Slowly, Vincenzo leaned back in his chair, studying her. A strange criminal indeed to escape her father, throwing herself on his non-existent mercy then demanding his protection despite her obvious terror, only to talk with wistfulness about an ocean she’d never seen.
Perhaps it was an act. One could never tell. People of her ilk were liars and used all kinds of emotional tricks to get what they wanted. Already he was thinking odd thoughts about her mouth and about her skin... Thoughts he’d never normally have about a woman like this one. He’d encountered women who’d used seduction as a way to get close to him, either to murder him or manipulate him for other reasons. Women who weren’t aware that their techniques wouldn’t work on him. He was impossible to manipulate, especially when it came to emotions, because he didn’t have any.
A lesson he’d learned the hard way. From his mother. A lesson this woman, this little brown owl, would soon learn too. Also the hard way.
So what are you going to do with her, then?
A good question. She was either exactly what she seemed and relatively harmless apart from the information she carried in her head, or she was far more dangerous than she appeared. Either way he would need to watch her closely.
‘Prisoners do not get to determine what cell they prefer,’ he said after a moment. ‘That is what being a prisoner means.’
The line between her brows was deep, a carved furrow of worry or of concentration. Or maybe both. ‘I know what being a prisoner means, believe me. I guess it’s too much to ask for a week of a normal life.’
Vincenzo frowned. ‘A normal life? Is that what you were expecting when you came to me? That I would simply let you go?’
Her gaze behind her glasses wavered, colour staining her cheeks, softening the drawn look on her face. ‘Yes. I was hoping that you would help me...disappear, if I gave you the information you want.’
‘Disappear?
‘You give me a new identity, help me get to the States or somewhere else, away from Dad. And then I could vanish where no one would ever find me.’
For a second all Vincenzo could do was stare at her, conscious of a certain shock echoing through him. Did she really think he would help her? That she, a known criminal, would put herself in terrible danger simply on the expectation that he would do exactly what she asked? She was either very stupid or very arrogant, or maybe a combination of both.
Then again, as he’d already thought, she wasn’t stupid. And the woman huddled in her chair in an ugly dress with her hair in her eyes definitely didn’t seem arrogant either.
Perhaps she’s telling the truth. Perhaps she genuinely thought you would save her.
A foolish belief. He wasn’t in the business of saving people. He was in the business of delivering them to justice. And if she thought she would be different, then she was wrong. Mercy was a luxury he couldn’t afford.
‘Then I’m afraid you’re destined for disappointment,’ he said, keeping his voice hard. ‘You should have been more thorough with your research, Miss Armstrong. I keep telling you that I am not a merciful man. You should have listened.’ He pushed himself out of his chair and strolled around the desk towards the door.
Her eyes had gone very wide and she didn’t move, obviously frozen in place by fear. A gentler man might have felt sorry for her, but he had no gentleness left in him.
He crushed the ghost of that strange emotion he’d suspected was pity. Crushed it flat completely. Then he unlocked his office door and opened it. ‘Get Security, Raoul,’ he ordered casually, not raising his voice. ‘This prisoner needs a cell.’
CHAPTER THREE
LUCY SHIVERED. A cell.
There had been a few times when she hadn’t wanted to do what her father had told her, when she’d pushed against the bars imprisoning her, and his response had always been the same. Since she was too valuable for him to kill or maim, he would drag her down to the basement in that house in Cornwall—or get one of his guards to do it—and lock her in one of the tiny rooms there. The room had no windows and when the door closed the darkness was absolute. A crushing weight that stole her breath. She never knew how long he would leave her there, but it always felt like aeons.
She hated the darkness. Hated that room. And without fail, whenever he dragged her out of it, she would always do what he asked. Until eventually she learned to always do what he asked every time.
She’d thought that when she’d escaped her father she’d leave that room behind her for ever. It seemed she was wrong.
Vincenzo de Santi had always been the variable she couldn’t predict and yet she should have been able to. She’d ascribed to him a morality that it was clear he didn’t have, and in retrospect she didn’t even know why she’d thought he would help her in the first place.
He was everything the rumours had said about him. Cold, incorruptible, ruthless. Without a shred of mercy. He stood there staring at her, so tall, so powerful, a certain cold, brutal beauty to him that her stupid brain couldn’t help appreciating even as everything inside her felt as if it was collapsing in terror.
You’re not brave, not like your mother.
No, that was true. She wasn’t. She was made of fear instead and that fear in turn had made her stupid. She’d thought that the knowledge in her head would be worth more to him than her physical presence. More than the weight of her own crimes.
She was wrong.
‘Please.’ The word was a scraped thread of sound, which was all she could muster up. ‘Not a cell.’
Begging now?
Her mother hadn’t begged. Her mother had been fearless, stepping between her and her enraged father, taking the blow that had been meant for her.
She could only dream of being that brave, that strong.
The sound of footsteps came and two security guards dressed in black appeared in the doorway. She knew how skilled they were. She’d watched them in the camera feed de Santi had shown her. There was no escape for her. There never had been.
Always, in every way, she was trapped.
Fear had locked all her muscles, her breathing getting faster. They would drag her away, wouldn’t they? Drag her into a hole, into the darkness, and she would be trapped there. It was like dying, that darkness. A weight that would crush all the life and the breath out of her...
The guards came towards her and her vision wavered, turning black around the edges. The darkness was coming for her. It would swallow her whole.
She opened her mouth to scream but there was no air in her lungs, no air anywhere, and she was falling, falling into that blackness, and there was no end to it...
‘Breathe, civetta,’ a deep, cold voice ordered in her ear. ‘Breathe.’