Chapter 8
GIA
Light filtered through the slats of wood covering the bedroom window. My eyelids felt sticky as I blinked them open, my mouth like cotton, and my head heavy. A combination of the drug and life.
Sitting up, I dragged the blanket up and tucked it around myself. Why did he have to keep the room so cold?
I scratched my head. That was when a small movement near the bed startled me. I gave a little involuntary gasp.
Death sat somber in the chair, no mask, his eyes dark, his gaze heavy upon me. Watching me.
Every hair on my body stood on end, and my heart fell into my stomach. What was he doing here? How long had he been watching me sleep? Why? How would he torture me today?
I curled my fingers around the blanket and waited.
“Who sent you to me?”
I pulled my legs underneath me and sat on my knees, covering as much of myself as I could.
“Who branded you, Gia?”
I had to swallow several times to get my voice to work. “Why?” The question made me sound weak. Vulnerable.
“I know who you are.”
I stared at him, at this man who held me prisoner.
This cruel captor who gave and took as he pleased, who both scared the hell out of me and also drew me like no other.
His face, an angel’s face, was etched into the hardest stone, his eyes of steel, colder now, the pleasure he took in mocking me no longer glowing like embers of a dying fire.
An anger, a hatred replaced it, and that fire was burning bright, ready to consume. To obliterate.
It was a terrifying thing to see.
“What does it matter, who I am?” I asked, my heart pounding, knowing the thin ice I walked on, waiting, watching to see what this brought.
His expression didn’t change.
“Who sent you to me?”
It was as though he held his breath.
“Victor Scava.”
This seemed to surprise him, because it took him a minute to continue.
“Did he brand you?”
I nodded.
“Under orders from whom?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know that he took orders from anyone.”
“Why did he do it?”
Emotion coursed through me, memory and feeling and loss. Before me sat one of the men responsible for my suffering. I didn’t know if he was involved with Mateo’s torture or death, but I did know I owed him nothing.
Gathering my courage, I raised my head high.
“Why do you care? Why do you get to ask any question you like, when you won’t even answer the one I’ve asked you?”
“You still want to know my name? It’s that important to you?”
Maybe he was right. Maybe I should have been asking a different question. But I nodded and narrowed my gaze.
“Dominic. My name is Dominic”—hesitation, then—“Sapienti.”
Even in the dim light, I saw his eyes shift when he said his last name, and I knew it was a lie.
“Dominic Sapienti,” I said, watching him closely.
He nodded once, blinking as he did, and I felt sure I was right.
“He branded me because I wouldn’t fuck him.”
That seemed to catch him off guard. His forehead furrowed, and a crease formed between his eyebrows as he processed my information and waited for me to continue.
I raised my own eyebrows. “You seem to enjoy eating my pussy. I guess he wanted to too. So does it make you more of a monster, since you took it without my permission, when he could have but chose not to?”
“He chose to brand you instead. To mark you permanently. He then sent you to me, knowing what I’d do to you, what you’d have to go through before being sold to some animal. I’d say his actions trump mine in the monster arena.”
“Fuck you.”
“Besides, I don’t recall you shoving me off. In fact, if memory serves, and it does, you were pushing your ass into my face for more.”
I turned away. He was right.
He got up, approached the bed, and stood over me, his body a warning in itself. Taking my chin, he forced me to face him.
“I could have taken more. I may yet.”
I wanted to say something, to challenge him, but every warning bell inside me went off, and I lowered my lashes instead. I had to be smart, and goading this man into hurting me was not smart.
“Tell me about your brother.”
He released me and sat back down in the chair.
I snapped my gaze to his. How did he know about Mateo? What did he know? Was this part of his “training?” Fucking with my head now, because hurting me physically, making me hate myself for my reactions to him, wasn’t enough?
“Is that why you’re doing this? Why your boss sent me to you?”
“I don’t work for Victor Scava,” he quickly clarified, his lip curling in disgust.
“Then I don’t understand. Why would he send me to you if you don’t work for him?”
“I’m an independent contractor. Now tell me about your brother, Gia. Tell me what Mateo did to get himself killed. To get you into the kind of trouble you’re in.”
I studied him, hearing the change in his tone, his words, his whole way of being toward me. I didn’t understand. “My brother was a good person who got involved with bad people, and when he tried to get out of it, they killed him.”
“His tongue was cut out. That means one thing in our world.”
My heart hurt at the mention. Would I ever think of Mateo and not remember that?
“Your world.”
“No. Our world.”
I looked down at my lap, exhaling. He was right. This was our world.
“How do you know what happened to Mateo?”
“His body turned up yesterday. It was left where it could be found. Whoever killed him is sending a message. Now tell me why they executed him.”
“Why do you care?”
He stood, ran his hand through his hair, and looked away, shaking his head as if he were having some conversation, an internal argument. He then turned back to me.
“Just fucking tell me.”
“Because he’d gone to the feds about exactly what you’re doing to me now.
He’d started to do some work for Victor.
I’d told him not to. Told him Victor was bad news.
He found out the hard way, and when he tried to do the right thing, they killed him.
They tortured him, and they made me fucking watch.
” My voice broke, and I wiped away a rogue tear.
“I think that was the part that broke him.”
The room fell silent, and when I looked up, I found Dominic’s gaze steady on mine, affected but silent.
“Did you have anything to do with that? With Mateo going to the feds?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t know what Victor was doing. I didn’t know he was selling girls, not until my brother told me.”
“Why didn’t Victor kill you?”
“Because he’s a sick fuck?” I tried to make light of it, but a sob caught in my throat.
The buzz of a cell-phone message interrupted, and Dominic reached into his pocket to retrieve his phone, his gaze on me.
“You were engaged to Angus Scava’s son, James?”
I nodded. “When he died, Victor came into the picture. He was next in line, since Mr. Scava didn’t have any other kids.”
“Mr. Scava? You say that with some tenderness, Gia. Scava is not a nice man.”
“He was always kind to me.”
Dominic shook his head as if what I said were unbelievable.
“How can you be so sure he didn’t order this?” He gestured around the room.
“No. No way. James loved me, and he loved James. He wouldn’t do this to me.”
“You’re a fool.”
“You have no heart, no soul. I wouldn’t expect you to understand love like that, a father’s love.”
Dominic recoiled as if I’d stabbed him with a knife. It took him a moment to recover.
“Love is changeable. Disposable. It’s not everlasting, not in our world. Only a fool believes in happily-ever-after, Gia.”
He turned his attention to his phone then. His face changed. Confusion and then alarm crossed over his features as he read the message.
“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to put a bullet in Victor Scava’s head,” I said.
He looked at me, his forehead creased, eyes dark. Then, without a word, he walked out the door and locked me inside, leaving me once again in this dark, dank room, confused but also, somehow, hopeful.
Mateo’s body had been found. It had been left where it could be found. And its discovery had rattled my jailor.