until my temper gets the better of me.
Imagine a robot malfunctioning after you take to it with a baseball bat. That’s the noise the little black device makes when I send it hurtling across the room. It smacks into the door that only unlocks when I’m using the bathroom before it crumbles to the floor.
Feeling somewhat victorious—and a whole heap hungry—I squash my back to the bedpost that has handcuff marks notched into the wood before curling my arms around my knees. This position makes the gnawing pangs of my stomach less noticeable. We won’t mention my jealousy, though, or you’ll book me in for a psych workup.
I quit contemplating sneaking into the bathroom to guzzle down stomach-filling gulps of tap water when a third buzz for the morning trickles into my ears. My eyes shoot to the remnants of the device splayed across the floor, shocked as hell it still works. It’s a mangled wreck—almost as twisted as my emotions when I discover the noise isn’t coming from the homemade device, it’s being projected through the speakers planted throughout the room.
If that isn’t shocking enough, the sweet voice that drowns out the annoying hum is downright controversial. “Roxie? Are you there?” Estelle breathes noisily out of her nose, a sign she’s pissed. “If you ignore my call one more time, I’m going to scream! What’s the go with you lately? Are you too good for your friends now?”
I almost reply with a resounding ‘no’ but lose the chance when a thick Arabian accent sounds down the line. “Less talk. More looking. I haven’t got all day.”
I hear Estelle shoo away Clover’s snappy tone as if he doesn’t kill thousands of people a year. “Don’t push your luck, mister. After the way she left me high and dry the past few days, she should be grateful I took her call. I’m pissed, and it’s that time of the month, so you better watch yourself.”
“Estelle—”
“Oh, so you do remember my name. How kind of you.” Her tone is bitchy, but I know deep down inside she’s more upset than angry. “Now tell me what I’m searching for so I can get on with my day.” When I balk, shocked she thinks I need something from her, she reads my mind like she always does. “Mr. Cranky Pants said he was ordered here to collect a package, and that he isn’t leaving until he gets it. Considering he handed me your boss’s business card, I’m assuming the mysterious package has something to do with you.”
The frantic scream of my pulse drowns out her last four words. I’m panicked out of my mind, suddenly clued on as to why Dimitri would send Clover to my apartment instead of Rocco.
This isn’t an endeavor to have me seeing sense through the madness.
This is a shakedown.
“Don’t do this,” I beg, staring straight at the camera. I can’t see Dimitri, but I know he’s watching me. I can feel it in my bones. “She has nothing to do with this.”
“Nothing to do with what?”
I pretend not to hear the panicked gasps following Estelle’s question. “I’ve done as you asked. I followed your rules.”
When the camera swivels to my right, I follow the direction of its gaze. Although I could pretend it’s staring at anything, I know its focus is on the only bit of power I have left. Dimitri is eyeing the overloaded burger as efficiently as my hungry eyes did when Rocco delivered it, his gaze as demanding as ever even with it being projected through electronic waves.
I scarcely shake my head for half a second when the panic in Estelle’s voice steals my attention. “Excuse me, I asked you to wait in the foyer.”
Through my raging pulse, I hear the shuffles she takes away from an unusually quiet Clover. The slosh in the bottom of my stomach threatens to spill when the terrifying noise of Estelle’s knee smudging the rim of our bathtub sounds down the line. She’s backed into a corner. She has nowhere to run. Her very existence hinges on me coercing Dimitri off the ledge.
“Please, Dimitri,” I beg again, my eyes watering. “She’s all I have. I won’t cope without her.”
“Roxie…” Estelle sounds on the verge of tears. She’s as rattled as me. “What’s going on? I thought you were working for some old geezer who can’t wipe his ass.”
I want to laugh at her ability always to find humor in any situation, but I’m too petrified Dimitri will use it against me to set it free. “I am. I’m just—”
“Not following the terms she agreed upon.” I hate how my body responds to hearing Dimitri’s voice for the first time in days. It prickles with excitement instead of repelling in disgust. “And since she’s too stubborn for her own good, I had to get inventive.”
“So, you sent a member of your staff to collect her belongings?” Estelle’s low tone reveals she’s lost as to what’s happening, but she’s also curious. Even being a love-sick idiot wouldn’t stop her from hearing the innuendo in Dimitri’s tone. It’s brimming with possessiveness and a nasty side dish of arrogance. “If you want Roxie to fall into line, you should have threatened her family…” Her voice trails off when the penny finally drops. “Oh, shit.”
A second later, glass smashing against tiles sounds down the line. It launches me to my feet as quickly as Estelle’s breaths batter the speakers. She’s endeavoring to run even with her having no place to hide.
“Please!” I scream, panicked out of my mind. “I’ll do anything you want.”
Dimitri’s demand is stern and to the point. “Eat!”
Tears roll down my cheeks unchecked when I nod my head. The seeded bun of the burger soaks them up when I shakily lift it to my mouth and take the biggest bite I can. I don’t chew. I just bite and swallow, bite and swallow until the greasy meat sits in the bottom of my stomach along with my heart.
After wiping at the slosh drooling down my chin, I lock my eyes with the camera above my head. I’m bawling, shaking uncontrollably, and on the verge of being sick, but it feels like I hit the jackpot when Dimitri says, “Enough.”
He isn’t approving of my grotesque eating skills. He’s telling Clover to back off, halting the horrific noises of a woman fighting for her life from sounding over the speakers. He’s sparing the life of my best friend all because he was handed the last bit of power I had left.
