by Nicole Fox
But just before he goes, I realize something. A tiny little subtlety about his posture.
Rokiades is nervous.
Good. It means something is not going according to plan.
I look at the men stationed around the dining room. My own personal guard, four men strong. They’ve shadowed me everywhere. Which really hasn’t given them much to do, considering I spent most of my time chained to the bed in my room.
It’s gotten to the point where I actually enjoy the forced treadmill runs in the morning. I’ve always been athletic, always been a runner, so to spent most of my time on bed feels cruel and unusual.
I tug at my restraints and bang on the table with my other hand. “I’m ready to go.”
The tall blonde guard with the hooked nose and the dark eyes moves forward. He’s watched me closely since he was assigned to me weeks ago.
I know he’s attracted to me. Every time we’re alone, more or less, he practically undresses me with his eyes. I’ve thought countless times of luring him in and using him to escape this place. But every time I try, I’m hit with a wave of nausea and it derails my efforts.
I just can’t do it. Not even to save my own life.
Because every time I even consider it, Kian’s blue eyes flash across my mind.
“The boss told us to keep you here a little longer.”
I roll my eyes. “Why?”
“He doesn’t give us reasons.”
“Of course not. He says, ‘Jump,’ and you say, ‘How high?’” I grumble. “Bunch of fucking circus animals.”
He clenches his jaw but ignores the obvious bait. “You’re not going to eat?” he asks, gesturing towards my full plate.
“This garbage?” I ask with contempt. “Please. I have taste buds, you know.”
He almost smiles. His eyes flutter over my cleavage.
I eat most of my meals with Rokiades. He insists on it unfortunately. Breakfast, he usually has brought to my room. But lunch and dinner are always here, in this banquet hall. It’s unnecessarily over the top. The ceiling is hung with ugly gold chandeliers that clash with the modern interior of the rest of the room and the walls are lined with formal portraits like he thinks he’s a goddamn king.
He expects me to dress up for the meals we have here, too. And by ‘dress up,’ I mean that he has a maid bring in an outfit he has chosen specifically for me for each meal. Every day that goes by, the hemlines get shorter and the necklines plunge deeper.
It’s all a sick game of control.
Control. What a funny word. I used to think I know what it meant.
I was so, so wrong.
I accused Kian of loving control. Of craving it, getting high off it. But it’s only taken a short time with Rokiades for me to understand what Kian was trying to explain all along. Kian’s control was a give-and-take. He offered me as much as he took from me.
I didn’t grasp that soon enough. And in a short little while, it’s going to cost me everything.
I shiver and try to breathe against the encroaching anxiety, but the dress I’m wearing tonight is a yellow bandage dress that sucks my body in and curves around me like a second skin. It’s so damn tight that it pushes my breasts up, making them look double their size. Of course, it has no elegance or class. It’s a trashy dress chosen by a perverted old man with trashy taste.
I look up at the gold chandeliers and the ugly art on the wall. And all I can think is one thing: Kian would never.
That was another thing I’d accused him of. You’re just like Darragh Kinahan, I’d snarled. Just like my brother. Just like Rokiades. A beast and a monster.
But I was wrong. These men are as different as night and day. I wish I’d realized that truth sooner.
“That’s a nice dress,” the blonde guard comments. Desire ripples across his features. He manages to tamp it back and opens his mouth to say something else.
But before he can, someone appears at the door. “Bring the girl!” the figure calls.
The guard nods and glances back at me, his expression retreating once more into impassive, businesslike seriousness. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“I know as much as you do,” he informs me emotionlessly.
Sighing, I’m uncuffed from the chair and taken through to my large bedroom. When I walk inside, led by the blonde guard who has a grip on my steel leash, I realize that the room’s not empty.
“Doctor,” I say without a trace of enthusiasm.
Dr. Lenore is an attractive woman who seems to take pains not to look attractive. She’s got a closely-shaved buzz cut, she wears no makeup, and her clothes are always baggy and ill-fitted. I met her for the first time over a week ago when she came in to give me a full physical and a blood test—on Yannis Rokiades’s orders, of course. Apparently, he wanted to make sure my body was healthy enough to bear a child.
I’d sat silently through the entire process, refusing to answer the doctor’s questions or engage with her in any way. She’d been surprisingly patient, and after she’d left, I’d regretted my stubbornness. I can’t afford to alienate every person who’s half-decent to me.
“Hello, Renata,” Dr. Lenore greets. True to form, she’s wearing loose black slacks and an oversized blouse in a soft beige color.
The blonde guard pulls me over to the bed and attempts to chain me back to it.
“Is that necessary?” Doctor Lenore asks impatiently.
“Boss’s orders.”
“I need to examine my patient,” she says with barely concealed annoyance. “I’d prefer that she not be chained during the process.”
The guard hesitates. “Well…”
“Wait outside the door,” she insists. “Once I’m done, you can come back in here and restrain her however you like.”
He hesitates for a moment and then shrugs and drops the leash on the plush carpet beneath our feet.
The moment the door clicks behind him, Dr. Lenore walks over and looks me up and down. “You’ve lost more weight since I last saw you.”
“I don’t eat much.”
“Been feeling nauseous lately?”
I shrug. “He forces me to run on the treadmill every day. It’s… grueling.”
She cocks her head to the side. “How long have you been in this house with him, Renata?” she asks.
“Why?”
“Answer the question, please.”
I sigh. “I don’t know… Two weeks, three?”
Doctor Lenore nods slowly. “I asked to speak to you on the pretext that I wanted to make sure you were doing okay. I told him you’d complained of gastric pain the last time I was here.”
I frown. “Why would you do that?”
“Because you have a problem.”
I feel fear snaking up my chest. “Which is…?”
“You’re pregnant, Renata,” she tells me bluntly. “The blood test I took last week confirmed as much. It’s still very early, but the test is indisputable.”
My pulse is thundering in my ears. It’s all I can hear, drowning out Dr. Lenore, the house around me, my own breathing. I just stare at her, my jaw has gone slack with shock. “That… that can’t be…”
“I’m afraid it is,” she replies. “And given the stage of your pregnancy and the number of weeks you’ve been here, I’m guessing Rokiades is not the father.”
There it is. The sick twist I should’ve expected all along.
My knees give way. Luckily, the bed is right behind me, so I sink down into it, reeling.
“Oh God. Are you sure?”
“Completely sure.”
My eyes flash to hers. “Did you tell him?”
She hesitates. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be responsible for what he does to you when he finds out,” she admits. “You’re going to have to make a decision about what you want to do now.”
I have a baby.
Not the Greek’s, though. It’s Kian’s.
And that’s worse. Fa
r worse.
Because if Yannis finds out about the life inside my womb… he’ll kill us both.
48
Kian
“Fucking tell me!” the Greek bellows.
I spit out blood and fix Rokiades with a measured glance that I know infuriates him. I don’t say a word, though. I’ve been stubbornly silent since they took me and he’s starting to get desperate. The old son of a bitch seems to think that the louder he shouts, the more I’ll talk. It hasn’t been working for him so far.
Neither have the beatings. I’m bloodied and bruised. I’ve got gashes torn into my torso and cuts snaking up and down my arms and legs.
But I still haven’t given him anything. I don’t intend to, either. Pain may be a big motivator for most men. But not for me. They made us strong back home. And no one was a more ruthless teacher than my old man. He knew that the only way his sons were going to survive the life was to become accustomed to pain.
If you can compartmentalize pain, it’s easier to handle. Easier to ignore. So that’s what I do. I shove it away to a deep, dark place inside of me and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Some moments are easier than others. I’ve been strung up like the Vitruvian Man for two days now. My legs are spread apart and tied against wooden poles like you’d use to burn a witch at the stake.
“If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I will hurt her,” Rokiades snarls. “I will make her suffer.”
I don’t give him any reaction at all, apart from a slight lift of my eyebrow.
He’s assumed that threatening Renata would continue to work for him. He’s assumed wrong.
Rokiades already reneged on his part of the bargain. Why would I trust him with another? Especially because a few conversations with the man have given me quite a window into his psyche.
He’s all about appearances. About maintaining the illusion of power in the absence of the real thing. He wants control, but he has no idea how to get it. And even less of an idea how to hold it if it fall in his lap.
His plans hinge on getting Renata to marry him, but he doesn’t want to force her into the arrangement because of how it would look to his so-called “allies.”
It’s pitiful how easy it was to grasp all of that. To read him like a book. Hell, he’d given himself away on the first fucking day of my capture.
“It will be a glorious wedding!” he boasted as his men strung me up when we arrived here from the lot. “All those malakes that questioned my ability to unite the Greeks and Italians will have to swallow their words when they see my beautiful bride.”
“Is she going to be gagged and bound and forced down the aisle?” I’d asked. “I find that that tends to dampen the festive spirit. Just a little piece of advice from a friend.”
“Don’t you worry—when I’m done with her, she’ll marry me willingly.”
After that conversation, I knew one thing for certain: he won’t hurt Renata. She’s his meal ticket. His only shot at making this fucking nonsense work out the way he wants it to.
Which gives me the assurance I needed to fall back on the image I should have projected right from the start: complete and utter disinterest.
“Did you hear me?” Rokiades roars again. “I will make her suffer!”
And risk ruining her pretty face right before the wedding? I don’t think so, you old goat. You showed your hand.
Instead of saying all that, I just shrug as best I can, given my position. “Go ahead,” I invite. “Make her suffer. God knows she’s been nothing but a pain in my ass.”
His eyes go wide. “You don’t mean that.”
“No, seriously—huge pain in the ass, that one.”
He slaps me. “You don’t want to see her suffer.”
“Oh, that? Yeah, sure, I do. Or not. Whatever.”
His nose wrinkles with suspicion. “Suddenly, you don’t care about her?”
“You made assumptions about my feelings for the girl,” I tell him. “My interest in her was always professional. And that ship has sailed now. So like I said: whatever.”
Rokiades narrows his eyes at me. “You were planning on marrying her yourself?” he asks. “To unite the mafia families the same way I’m planning on doing?”
I widen my eyes like that’s just now occurring to me. “Damn! That’s a pretty good plan. Wish I thought of it.”
He gives me a manic smile. “It’s a brilliant fucking plan. You were simply too weak to see it through.”
“It’s not weakness, Rokiades,” I tell him confidently. “It’s intelligence.”
He frowns. “What does that mean?”
“It means that I was not about to force the girl to marry me,” I tell him. “I was grooming her.”
He jerks his chin out, considering my words. But his expression gives himself away again. He’s getting nowhere with Renata.
I smile despite myself. That catches the old fucker’s attention. Nothing riles up a proud man worse than laughter at his expense. “Something funny?”
“She’s not the type of woman you can force into submission,” I point out. “She needs to be… convinced. You don’t have what it takes.”
His expression turns dark with rage, but he manages to tamp it down.
“I’m a proud man,” he says after a moment. “But that doesn’t make me stupid. I’m aware that I’m not the kind of man who can woo a beautiful young woman. You, on the other hand… you’re young. Younger than me, at least.”
“And smart. And incredibly handsome. And a killer poker player,” I add, “since we’re listing attributes.”
He glares at me. Not a fan of gallows humor, I guess. “You did your work well,” he says. “The girl has fallen into your trap. Classic case of Stockholm Syndrome.”
I tense slightly, wondering how else Renata has given herself away. Apparently, in her most vulnerable moments, the name on her lips is mine. I might have been thrilled with that fact if it weren’t for the danger it poses for her.
“But something you just said… It makes a lot of sense,” he nods. “I don’t have the time to groom her like you did. I have neither the patience nor the inclination, either. But I do have a deadline. I have a wedding to prepare for. And you’re right—she’s not the kind of woman who can be forced. She needs to be… convinced.”
He snaps out the last word like a death sentence. And that nasty gleam in his eyes says he’s found a new approach to try out on her.
Fuck. I don’t like the sound of that.
Rokiades turns and struts out of the small, dark warehouse, leaving me tethered to the wooden poles. I strain against them, but the cuffs are too strong. They’re checked and tightened every few hours, too, so that any progress I make loosening them is rendered moot.
I’m stuck.
And somewhere out there, a sickening old man is laying his hands on Renata.
About half an hour later, the door opens again. Rokiades enters.
Except this time, he’s not alone.
I recognize Renata’s silhouette even from a distance. She’s lost weight since I last saw her. Was that only a few weeks ago? It seems like so much longer.
I feel the physical pain melt away and rage takes over. I have to curb the anger for now, though. It’s the only thing that can blow this whole debacle wide open.
Rokiades is smiling as he forces Renata forward. She’s dressed in a tight black minidress that’s paired with inappropriately tall heels, high enough that she looks like she might totter over at any moment. Her face is slathered with makeup and her eyes look huge and sunken against her hollow cheeks.
The beauty is still there, though it’s hidden behind the doll that Rokiades has shaped her into for himself.
Motherfucker.
Renata’s eyes are wide with shock and horror as she takes me in. They scour over my body, landing on every bruise, scrape, and cut like they’re a personal affront. She winces, too, as if she feels the pain I feel.
She takes a step forward as though to close the ga
p between us, but Rokiades snags her arm and pulls her to a stop next to him. “That’s close enough, glikia mu,” he croons, his tone reeking of insincerity. “I thought I’d give you an early wedding present.”
I notice there are ligature marks on her wrists and around her ankles. It seems like the fucker keeps her tied up. My anger burns another notch hotter.
“Kian…” Renata murmurs, ignoring Rokiades.
Jesus. Her voice. Her fucking voice. Seeing me like this pains her. That’s etched all over the tortured edges of her tone.
She says it again: “Oh, Kian…”
I refuse to make eye contact. She should know better than to act like she cares in front of him.
She whirls on the Greek. “What have you done to him?” she demands. She smacks him in the chest, but he flicks her aside like a horsefly.
“Only what he deserves,” Yannis replies with a shrug.
She shakes her head in horrified disbelief. “What are you going to do with him?”
“Now, that’s a much more interesting question,” he acknowledges happily. “The best thing to do, of course, would be to dispose of him.”
Her body jerks, but her eyes fall back on me. She doesn’t say anything. It’s as though she’s realized what a vulnerable position she’s just put herself in.
“Is that what you’d like, Renata?” Rokiades asks. “Would you like if Kian O’Sullivan were to simply”—he snaps his fingers—“disappear?”
She never takes her eyes off me. She looks angry, but is that anger directed at me? A part of it definitely seems to be.
“How did you even manage to capture him?” she asks.
Rokiades scoffs. “It was easier than his reputation would have you believe,” he says. “My men and I ambushed him. He fought… but not hard enough.”
Of course he’d change the story to make him sound tougher. Like I said, he’s a pitiful man. I don’t bother to dispute him.
“I had a bad cold that day,” I explain in a pained wheeze. “Sneezing so hard I couldn’t fire in a straight line.”
“Karl,” Rokiades growls.
One of his goons steps forward and slugs me in the stomach. I grunt. Blood flies out of my mouth. Across from me, I hear Renata gasp despite the sudden ringing in my ears.