Clearly, they do.
“I won’t,” he promises, his voice as hard as his father’s as he flicks his attention over to me. “I swear it.”
“Not necessary,” Alvise replies smoothly, moving toward a set of double doors against the far wall. He glances back just once and lets a sickening smile take over his genteel mouth. “Next time you mess up, you both die. I’m sure it won’t happen again.”
And then he leaves, and I’m left on my hands and knees on the floor.
“Shit, let me help you up,” Grey says, moving over to me. I slap his hand away when he tries to help me up, too consumed by pride and too shaken up by the idea that I might’ve just escaped the worst fate known to womanhood and managed to survive all in one go.
Grey sits back on his heels and watches as I struggle pathetically toward the bed, using the comforter to pull myself up to my knees and then, blessedly to my feet. I manage to keep them for all of two seconds before I collapse on the mattress, but there it is. I’m on top of the bed. I’m lying down. All on my own. Cat would be proud.
The thought disgusts me.
“Don’t touch me.” The words don’t sound like me, more like a poor imitation of the person I used to be. I’m tough as nails, right? I can handle anything, right?
Thing is, I just fucked myself into a corner. A corner made up of mafia men and pissed-off outlaws, outlaws that I betrayed. Crown’s face flashes in my mind, the deep-set melancholy that was etched there when I stole his bike and took off.
Cat will know everything by now; he’ll want my head.
Finally, the thing I’ve feared the most my whole life will come true: my father will actively be trying to kill me.
“If that’s what you want,” Grey posits, sitting down beside me on the bed. I notice that his hands are bandaged. Well, his fingertips more like. He notices me looking and smiles, but it’s a hideous expression, more like a ghost of what a smile should actually be. Possessed. Wicked sad. Almost defeated.
But that can’t be true, right? This is the guy who looked me right in the eye and told me to kill him without a drop of fear in his voice, a guy who knew he was about to die but was trying to save me the guilt of actually ending his life.
I groan and start to cough, spattering blood across the cream-colored comforter. That cannot be a good sign.
“They pulled all my fingernails off, remember?” Grey continues, lifting his eyes up to look at the ceiling. Frankly, I’ll be lucky to live through the night, so I don’t bother following his gaze. Whatever he’s looking at doesn’t matter, not anymore.
I have no life.
I’ve thrown mine away in exchange for his, in exchange for some teenage boy that I don’t even know, whose brother was in love with my sister.
Fuck.
“I think I might be dying,” I choke out, because when you cough up blood, you’re in trouble. Big trouble.
Grey just shakes his head slowly, curling his bandaged hands up in his lap.
“My father’s doctor personally saw to it that you wouldn’t.” He flicks his pretty gray eyes over to mine, and I wonder what it is that’s going to happen to me now. I might not have had much, but I had something before all this. I had Faith, my dog Feminist … those stupid asshole officers. But if I’d killed Grey, none of that would’ve mattered, would it? My soul would be forfeit. Even if I die now, this is better. “You’re bleeding because he had to pull a cracked tooth. It’s in the back so nobody can see it, but you might want to get a crown later.”
A crown. Crown.
I snort, but the sound just makes my whole everything hurt, and I end up coughing again. More blood on the blanket.
“What happens now?” I ask when I can finally catch my breath, forcing my tired body up to slump into the pillows. It’s a journey, but once I get there, it’s all worth it. My eyes close, and I can feel the fingers of sleep digging into my psyche.
“We either prove to the family that we’re in love …” Grey starts with a long sigh, dragging his bandaged hand over his face. “Or we die. Your choice.”
Six weeks later, and I’m feeling a fuck of a lot better. My skin is still scabbed over in places, and I wake up sore every morning, but each day is better than the last.
“Coffee?” Grey asks, and then he mutters something in Italian that makes me grit my teeth. I’m not sure why, but it just pisses me off when he speaks other languages. Apparently, he knows like six. Also, he’s been to thirty-two different countries, and he’s eighteen fucking years old.
“No. Leave me alone.” I roll over in the bed, the one that we’ve been sharing for a month and a half now. It’s comfortable, I’ll give you that, and the thread count on the sheets is astronomical, but it doesn’t mean we sleep happily or comfortably in here. I’m on guard every second; I wake up at every sound. “Your early bird shit annoys the fuck out of me.”
“Suit yourself.” Grey prepares himself an espresso just as he does every day. The way he stands there and sips it, staring at the stone walls like he can see straight through them and to the world beyond, scares me sometimes.
He looks at those walls like they’re impenetrable—and I don’t just mean physically. He’s as trapped as I was. As I still am. I force myself up, balancing on my elbows as I watch him take his usual seat. See, while Grey’s settled himself into a comfortable routine, I’m starting to go crazy.
I was never meant to be caged. That’s why I ran. Because I couldn’t stand the thought of being trapped by bars of blood and chrome, attached to one of Cat’s leashes for life. So for me to be stuck here, under the thumb of the very mafia who sent assassins to rape and murder my sisters? Doesn’t exactly work for me.
“Is there someplace we could go to, you know …” I pause and think about using a euphemism or maybe some raunchy motion to get my point across, but I’m too damn tired, physically and spiritually. “Fuck. Is there somewhere private we can go to fuck?”
Grey turns very slowly to look at me, the ghost of a smile playing about his lips. He knows I’m screwing with him, that I just want a moment where we could talk in private, scheme or plan or something. He’s in as much trouble—if not more—here than I am.
I’ve considered sleeping with him, I’ll admit. I mean, I’m trapped here, and there isn’t much else to do. We have absolutely zero access to the Internet, a smart TV with a handful of apps, and some books. Our food is brought to us, and we have an attached bathroom to bathe in.
I am bored shitless.
The thing is … as pretty as Grey is, I can’t find that spark inside of me that encouraged me to gangbang a group of outlaws. The hatred I feel for Grainger, the disdain for Crown, the desperation for Sin, the frustration with Beast. As much as I can’t stand the lot of them, I can’t bring myself to fuck Grey Wolfe.
Guess I was born ruined, but now I’m dressed in sin. It’s an outfit I wear like a designer dress, as proud of it as a red-carpet gown, something to show off. It’s in my blood, that awful, awful blood that I share with Cat.
“There’s nowhere. I’m sorry, Gidget.” Grey looks up at one of the cameras in the corner. They’re all over the place—even in the bathroom. When I sit down to take a piss, I make sure to flip them off with both hands.