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I head downstairs anyway in search of a kitchen. I bet Mafia man has a whole team of servants to cater for his every need, but I would prefer to make my own breakfast. I pad along the marble floors, which are surprisingly warm, until I hear the faint sound of a radio and detect the smell of fresh coffee.
Smiling, I walk into the huge, bright kitchen. It’s so homely, and unlike the marble and sleek decor of the hallways, this is rustic and charming. Vases of sunflowers are perched on the windowsills and copper pans hang from a rack on the ceiling. A wooden table with long benches either side dominates the center of the room. It’s so warm and inviting, I guess this must be the servants’ quarters or something. I doubt the psychopath prince ever comes in here.
“Good morning, Kat,” Sophia says with a smile. “Sit. I’ll fix you some breakfast. What do you want? Bacon? Eggs? Pancakes? Cereal?”
“I can fix something, thank you,” I tell her.
She eyes me skeptically. “Not when I am in my kitchen.”
“Okay.” I hold my hands up in surrender as I sit on one of the wooden benches. “I would love some eggs if it’s not too much trouble.”
She smiles widely before she starts preparing my breakfast. She hums along to the radio and seems so at peace here it makes me feel a little less uneasy. I mean, Dante can’t be a complete monster if he treats his staff well, can he? Unless she’s not like this when he’s around? Maybe he’s a raging tyrant who barks orders at her all day and makes her cower in fear. And this time of the morning, before he gets out of bed, is the only time she feels any happiness.
“Morning.” Dante’s deep, gravelly voice fills the room, and I swallow as I realize I’m about to learn which of my theories are true.
I don’t dare turn my head and look at him. Sophia is cheery when she turns to face him. “Good morning, sir. You want your usual?”
He clears his throat. “Please, and some coffee.”
“Of course,” she says with a polite nod. I mean she doesn’t look afraid of him, but what do I know? Maybe she’s a good actress. And what’s he even doing in here?
“Did you sleep well?” he asks as he walks toward the table and stands next to me.
I brace myself to turn and look at him and… holy mother of God, he’s wearing only black sweatpants, and I come face to face with his golden, tattooed abs. A bead of sweat trickles down his abdomen, and for the tiniest fleeting moment, I wonder what it would be like to lick it off.
I cast my eyes up and over the rest of his body, which is as perfectly chiseled as his stomach until my eyes rest on his face. His eyes are so dark they’re almost black. His hair is wet too, sweaty, like he just worked out.
“Yes. The room was perfectly adequate for a prison cell,” I say, and my voice sounds surprisingly calm given how much my insides are quivering.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he replies, ignoring my barb as he sits at the table opposite me.
He rests his tattooed arms on the table, and when he clenches his fists, the thick muscles in his forearms flex, and I have to drag my eyes away from them. But the rest of him is no easier to look at. His chest and biceps are covered in tattoos too. He is literally ink and muscle. All of him. Not an ounce of fat anywhere.
“I don’t usually have guests for breakfast,” he says, and I realize I’m staring at him.
Heat flushes across my cheeks. “I-I, uh, you’re just kind of sweaty is all,” I stammer. “I mean, it’s not very hygienic to sit at the dining table like that.”
“This isn’t the dining table though. This is the breakfast table.Mybreakfast table. I always eat straight after my workout. If you’d like to eat at the dining table, then it’s two doors down.”
I summon the courage to look into his eyes and immediately regret it because he’s glaring at me, but I don’t see anger there. His pupils are blown wide and I suddenly feel like if I don’t stop looking at his chiseled muscles, then I might end up being his breakfast.
“Here is fine,” I reply, keeping my eyes fixed on his. I like being in here with Sophia humming along to the radio because it feels like a little slice of normalcy in this fucked up version of reality I am in.
“Fine,” he says with an arrogant smirk.
I cannot believe he just caught me staring at his muscles.
“Now that you’re here anyway —” I clear my throat because my voice is suddenly way more high-pitched and croaky than it normally is. “Can we discuss exactly what happens now?”
He frowns at me. “What happens?”
“Yes. What happens. What the hell am I supposed to be doing here? When can I leave? What are the rules of the game?”
“This is no game, Kat.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I hiss, glaring at him. “It’s just a phrase. This is my life, asshole! You just picked me up out of it and dropped me here. I have no way of contacting the outside world. No money.” I never had a cell phone, preferring to use my landline to call my cousin, Mia, once a week. But other than that, I chose to stay off grid. How ironic that I’m now so off grid, nobody will ever find me even if they bothered to look.
“You won’t need either of those things.”
