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“Listen, if you guys can get into my hotel room, my work badge is right on the dresser. I promise it’s there. I left it there on purpose because I knew I’d lose it if I tried to keep it with me,” I ramble. I realize that the more I talk, the less reliable my explanation is, but if they couldjustgive me long enough to prove-
“Okay, we can check it out. If it’s not there, I’ll have to come up with some other way to dispose of you. You do realize that, right?” he asks, pulling up a chair and sitting opposite me.
“Realize what, exactly? That you have no empathy at all?” I reply with a note of bitterness. I need Marcello to be the man in my fantasies, and I realize that this was my first and most devastating mistake. I have no idea who this person is, but I do know that he’s more dangerous than I could have imagined.
“Realize that I can’t let you go roaming into the free world. You’ve seen too much already, and I can’t risk having anything leaked. Anyway, that’s all hanging in the balance for you. What hotel are you staying at, and what’s your room number?” Marcello asks.
“I’m at the Hotel on 25thStreet, room 347. I don’t have a room key on me, but if the hotel staff needs my permission for you to get into the room, you need to let them call me,” I reply, feeling more secure in my ability to reason myself out of this.
Marcello and his men laugh in my face. “You think we need anyone’s fucking permission to get into a hotel room? No, I’m going to break in the same way I always do. Don’t need to ask any teenage hotel staff for any fucking thing,” says one of the taller, stockier men with a tattoo of a snake on his arm.
My face turns hot as I collect myself. “Okay, fine then. Go break into my hotel room and find my work ID. Then we can settle this, and you can get me out of these restraints.”
Marcello shrugs and blows smoke up towards the vent in the ceiling. “We’ll see how far it gets us. You’ll be lucky if we let you go unscathed.”
My stomach drops as I try to imagine the implications behind his statement. Marcello gestures for the men to leave, and they all file out of the office to retrieve my identification.
Without missing a beat, Marcello turns back to me, piercing me with those sharp green eyes that have been watching me from inside my own head for the past five years. I never could forget his eyes, and I’ve still never seen any that compared at all.
“You’re lucky I’m so merciful. Most men in my position would have killed you by now. But now that I remember you, I’m intrigued,” he says with an overtly sensual tone to his voice. His whole affect has changed, and I’m certain that I’m seeing a side of him that his henchmen never see.
“What do you remember about me?” I ask as the ten-pound weight of terror in my belly melts into a pool of curious warmth. Even given my circumstances, he’s able to light my soul on fire without even touching me.
This could be a very volatile situation.
“I remember the dress you wore, first off,” he confesses, his lips curling into a devious half-smile.
“Really? I wouldn’t have thought that my dress would have been that important,” I reply as my cheeks begin to burn.
He chuckles a bit. “It’s not that the dress is important. It’s the way it fits you. I was disappointed when you sat down because I couldn’t see the way it wrapped around your body.”
Now my heart is beating out of my chest, and I’m curious what his end-game is with this conversation. Why is he flirting with me if he suspects that I’ve been spying on him? What purpose would that serve if not to tease himself?
“Oh, wow,” I say under my breath as my chest turns bright red.
I think back on the moment we first saw each other at the café, and I’d always wondered if he had been undressing me with his eyes. I didn’t want to be delusional, of course, but his confirmation now sends a rush through me that I haven’t experienced since the first time he touched me.
He sits back in his chair, so collected and cool, while I struggle to keep from squirming. He’s already got such a grip on me, and even after all the time I’ve spent fantasizing about him, I want to scold myself for allowing him to control my emotions like this.
“Well, I can’t keep you in here. There’s far too much information that you can’t see, and I’d really be disappointed if I had to kill you for trying to access it,” he says, getting up out of his chair and undoing my restraints.
“Wait, where are you taking me?” I reply as I begin to panic. Does he have a finished basement built purely for keeping prisoners? From the little I’ve seen of this enormous house, it appears to have been custom-made. He could have an entire hidden compartment full of dead hostages, and I’d have no idea.
“You’ll see, just don’t panic. You have no reasons to panic yet,” he says. The emphasis on the wordyetsends chills down my spine, but I know better than to allow my emotions to take over me. If I do that, I’ll be reduced to a shrill, useless, crying heap on the floor.
He doesn’t place me in handcuffs as he leads me out of the office and into a large hallway with a vaulted ceiling. The hallway is lined with artwork, most of which seems to be from the Renaissance era. I could have pictured him being the type to collect art, but now it’s conflicting with the cold, analytical persona he’s presented.
At the end of the hallway is a set of stairs that loops upward onto the second floor. Marcello leads me into a dark, cool room that I presume to be his bedroom. Even though I’ve never been here at all, the energy of the space brings me back to the night that we spent together, and I have to shake those feelings immediately. I’m being held hostage. I can’t associate any positive feelings with this person.
“Okay, get on the bed,” he commands, leading me over to the bed and keeping a firm grip on my wrists.
“Why are you putting me on the bed?” I ask warily.
“Just easier to keep you contained this way. Relax your wrists,” he replies, handcuffing me to an opulent iron headboard. The cuffs don’t hurt like the restraints I was in before, which is a small positive that I can hold onto while my life hangs in the balance.
I should be panicking. I should be screaming and crying for mercy. Yet here I am, complying with his every word as if he’s going to reward me afterward.
He flips on a light, and I glance around to assess my surroundings. The décor is minimalistic, which I guess I could have expected based on the way he dresses and carries himself. It’s clear that he hasn’t had a woman in his life for a long time, given the clinical fluorescent lighting and rigid atmosphere. It’s sort of uncomfortable, but I can tell that every piece is deliberate.
