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An hour later, the men are still talking and have opened another bottle of wine. They speak in jargon only they understand and it feels too awkward to go on sitting there. I gather up the leftovers and take them to the refrigerator as an excuse to leave, and then head toward the room I slept in last night.
As I’m passing a door, two hands grab me and drag me into a darkened room. I’m shoved up against a wall. The light from the hall glints on strands of blond hair.
Lorenzo.
“We’re on the same page, you and me,” he growls, pushing his face close to mine. “Neither of us know what the fuck you’re doing here. The other two’ve had a hard-on for you for the past year. I don’t know why they’re not getting the hell on with it.”
Getting on with screwing me. The night of my seventeenth birthday, Lorenzo seemed as interested in getting into my underwear as the others were. Actually, he’s the only one whodidget into my underwear, ripping it away and sliding the hilt of his knife against me.
“I thought you—” But I stop myself before it sounds like I’m trying to talk him into having sex with me.
“You thought I wanted you too?” He laughs. “I’d rather fuck a rotting corpse than a scrawny virgin like you. You were useless to me once your father decided Salvatore was going to marry you.”
His words that night come back to me.I don’t want anything from your father, or from you. I just like to win. Once I marry you, I’ll probably slit your throat on our wedding night.
Lorenzo releases me. “Keep out of my way. Better yet, keep out of my sight.”
“Gladly,” I fling at him as I shove him away. “The thought of you looking at me, let alone touching me, makes me want to throw up.”
I feel his eyes boring into my back as I walk down the hall. I don’t know what’s worse, Cassius babying me or Lorenzo’s venom. At least with Lorenzo I know what to expect. Pure hatred, and a violent end.
* * *
The next dayI wake up to an empty apartment. I spend the morning trying to find a phone or a device that will let me send an email or log onto my social media, but Cassius has been thorough about removing anything I might access. I watch TV and eat leftover Chinese food, finding it ironic that it’s day three of being kidnapped and I’m bored already.
In the afternoon I go back to my room for a nap and sleep for a few hours. It’s dark when I wake up and stare at the ceiling. More leftovers and TV, and then back to bed I suppose? I can’t hear any voices in the apartment so I assume the men are out extorting or gambling or beating someone up.
As I walk into the lounge, Cassius enters from the other side, and I suck in a breath. He’s fresh from the shower with a white towel knotted low on his hips and he’s drying his black curls with another.
His eyes widen as he sees me staring at him, and he slowly lowers his hand.
“Bambina. I want to talk to you.” He sits down on the sofa and indicates the spot next to him.
I stay where I am, excruciatingly self-conscious about being in the same room as a semi-naked man. Cassius is just so big, and he lounges on the sofa like a king. I try to look everywhere but at him. “Don’t you, uh, want to put on some clothes?”
“Sit down.”
I remember what happened the last time I sat too close to Cassius, and I perch on a cushion several feet away.
Cassius’ dark eyes flicker with annoyance. “Chiara, you’re trapped in here with me and I have a nasty temper. Did I say sit there?”
Goddammit. I move a little closer.
As soon as he can reach me, Cassius scoops an arm around my waist and pulls me onto his lap. I sit astride him, my hands pressed against his bare chest and frozen in fear, waiting for him to do something horrible. His hands capture my waist, holding me securely.
And he just watches me.
I stare back. At his short, neat beard. Those deep brown eyes of his. His chest is damp, and a droplet of water rolls from his collarbone down his muscles and gets lost among the black hairs on his chest.
He’s watching me look at him, getting used to all his bare skin and muscles. Even though he’s nearly twice my age, he’s kind of sexy and he knows it, but not in an obnoxious way, like Vinicius. His lap is large and warm and his fingers ever so slightly massage my lower back.
“I thought you wanted to talk,” I whisper, and my voice comes out huskier than I’d like it to be.
“Do you have everything you need here?”
His deep voice reverberates beneath my fingertips. I pull my hands away, but he reaches up and puts them back on his chest, not breaking eye contact.
Kind of sexy?
