Even old, the stones made for excellent sound-proofing.
I knew.
I’d lived that.
Just as I knew there was a heavy wooden door in the middle of the wall behind me, dark mahogany and scarred from years of use. The knob was heavy and stained black from the years, as hard to turn as the ancient key my father carried around for this purpose.
Just as the cell was my uncle’s favorite form of torture—dark, silent, isolated, cramped—this room was my father’s.
In another life, the well-lit space could pose as a tasting room at a winery, a long-standing space in some old Tuscan villa. There were even tables and chairs, built-in wooden shelves to hold things. Only, the items they were holding weren’t bottles of wine or glasses or corkscrews.
Instead, there were shining rows of knives, different lengths of rope, drills and hammers, scissors, and saws.
Oh, and there was the odd corkscrew.
Just for fun.
“I would like to know how you came to the hotel,” my father said, his tone soft. The gentle question didn’t fool me. I knew all about this soft and gentle side, knew how he could flip the switch in an instant, turn vicious and as dangerous as a snake.
“I told you,” I said. “Vacation.”
“With three teams from that useless agency you joined after leaving here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
One second, he was spinning away from me, his gaze on the racks on the far wall. The next, he’d spun back and his fist was descending toward me.
I flinched back, but realistically, I had nowhere to go. My head hit the back of the chair, and a heartbeat later, his fist collided with my cheek. Here was the weird thing about getting punched in the face. For a moment, I felt nothing. No impact. No pain. Nothing at all. Then my nerves exploded, fire burning through my skin. The force of his fist crunching my skull into the wood of the chair.
I’d like to pretend it was no big deal.
But getting punched, especially in the face, really fucking hurt.
And it was only exasperated by my ankle, by the wound in my side.
Note to self: flinching and gasping in pain didn’t mix well with multiple injuries.
“Why were you at the hotel?” he asked again.
“Really great sex.”
Another punch, this time to my stomach.
The only lucky part was that he hit the side without the wound. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t still agony tearing through me. I started bleeding almost immediately, felt it dripping down my side, and I couldn’t hold back my cry of pain.
“Oh, I’m sorry, bella,” he murmured. “Did I hurt you?”
I didn’t bother answering. Okay, so maybe I couldn’t answer. Not when my head was swimming, black teasing at the edges of my vision, not when my breaths were coming in short gasps.
“Tell me how KTS came to know about the hotel!”
I swallowed hard, but I didn’t have to swallow the words, didn’t struggle to not say anything about my agency, my team, my mission. I’d been through this many times before. I’d passed the counter-torture training with flying colors.
Because my father, my uncle, my brothers, my cousins—they’d all tried to break me.
And they’d failed.
I’d die for KTS in a heartbeat, for what we were doing, to stop my bastard of a father from having any additional information that might help his “business.” There was absolutely no doubt of that.
“Why, bella?”
Lifting my chin, I said, “I. Like. Sex.”
Another punch, more blood trickling down my side.
“Why?”
“I especially like it with hot men.”
Fury in cold brown eyes, in the heavy lines of his face. He raised his fist again and said, “You’ll—”
A knock at the heavy brown door.
One of my cousins, dressed like the other men in an expensive suit sans tie, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned at his throat, pushed off the wall and walked behind me. I heard the door open, the soft murmur of voices, and then footsteps.
A moment later, he was back in my line of vision, stepping close to my father and murmuring in his ear.
My father’s face went blank as his gaze locked on mine.
It’s funny. People often associate blank with nothingness. But I knew blank could be so much more. It could hide fear. It could mask longing. It could encase violent anger in a calm façade that was at constant risk of exploding outward.
That was what I knew instinctively had happened in this situation. My father might seem composed and completely unaffected by whatever news had just been whispered in his ear, but I was absolutely certain that was simply an act. I’d been on the receiving end of the explosion more than enough times to understand what was brewing beneath that placid surface.
He nodded once, stepped toward me, gripped my hair.
And I braced.
For the eruption. For the pain. For the Toscalo family special of both.
Only today . . .
That explosion would be happening elsewhere.
Because with one more dark glare, my father let go. “Soon, bella. Soon we’ll have another conversation,” he hissed into my ear. “Or perhaps, I’ll have your uncle keep you company while you wait for me to complete my business.”
Bile burned the back of my throat, but I forced myself to not shrink away, to not flinch or react.
He nodded at one of my cousins and left the room, the click-click of his shoes echoing on the stone floor.
The door shut quietly behind him.
And then I found myself unstrapped from the chair by angry hands, yanked to my feet, and hauled . . .
Not to my uncle. Not for the moment anyway.
But back to my cell.
Back into the darkness and wondering what business had pulled my father away from one of his favorite pastimes.
Torturing me.
Nineteen
Southern Italy
Unknown hrs local time
Dan
The footsteps preceded the door opening, and this time I was ready.
I lurched forward, prepared to fight.
Only to have Ava launched into my arms. I stumbled, the crouch I was in due to the low ceiling not helpful in keeping my balance, and though I landed hard on both knees, I did manage to keep hold of her.
She hissed out a breath.
“Okay?” I asked as the cell door slammed and locked shut.
“Honestly,” she said between short, little gasped breaths, “I’ve been better.”
Snorting, I carefully set her down then went and yanked the rock out from where I’d hastily stowed it.
“See anything?”
“No,” I said. “Though it’s definitely morning. Or the end of it anyway. The sun’s almost directly overhead.”
“Got it.”
I moved back over to her, noting the sheen of sweat on her forehead, the paleness of her skin. Lifting her shirt, I saw her wound had bled again, and bruises were beginning to blossom on her torso. Anger flooded through me, but I buried it deep, would use it as motivation to get us the fuck out of here. “I should rewrap this,” I told her.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But in a little bit. Let me just lay here.”
“Your ankle?”
She closed her eyes. “That and the rest of me. I think I need to take it out of the boot, but that’s going to make me less mobile.”