11. Georgia
11
GEORGIA
Now
I nside the apartment, the man closed the door and locked it. I flipped the lights on and rounded the table to stare at him.
He stared around the room, and I saw it through his eyes. Every secondhand, scarred piece of furniture; all the shabby, pitiful evidence of my pathetic life.
“What now?” I asked, keeping the shake out of my tone.
“Now,” he looked me up and down, “you show me to your bedroom.”
He stepped closer to me, and I flinched back. My pulse was racing, and I felt like I might faint. I’d never been so scared.
“Why?” I demanded softly, a plea in my voice.
He tilted his head to the side. His beautiful face, so like the one love of my life, was stony, giving nothing away.
“Because I told you to,” he said flatly and jerked his head toward the small hallway beyond the kitchen.
I turned around and fought a sob. How had my life come to this? I’d been poor, but getting by, sad, but surviving, and then overnight, my life was full of danger and threats.
“Is this about my father?” I offered and walked in the slowest steps possible toward my room.
“What about your father?”
“I know he’s been arrested, but that’s all I know… I don’t know anything else about his business. I’m sure he hasn’t done the things they are accusing him of. He’s sure to be out soon.” I stopped, sucking in a breath as we drew closer to my cramped bedroom.
I was lying, but telling the truth right now didn’t seem like a good idea. The chances were very slim that I could persuade this lunatic to believe me. No, he didn’t have the air of a lunatic. He was tightly controlled, perfectly disciplined. He was more like a mercenary.
“Oh, Signora Conti, if you really believe that, you’re more naive than I’d have ever imagined. Still, maybe it’s a case of willful ignorance.”
“What?” I asked, my indignation giving way.
We reached the bedroom, and I stopped in the doorway.
He nudged me from behind.
“Hurry up.”
“What do you want me to do?” I blurted and stepped into my room.
He followed. The air instantly felt claustrophobic inside. He was too big for the small space. Too raw, too masculine for the soft, feminine room. Net curtains and soft throws and embroidered pillows, remnants of a life when I’d had money, didn’t go with his bloodstained face and lethal grace.
“Lose the clothes,” he said.
My stomach dropped. This was it. It was really happening. I stared at his face, so achingly familiar. If he had been Elio Santori, would I have expected mercy? Yes. As stupid as it was to believe in the boy who’d abandoned me, I’d have felt safer.
Instead, I was here with this stone-cold stranger, who wore Elio’s face like a mask and had no heartstrings in reach to tug on. A man without mercy or compassion. A monster, or worse, since technically, monsters could feel. Frankenstein’s monster felt loneliness and sorrow. This man didn’t seem capable even of that. He wasn’t a monster. He was a machine. Cold metal inside his chest and processors that didn’t allow for feelings. How could someone be so incredibly impassive?
I shook my head, a tear dripping down my cheek.
“Don’t hurt me. Please. I swear I don’t have anything to do with my father anymore. I haven’t spoken to him in years.”
“Not my problem. Strip, or I’ll do it for you.”
He’d slipped his hand into his pocket, gripping a hard object.
The gun. I’d forgotten about that in the confusion and panic. Like this man needed a gun to hurt me.
I brought my hands to my jacket and shrugged it off, then tugged my T-shirt up, gasping as glass cut into my hands once more. I looked closer at my clothes. The splinters of glass from earlier were embedded in the soft material, probably from when I’d lain on the floor to hide.
Carefully, I pulled my jeans down, trying not to cut myself.
I rose, only in my underwear.
The man was watching me with an unreadable expression. I tossed my glass-littered clothes in the corner and folded my arms over my chest, trying not to blush from the tips of my toes to the roots of my hair.
It’s underwear, Georgia. Just like a bikini. You’re okay.
“Why did you call me topolina ?” I asked in Italian.
The man stared for so long, I started to think he wasn’t going to answer. But then he did.
“You live in a filthy attic, you’re malnourished and scrawny… like a little mouse, scurrying this way and that, desperate to survive. It’s a fitting name for you.” He spoke in English, with only the slightest trace of Italian to his voice.
The subtext was clear. He didn’t want to communicate with me in anything other than English. I shouldn’t look to build any camaraderie in both of us being Italian.
A jagged laugh left me at his cruel description.
“I guess I am,” I mused. “But I’m just doing what I need to, to survive. You can’t blame me for that… someone important to me once told me that.”
The man was quiet again. Not even a hint of a reaction showed on his perfect face.
“I think you’re misunderstanding something, Signora Conti. I don’t care what you do, or don’t do. Before today, I wouldn’t have cared if you’d starved in this shithole. I don’t care about you beyond taking you where I need to take you.”
“And where is that?” I immediately pounced, relief hitting me so hard I nearly had to sit down.
He had to take me somewhere. He wasn’t going to kill me here and now, tonight.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” He eyed me up and down. “Put some clothes on and go to sleep.”
“It’s five in the evening.”
“I don’t care. Sleep, or don’t, just don’t leave this room. I’ve had enough of you today,” he tossed over his shoulder and headed toward the door.
“Elio — wait,” I called, unable to stop myself. Elio. Why had I called him Elio again? He clearly wasn’t, no matter how sure I was.
“I’m not your Elio… whoever he was.”
I scoffed softly. “He was never mine… but yeah, I won’t you call you it again. I just don’t know what else to call you.”
“You don’t have to call me anything.”
“No, I do.” Try to humanize yourself to your attacker, wasn’t that the advice?
“I’ll call you the mercenary, then, if you don’t suggest something.”
“Call me De Sanctis, if you must call me anything.”
“You’re a De Sanctis? You work for Renato?”
“Enough questions for tonight. Sleep, read, tear your hair out… just don’t bother me.”
He shifted, and in the light from the hall, I made out an odd shape in his hand.
A spoon?
Suddenly, it clicked. He’d used the spoon to pretend he had a gun. He didn’t have a weapon. He didn’t have a fucking weapon.
I didn’t think, I just went for his eyes.
I wasn’t the type to go easy. I couldn’t help it. Dumb or not, resistance was in my DNA.
The only advantage I had was the element of surprise. My mercenary was clearly not expecting to be attacked by a half-naked madwoman intent on tearing those dark-brown eyes from his face.
They were wrong. All wrong.
I neared, and he opened his arms instead of sidestepping, and I fell into his embrace. My knee came up immediately, and I nearly got him, but he twisted at the last minute, protecting his balls from my vicious attack with a hard hip check. I fell backward, and he was on top of me, pushing the breath from my lungs when I dropped onto the bed.
I gasped for breath for a split second, then I fought against him. This was it. My only chance to get away. I pushed at his face and tried to get up and away from him, but his body was too heavy, and he covered me too thoroughly.
“Enough!” he roared after I brought my head up sharply and hit my lip hard against his chin.
His hands fastened around my wrists like steel manacles.
“I said enough. You can’t get away from me. There is no escape from me, or what’s coming, or the sins of your father. I’d advise you to stop testing me. I am not a merciful man. Test me one more goddamn time and I’ll put you across my knee and turn your ass so red, you won’t be able to sit for a week. Test me twice, and you’ll be hog-tied and gagged and in a luggage trunk for our flight. A third time? You really don’t want to know what’ll happen a third time. So, be good. Got it?” he asked.
His voice was careful and controlled. He didn’t seem like a man who lost his cool easily. Even when he’d threatened to spank my ass, he’d behaved as though the act was a perfectly rational response to someone annoying you… like there was nothing at all kinky about it.
Kinky? Why was I even thinking about kink right now? I’d gone too long without sex. It was official. This man who felt all man, and sounded all man, and pissed me off just like a man… was pressing his hard, heavy body into mine, and I had nowhere near enough clothes on for my body not to get confused.
“Answer me when I speak to you!” he demanded.
“Yes, sir,” I snarled out, pissed off that I’d missed my chance to escape, and also that he could just toss me around like I weighed nothing. I was powerless. Utterly powerless, and it was terrifying. My go-to response to terror was anger, so that tracked.
I was furious.
“Good. And watch your tongue. I’ve had enough rebellion and enough questions. Understood?” His tone made it clear that he was expecting to be obeyed. The man was a total control freak.
I just nodded, clenching my jaw to keep myself from arguing.
He nodded. “Good girl,” he said and patted my goddamn head like I was an errant puppy.
“Now, don’t bother me again tonight, or I’ll handcuff you to the shower, gagged, and turn it on. How much hot water do you get here? Half an hour, max?”
I looked away. My little rebellion was clearly over, because I couldn’t risk being in a cold shower all night.
Slowly, he raised himself off me. Everything about him was solid. Even his cock. He’d been pressed between my legs, and if I hadn’t been furiously fighting for my freedom, I’d have noticed it a lot more.
He stood, and I could make out the bulge when he turned sideways. He made no effort to hide it. I was glad it was dark, because I was pretty sure my face was scarlet. It felt like it was burning. The fact that this monster was hard, had me half-naked on the bed, and yet didn’t cross any lines was vaguely reassuring.
Yes, because threatening to spank you, tie you up, and gag you isn’t threatening at all.
He moved toward the door. He was going to lock me in this room. The window was a useless escape route. I couldn’t even open it, it was painted shut so well. The only window in the whole place that opened was the living room one. Maybe I could get him to let me sit in the living room, and then if he went to the bathroom…
He’d already reached the door while I deliberated my next move.
“Wait!” I called, but he just closed the door.
I sat there, forgetting I was nearly naked until a shiver worked across my bare flesh.
Think, Georgia. Just think. He’d given some information away. I had to figure out what this meant.
He worked for Renato De Sanctis, which meant that was where he was taking me. My father and Salvatore De Sanctis had been close friends, once… I pulled on a T-shirt and shorts and lay down, staring at the ceiling. I didn’t have my cell phone; my mystery man had taken it. I couldn’t tell work that I wouldn’t be back. I couldn’t call the cops, or the lawyer, or Erica… or anyone.
The bedspread felt silky against my bare legs, and a rush of goosebumps moved up my body. I felt aware of myself for the first time in fourteen years. Being married to a gay man had switched off the part of my brain that felt anything sensual. And in the end, when Tommaso had been so ill, slowly fading away, nothing else had mattered but keeping him comfortable. I had cut the cord to my own sexual feelings. I was barely aware of it. But stripping off in front of my captor had forced me to be aware of my body. It had forced me to think about my underwear and near nakedness. Now, I was waking up. Tingling in all kinds of unwelcome places.
Relax, Georgia, it’s just the Stockholm syndrome talking, since he made you change out of your ruined clothes instead of forcing himself on you.
I wasn’t going to be the woman who fell for a kidnapper because he showed the slightest sliver of kindness. I might have only had sex with one man in my life, and basically forgotten about my body from the waist down, but I wasn’t that desperate.
I had to keep a clear head and remember that I was completely alone with a man who was more machine than flesh and blood. He was taking me somewhere, and I needed to be ready to run, whatever chance I got. If only I could figure out why this was happening.
I had to focus on what I knew… there were threads here, I just needed to weave them together. I lay on my bed and watched the evening sun move across the ceiling, my mind working furiously over the past.
I had nothing else to do, after all.