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Nora’s delicate features were pinched with concern. Forme.
The shame of it was almost too much to bear.
Still, when she reached her hand through the bars, seeking mine, I grasped her tightly. The tender connection after the silent darkness was a soothing balm to my soul.
“Nora.” I rasped her name. “I’m so sorry.”
Her brow furrowed. “You’re hurt.”
She ignored my apology and focused on my wounds, the marks of my failure and weakness. My insides squirmed.
“I’m fine,” I gritted out. She wasn’t confined like I was. She might have a chance at escaping. “You’re the one I’m worried about. Leave me and get out of here if you can.”
Her spine straightened, and she met me squarely in the eye. “I won’t leave you. And there’s no way out for me, anyway. There are guards at the doors and at the perimeter.” A shiver raced over her skin. “I’ve tried to run from him before. I won’t give him an excuse to toy with me like that again.”
“I’ll get you out,” I vowed. “I swear, I’ll find a way to get us both out of here. Dante is a dead man.”
She nodded in grim agreement. “I’ll kill him myself if I can. But he’s so much stronger than I am. I have to be sure I’ll succeed. Or he’ll…” She shuddered again. “He’ll do something terrible to punish me. Us.”
Her hand closed around mine like a vise, as though I was her lifeline. “Let me treat your wounds.”
I noted the first aid kit in her free hand for the first time. I’d been so focused on her face that I hadn’t noticed what she was carrying.
I tried to pull away, but her grip tightened.
“You can’t do that,” I reasoned. “He’ll know you helped me.”
“You have to be fit if we’re going to fight back,” she said firmly. “He told me I could go anywhere I want inside the house. I knew you were hurt, and I decided to come and help you. I found this under the bathroom sink,” she hefted the first aid kit, “but then it took me hours to find you. This basement is within the mansion. I’m not defying his orders.”
I fixed her with a forbidding frown. “You know he didn’t mean for you to come down here. And if he did, it’s another one of his sick games, an excuse for him to hurt you. You saw how he lost control when I talked about taking you away from him. He’s a possessive, jealous bastard. He won’t want you to help me. He won’t want you to touch me.”
Despite the truth of my declaration, I didn’t let go of her hand. I couldn’t.
Maybe she was the one who was my lifeline. I’d never felt more alone, more powerless. My whole life, I’d commanded the people around me. Dante was treating me like I was less than nothing.
You’re not a man. Not anymore. You’re mine.I recalled the stomach-churning words he’d uttered when he’d captured me.
He’d ripped my pride away and thoroughly emasculated me when he’d coerced Nora into forcing me to feel pleasure against my will.
My cheeks burned, and Nora’s expression tightened as though she was remembering the awful scene too.
I drew in a deep breath. I had to hold myself together for her sake. Now wasn’t the time to allow my self-loathing to claim me. Not when she needed me to be strong and promise her that I would find a way to save her.
“Let me see your wrists,” she commanded gently, releasing my hand so that she could open the first aid kit. I followed her retreating touch, my fingers sliding along hers as she pulled away.
To cover my moment of weakness, I thrust both of my hands through the gaps in the bars, my fists clenched.
“I can do it myself,” I said, my voice a touch sharp from my frustration at my own helplessness.
She shot me a level look and then returned to the kit. “Will you know what you’re doing?” she challenged breezily. “Because I do.”
I gritted my teeth. No, I didn’t know how to properly treat my own wounds. When I’d been hurt in the past, I’d always had a private physician on hand to see to my injuries.
Nora gently touched a damp cloth to the ring of raw skin around my right wrist, and I hissed at the sting. I ignored the pain as she efficiently cleaned the wounds, resolving to be stoic around her. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t been hurt before. Just last year, Gabriele had shoved me down in a firefight, saving my life. I’d gotten out with a bloody gash in my side, but I’d survived, thanks to my friend.
My chest tightened. Gabriele’s life was in my hands now. If I defied Dante, he would be killed, or at the very least, tortured.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not when I owed him my life. Not when he and Lorenzo had stood by my side since we were kids.
