Chapter 3 #3
“I need Leon comfortable, unguarded,” he says. “He believes I bought a woman from his auction and left before the FBI ruined the night. He doesn’t know you are FBI. He doesn’t know how much I know. And as of right now, he does not know the children are in my possession.”
“Your possession.”
“Fine. They are under my protection, if that helps you sleep.”
He reaches the other side of the desk and rests both hands on the edge. The position should feel casual. But nothing about him feels casual. Even at rest, he looks like a viper waiting to become violent.
“I can give you what you want,” he says.
“You have no idea what I want.”
“I know exactly what you want. Erin. Heath. Leon brought to his knees, breathing long enough for your system to call justice.”
My hands curl at my sides. “And what does your option entail, Stefano?”
He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and sets something on the desk between us, face up.
The photograph.
Erin, missing a front tooth. Heath's arm around her shoulders. Alice's handwriting waiting on the back.
My lungs forget their job.
"My people found it sewn into the lining of your dress," Stefano says. "An agent who carries nothing carries that. So yes, Maya. I know exactly what you want."
I want to lunge across the desk. I want to tell him he has no right to touch it, that his men had no right to cut it out of the fabric like evidence. Instead, I pick it up with steady fingers, because he's watching to see whether my hands shake, and slide it into the pocket of the robe.
"That wasn't leverage," I say. "That was theft."
“Five days, that’s all I need.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “Five days?”
He takes one step, stalking slowly as he speaks. “You’ll play the woman I bought. You’ll stay at my side in public, smile when required, look frightened when useful, and let Leon believe the auction went well enough for me that I am open to further business.”
“No.”
He takes another step, ignoring my objection as he continues. “You will behave like a perfect, naive little doll who has learned quickly that pleasing me is safer than testing me.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You haven’t heard what you get in return.”
“I heard enough around perfect, naive little doll.”
His gaze drops over me once, slow enough to be deliberate, not crude enough to dismiss. “I doubt anyone has ever mistaken you for perfect or naive.”
“That was almost a compliment.”
“It was entirely a compliment.”
“You’re bad at them.” My feet don’t move as he stalks closer.
“I disagree.” His mouth curves. “Five days, Maya. You play my acquisition. You help me get close enough to Leon to finish what he started in my territory. In return, I give you the children.”
“And Leon?”
His face stills.
“Alive,” I push.
Stefano still says nothing.
“Alive,” I repeat.
“You can have him,” he agrees, his eyes lighting up with an unmistakably cruel sort of excitement. “When I am finished with him.”
I grip the edge of the desk until the polished wood presses hard beneath my fingers. “If you kill him, you destroy my case against him.”
“If your case was strong enough, you wouldn’t have been among the women kneeling on that stage.”
For one second, all I see is Alice. Not the crime scene photographs. Alice, younger, laughing over the phone, telling me I worried too much. Alice insisting love was complicated. Alice promising she knew what she was doing. The way my world had suddenly stopped the day she’d been found dead.
I want to hit him for being right. I want to hit him for everything else too, but especially that.
The silence stretches between us. He lets it, and that is how I know he is manipulating me. Men who push too hard reveal themselves. Stefano doesn’t push. He places the instrument of destruction on the table and waits for me to pick it up by the blade.
I know the trap for what it is. But that does not make it less effective.
If I refuse, I lose access to the twins.
I lose Stefano’s information. I lose the chance to get close to Leon while he still believes I am nothing but a purchased woman in a bad dress and a worse situation.
If I agree, I step deeper into Stefano’s control and trust a criminal who has already drugged me not to decide I am easier to use broken.
Neither option is good. But only one option gets me closer to Erin and Heath.
“I want to see them first,” I say.
Stefano’s eyes narrow slightly. “No.”
“Yes.”
“You aren’t negotiating when you have very little to negotiate with, Maya.”
“I’m negotiating from reality. You need me to convince everyone that I am what they think I am. If I don’t know they’re safe, I will spend every public second looking like a woman deciding which of your arteries to sever in your sleep.”
He tips his head, nodding slightly, “That may be convincing.”
“Not for the role you described.”
He studies me. I hold his gaze, even though standing still beneath the weight of it takes more effort than I want to admit.
Finally, he says, “After breakfast.”
I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.
“You are obsessed with breakfast.”
“You are recovering from the aftereffects of being drugged. You need to eat.”
“Your concern is touching,” I say, the edge of sarcasm returning.
“It is practical. I need you upright.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You will eat before seeing the children.”
“I hate you.”
His expression shifts by a fraction, the amusement sharpening into something darker.
“Then hate me properly, Maya. Hate me while you sit beside me. Hate me while you wear what I choose and smile when Leon looks your way. Hate me while you take back the children your sister left behind. I can work with hate.”
The room feels too warm.
His voice lowers. “I am very good at working with ugly things.”
For once, I do not have a clean answer.
He steps back, and the space he leaves behind feels too noticeable.
“I’ll have Omar take you to them after breakfast,” he says.
“And until then?”
“You may return to your room, try another door, threaten my staff, steal a fork, or sit here and continue thinking about stabbing me. I would prefer you avoid the kitchen knives. Dolores will be offended if she arrives to find her set incomplete.”
“Who is Dolores?”
“The only woman in this house more dangerous than you.”
“I doubt that.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Fine.”
His gaze sharpens. “Fine?”
“I’ll play the part,” I agree. “Five days. You keep the children safe. And you hand Leon over alive.”
He nods. “I’ll see to it.”
“Alive, Stefano,” I push.
His name comes out more familiar than I intend, and his reaction is immediate. His attention tightens around the sound, as if my mouth forming his name did something more interesting than agreeing to his deal.
He steps toward me, and this time I do step back.
“Careful, Maya,” he warns, voice low, husky. “I am giving you a chance to decide how foolish you want to be. Consider your next words carefully.”
He stops into my space as my back meets the bookcase, close enough that I have to tilt my head up to look into his face.
His hand lifts, and I notice there is a faint mark near his hand where I bit him.
I catch his wrist before he touches me. His eyes drop to my fingers wrapped around his skin, then rise back to mine.
“You have an irritating habit of touching me without my permission.”
That shuts me up for half a second too long. His mouth curves, and the grin meets his eyes. He turns his wrist slowly inside my hold. Not breaking free. Just changing the angle until his fingers brush the underside of my jaw. The contact is light. Barely there.
His thumb slides along my jaw, then down the side of my throat, stopping over my pulse point. The shiver hits before I can stop it.
His eyes darken. “Do I frighten you, Maya?”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I rarely need to.”
“You are unbearable.”
“And yet,” he says, his thumb still resting at my throat, “you agreed to my terms.”
“For them. For Alice. Not for you.”
“Yes, well,” his gaze drops to my mouth. “We have five days to correct that.”
Heat rushes under my skin as I stare at him.
He holds me in his gaze, calm and beautiful and dangerous enough that every instinct I have is screaming in conflicting directions.
Then he smiles again, that slow, wicked curve that makes him look less like a man and more like every bad decision I have ever been smart enough not to make.
For a moment, he says nothing. His gaze shifts, moving over me once, not lingering on the robe or the skin beneath it, but on my face. My bruised wrist. My bare feet. The place where his hand is on my throat. Stefano’s gaze drops to my mouth, then lifts.
“I’ll see you this evening, Maya.”
Then he lets go. Just like that. The absence of his hand is immediate, leaving an empty feeling in its place. A yearning, I can’t explain.
He turns and walks to the door, completely composed, as if he has not just rearranged something under my skin with three fingers and a smirk. No explanation. No pretty little warning I can hate enough to use to steady myself.