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I don’t understand, but it’s clear that I’m not going to get any more answers out of him tonight. But I’ve got enough for now. Enough to form a plan because I’d do anything to be in his debt. Even after he tortured me by locking me in the bathroom. I still want a chance to fuck the man that saved me one second and then has done everything to keep me away from him the next. A man that could have just told his guards not to let me in, but instead put me on the guest list and then locked me away when I came for him. I want to know what kind of man does something so contradictory.
“Zip me up,” I say instead of asking more questions.
I turn around and wait. To my surprise, his hands firmly grip the zipper, and he slowly zips up my dress. I can feel his hot breath on my neck, and his grip on my hip makes me think that he wants to be unzipping my dress instead of zipping it up.
When he’s done, he turns me around and grabs me by the neck, tightening his grip so that I truly can’t breathe.
“Stop, Nina. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. Stop flirting. Stop coming after me. Or I’ll make you stop.”
He releases my throat, and I cough.
“Gregorio Manuel,” Arlo says.
A man enters the room, who I recognize as the security guard from before. He’s been waiting outside the door for who knows how long.
Did he follow me the whole way to Arlo’s room?
“Escort Miss Young away, please, and make sure she doesn’t return for the night,” Arlo says before walking out of the room.
The security guard looks at me and then grabs me by the arm. He escorts me out into the empty hallway. Arlo has already disappeared. My mind races with everything he said as the guard leads me down hallways. I assume he is taking me out of the mansion. But that’s not what happens. Instead of leading me back out, he takes me down a staircase and into a dark room.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“As Mr. Carini instructed, making sure you don’t return tonight or ever again.”
He pushes me into the dark room, which looks like a dungeon, and closes the door. He locks it, trapping me for the second time tonight.
5
Nina
The light beams in as the door to the room is flung open. I sharply turn my head away, trying to avoid the pain in my eyes from the sudden brightness. I don’t know why I bother though when a slight pain from the light is nothing compared to the pain I feel in my body.
“Let me help you up,” Gregorio, the guard, says.
I don’t respond. I don’t look at him. I don’t move. I just sit like I have been sitting all night. I clutch my legs tight against my chest with my arms wrapped around them for warmth while I sit on the dirt-covered floor, freezing. It turns out, a dark dungeon without air-conditioning, even with my clothes on, is much colder than a heated bathroom without my clothes.
“Get up, Nina,” he says as he reaches toward my hand.
When his rough fingers brush the skin on my arm, I jump.
“Don’t touch me,” I say as I push his arm away and stand up on my own.
I stare at the man who has held me captive all night.
I spent the first hour shouting at him through the bars in the door to let me out, that he couldn’t do this to me, that it wasn’t legal. But the man never broke. He just stood there, silently guarding me, not getting any sleep either. He should be just as sleep-deprived and agitated as I am, but he doesn’t seem to be that way. He seems so calm, cool, and collected.
But the guard isn’t really the man I should be angry with because he isn’t my captor. Arlo is. And, unlike this man in front of me, I feel completely broken. All it took to break me was one night alone in the cold dungeon, but I’m a fast healer. And it has just made me even more determined to get what I want.
“There is a car waiting to take you home.”
I start walking toward the door. “Tell Arlo—”
“I will tell Mr. Carini nothing but the answer to the one question he wanted me to ask. Will you leave Mr. Carini and his whole family alone now?”
I pause for a second, staring into his eyes that although dark also seem kind. He’s just a man doing his job. He is just the messenger. There is not the same touch of evil in his eyes like there is in Arlo’s. I should say yes and not let him know my plans. But I tried surprise before, and he was already one step ahead of me.
“No,” I say.
