I was ready to shatter my phone.
Hours had gone by with no word from Luc or that office. The light was fading outside, and it was starting to grow dark. What in the hell could they be doing up there?
“Are ye sure I cannae get ye anything else?” the waitress said at my side as she checked on me in the back table of the dimly lit pub. “Ye been nursing that ale fer hours.”
I had been. After the two shots of Macallan I’d had when I’d first arrived that had chilled me out a bit, I’d been sitting here staring into my beer, trying to hold it together.
“No. Thanks.” I glanced at my phone again. Still nothing. But they had to be done soon. It was almost five o’clock. I’d just go back up to the office and wait. Even if I had to stick my fingers in my ears as I sat there. “Just the tab, please.”
“It’s already been taken care of,” she said in her thick Scottish accent.
“It has been?” I glanced up at her for the first time, realizing she wasn’t as young as I thought. Midthirties, maybe. “By whom?”
“Dark-haired chap over at the bar. Hotter than hell, if ye ask me. Surprised he didnae come sit with ye. He was watching ye the whole time like he knew ye.”
A new set of worry gathered in my belly, and I twisted to look past her toward the bar. “Where?”
She glanced over her shoulder then looked back down at me. “He left awhile ago. I tell ye, that man nearly melted me panties. I’m a sucker fer that accent.”
Fear lurched in my throat. “What accent? Italian?”
“Ye did know him, didnae ye?”
My heart rate shot straight up, and I jerked out of the booth and rushed toward the door.
At my back, the waitress called, “Yea didnae finish yer ale!”
Shoving the door open, I burst out onto the street and wove between people heading home from work, desperate to get back to Luc. I wasn’t sure who had been in that bar, but if they’d been watching me and they were Italian, they knew we were here. They had to know Luc was up in that office talking to that woman about his House.
I turned the corner and pushed my legs into a run, spotting the old church two blocks ahead. A hand snaked out of a dark doorway and wrapped around my arm, yanking me off my feet.
I yelped, but before much sound could escape my lips, another hand slapped over my mouth, and I was jerked up against a hard, warm, solid male body.
A click sounded, then the man stepped back, dragging me with him through a doorway. Horror engulfed me. I struggled, tried to scream, but he was too strong, and before I knew what was happening, I was shoved around in the darkness, pushed up against a wall, and the man who’d been at my back closed a hand around my throat and moved in at my front, pinning me in place.
I drew in a stuttering gasp and went still. He was big. Muscular. But it was so dark I couldn’t see his face. And there was something familiar about his scent.
Citrus, with a hint of spice. I’d smelled it before. Not just in a magazine, but on a man’s skin. Close. Like this. In the dark. Surrounded by pulsing lights and thumping music.
“Ah, bella,” a very familiar voice said next to my ear. “It’s been a while, no? Too long if you ask me.”
Giovanni.
I froze as Luc’s brother’s slimy breath spread down my neck, causing a shudder all through my body.
He chuckled. “You still tremble when I touch you. That’s good, bella. That’s very, very good.”
He trailed his fingertip down my neck where his breath had just been, and I slammed my eyes shut and held my breath, afraid to move, afraid to speak, afraid to do anything, because I knew what he was capable of.
This was the man who’d drugged me. Who’d taken me to that orgy on Long Island. Who’d planned to rape me and possibly turn me into a sex kitten he and his perverted friends could abuse. And he was the man who’d killed my best friend, Elena. Who’d murdered her when she’d found out who and what he really was. Who’d probably killed dozens of women in the very same way when they’d dared to stand up to him.
“I forgot how soft your skin was, bella.”
He was touching me like a lover, slinking lower with every pass of his hands over my skin, inching his way down to my breasts. But he was no lover. The hand wrapped around the front of my throat was a stark reminder of that. He was a monster who would use me to hurt Luc in any and every way he could. And I wouldn’t let him.
I opened my eyes and stared up at him. This close, with his breath fanning my face, I could see the whites of his eyes around his pale, soulless irises. “What do you want, Gio?”
His lips curled, flashing those stark-white teeth in the darkness. “Still as fiery as ever, I see?” His hand tightened around my throat, and he leaned in closer. “I like that in my kittens. I like to break it from them. My brother clearly hasn’t done his job with you. But I can.” His free hand pushed the collar of my sweater aside so his fingers could slip over my collarbone and down my chest to curl around my left breast. “I can break every little bit of that defiance in you. And I’ve a feeling you’ll enjoy every moment of it.”
I ground my teeth so I wouldn’t cry out as he pawed at me. So I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
My mind spun. Every instinct inside screamed for me to fight back. To lift my knee and nail him in the balls. It might make him let go for a second, but even if I could get away, it was so dark I couldn’t even see the door. And I’d heard the lock click when he’d dragged me in here. If I fought back, I knew there was no way he’d let me live.
Plus, my rational mind told me, he’d said, “I can,” not “I will.”
He wasn’t here to hurt me as he wanted me to think. Just to frighten me. But if I fought back, he’d have an excuse. And he was waiting for that. For a reason to break his precious House rules.
I had to stay docile. I couldn’t antagonize him. It was the only chance I had. It was my only chance to keep Luc safe.
Tears rushed to my eyes, and I fought the hysteria that threatened to drag me under. Luc would never survive if something happened to me. I knew that with absolute certainty.
“Mm.” Gio’s fingers slipped over my nipple, and he twisted hard, making me gasp. “So responsive. You’ll make a very satisfying kitten. Don’t you agree, David?”
“Oh, I absolutely agree. It’ll be fun training her.”
My eyes shot open at the voice I heard somewhere behind Gio. Another familiar voice. One I’d heard at a fashion party in Rome.
David Bonello.
A new sense of terror clawed up my chest when I remembered what Luc had told me about the man, after he’d ordered me never to go anywhere near Bonello again.
He was a friend of Giovanni’s. He was as sick and twisted as Giovanni. And they often shared the same depraved tastes and the same women.
Oh God...oh fuck... Terror seized my chest.
I was wrong. These two together didn’t care about any rules. Even sacred House rules. I was about to be raped by both of them.
I shifted my back against the wall, ready to fight to the death if I had to. Then Gio suddenly released my nipple and tugged his hand from my sweater.
“My brother is healed from his wounds,” he hissed near my ear. “Your time is up. You have three days to get him back to Italy, or this will only be a sampling of what we’ll do to you. You made a deal with House Salvatici, and if you don’t fulfill your end of the deal, they’re ready to hand you over to us.”