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It didn’t help that he kept watching me. His eyes were doing that piercing thing, trying to strip off layers.
I turned away. Because any sight had to be better than watching him try to strip me down like that.
“I take it this is my new prison?” I said, ignoring the lump in my throat, as my gaze settled on the enormous gray mansion surrounded by elaborate gardens all around, then I turned back to face him.
“Si.” He nodded, looking over at the house with a contented smile on his face. He was comfortable here; he belonged here. “You’re going to love it,perla. It’s filled with all of uscriminalsyou love so much.”
A shiver shot down my spine as images of tall men and a short one flashed behind my eyes. A spider scar; I could feel it creeping down my spine.
I didn’t realize until my teeth started to clack together that I was trembling from head to toe.
He put a hand on my knee, and my breath caught in my throat. I didn’t yank my leg away or brush off his hand. I just stared at his long fingers—I don’t know for how long—disgustingly comforted by their warmth.
“Tell me what you know about Bianchi,” he said when I finally looked up at him. I swear that beneath the scrutiny in his gaze, his eyes were just the tiniest bit beseeching. It seemed out of place. This hardened criminal didn’t beseech; he took. A burglar with a loaded gun didn’t say please. A murderer didn’t implore his victim to lie down.
“Nothing,” I replied, but I had a feeling it came out like a breath, like a whisper of the wind. Because the feel of his hand on my thigh unnerved me. Because that look in his eyes had shaken me.
But mostly, because it was a lie.
Chapter Eleven
Amadeo
There was a crack in her armor. A thread-like fissure amid the impenetrable shield that seemed to surround her. It was there in the way she left my hand resting on her knee. In the way her lies slipped out like wisps of smoke, not blazing flames.
The crack was a way in. Usually, those cracks formed from beatings and blood. From knives and razor blades. Nails. Guns. Fire. Those were the tools with which I’d always extracted answers, pulled them out through those cracks that inevitably formed in every enemy I’d tortured.
But here sat my enemy, unscathed, cracking beneath simple touches and calculated guesses. What a mindfuck.
“Come,” I said as I stood up. I needed time to regroup.
She opened her mouth, a snide comment fresh on her tongue, no doubt.
“Come with me,per favore,” I said before it could slip out. I wondered if she could hear the no-bullshit tone in my voice by the “don’t fuck with me” look in my eyes.
She stood up, lips pressed together, gaze swiveling back and forth between me and the house.
I reached out to take her arm, but she sidestepped me.
“I’m capable of walking on my own,” she said in that prim and proper tone that was turning into some fucked up aphrodisiac and making me hard. Christ, this woman was all kinds of difficult.
“It seems when I don’t have a leash on you, you’re quick to scurry away,” I replied, definitely not thinking about how fucking incredible she’d look in collar and leash. My cock jerked against the uncomfortable confines of my pants.
She glared at me, but she was right. Not touching her was definitely the wiser move at the moment.
I motioned for her to go ahead, and she turned, walking tall even in bare feet. She marched all the way up the drive, right up the front steps to the door, but then she paused, body tense, back to trembling. And didn’t that make me feel like a first-class ass?
She’s working with Bianchi; don’tyou dare feel sorryfor her, dumbass.
That was all the motivation I needed to brush past her and walk inside. She lingered slightly behind me, to my left, but to her credit, she followed, shoulders back, even if they were trembling.
My father was already standing at the other end of the big marble-floored foyer, in front of a tall, rock waterfall wall. He had his hands behind his back, an unreadable expression on his face.
The moment Heidi caught sight of him, her feet stopped moving.
“Buongiorno, Papà,” I greeted him, not missing the way Heidi moved a little closer to me.Interesting.I’d gone from monster to protector, had I? Though I had a feeling it was more of a case of “the evil you know”.
And then the pair of hazel eyes that had been glaring at me from the back of my mind ever since I’d “run into” Heidi appeared at the top of the tall, spiral staircase.
