“I will slay them all,pequeña. All your demons and all your fears. One by one.”
Fabiana swallowed past the dryness in her throat. She couldn’t watch anymore, but she couldn’t look away. He was magnificent, traveling up the stairs with an almost blasé air, his hands in his pockets now. He wore a pair of black slacks and a matching black button-up shirt. He’d worn a suit coat at their home in the Lombardi lands. He must have lost it in the scuffle, but he was composed now. Neat and perfect as if he’d done nothing more than come for a visit.
“Who are you?”
He couldn’t answer her, of course, but she asked anyway as he lifted his nose and followed it to …
“No!”
He was already there, pushing open the gold-and-white door, the only light color in the whole house, and stalked inside. She switched the cameras so she could see him.
“Not there.”
“Pequeña.”
Yes, the room had been hers. The large, four-poster canopy bed was still covered with a pastel-purple cover and white pillows piled high at the headboard. The white-and-gold dressers still held the perfumes and makeup she’d been forced to wear.
“Become the woman of their fantasies. They want something to fuck, Fabiana. Make sure that something is you.”
Adonis touched everything, running his fingers delicately over the containers before he smashed them all to the floor.
“You hated them. Every single one. I can smell the pain here. The rage.”
Yes.
His destructive hands froze near a small, haphazardly stitched, stuffed bird. The yellow had long ago faded to a ghastly, dingy white. But still Fabiana knew it. Every wrong thread line, the way its head hung a little off kilter.
And she’d left it because it hurt too much to hold it.
“This … is important.”
He tucked the bird into his pocket and continued his exploration, moving closer to her closet. She held her breath, hoping he wouldn’t see it but knowing this man would anyway. He missed nothing. He recognized what she hated and what she didn’t.
One step.
Don’t look.
Another step.
Please don’t.
He opened the door.
A multitude of glittering dresses and risqué attire hung proudly in the space. She’d never been allowed to wear jeans or lounge in yoga pants and a tank top like Giuliana had gotten for her. Fabiana’s job was to whet the appetite, at all times.
It never mattered whatshewanted.
One clawed hand tore the fabric to bits, and she thought he was finished, that he’d turn around and leave.
Of course, he didn’t.
He pushed deeper inside, his claws clicking against the back of the closet until a hollow sound met her ears.
“What is this?”
Please.
He pressed on the space, swinging it outward until it revealed another steel door with a bar across it. As metal slid against metal, she took a shaky breath. Heart pounding, she didn’t look away. Not until he opened it and growled.
