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Of course it wasn’t enough. He would keep hitting, keep hurting, keep taunting, until I stopped responding. He was a power-hungry psychopath. He did a magnificent job of playing the bastard. He didn’t care if I suffered; in fact, my suffering was essential to him.
I chastised myself for being so receptive to Dornan. He was the enemy. It was like a really shitty version of good cop / bad cop, and I had fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
‘I’ll get you something to eat,’ Dornan said. ‘I’ll be right back.’
I looked at him with all of the disgust I could muster.
‘Don’t bother,’ I said mechanically, no emotion in my tone. He was Emilio’s son, not my friend, and though he’d bandaged me up, and said he liked my blood, it would be the last of my blood he would get to touch without a fight.
I wasn’t falling for his bullshit act. He was a Gypsy Brother. They might own me now, but it didn’t mean I had to like it. Like him.
Dornan raised an eyebrow. ‘Lost your appetite? Yeah, he does that to me, too.’
I didn’t respond, and eventually he took the hint, and left.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MARIANA
I fell into a broken sleep shortly after Dornan left me alone with my broken ribs and rumbling stomach. I was so worn out, so beyond thought, that I no longer cared if someone murdered me in my sleep. I just needed to pass out for a couple of hours and regroup. But nightmares of my mother’s crying face taunted me, making me twist and turn, my ribs protesting with white-hot pain every time I did so.
Morning came eventually, and with it, a fragile sense of calm. The hum in my ribs was still high, but it had settled down from its original peak.
Este. I couldn’t bear to think of him, the way his eyes had glazed over as his life had ebbed away, his blood dripping into the cracks of the cobblestoned street beneath him and leaving an empty void.
I sat up with a start as something banged on the other side of the door. ‘Christ,’ I muttered, as the sudden movement shifted my ribs painfully. It hurt so much, it took my breath away. Dornan stood in the doorway, a troubling look on his face. It looked somewhere between amusement and cool detachment, the smile of his mouth saying one thing but the fact that it didn’t reach his eyes saying another.
‘Here to check me out?’ I asked sarcastically.
His smile blossomed into a wide grin. He thought I was funny?
‘I’m so glad my questions entertain you,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Can I please go to the bathroom now?’
I was ready to burst. It’d been a long time between visits.
‘Sure,’ he said, opening the door wider and stepping to the side. I looked up, startled, and this time he did laugh at me.
‘There are armed guards all the way down the hall,’ he said. ‘So yeah, I’m letting you take a piss. You’ve got five minutes.’
I glared at him, my bladder winning the battle between running and staying put. As I sidled past him, our hands brushed together, and I recoiled at the sudden spark that seemed to ignite between our skin.
He’s the enemy.
It bothered me that I even had to remind myself of that fact.
He was right. There was a guard near the bathroom, holding one of the same sub-machine guns as the ones my father and brother had had pointed at their heads. Berettas. I was going to end up with a urinary tract infection pretty soon, unless I was granted a toilet break more than once every twelve hours.
I contemplated asking to take a shower as I gazed longingly at the small, screenless cubicle beside the vanity.
‘Hurry up,’ Dornan called from my room, and I sighed, trudging back.
I froze when I saw what he had in his hand.
Years ago, my highly paranoid father had insisted on having all of us microchipped, in case we went missing. In case we were abducted, to be more accurate. Some schemer had spun him a story about the microchips having GPS capabilities, but he had been lying. They were the same chips people put into their pets in case they went missing, so that if someone found them, they could scan the chip, return the pet to its owner and everyone could live happily ever after.
Or, in our case, so that our bodies could be identified.
I snapped from my thoughts back to the scene in front of me — Dornan, standing in the middle of the small room in his full biker garb, holding a microchip scanner in his hand.
