Chapter 7 #2
He wasn’t just taking a risk. He was gambling with his life, and it was a gamble that would follow him for the rest of his life.
He would never sleep soundly again. Never feel safe again.
Gino would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for the bullet or knife that would turn his lights out for good, because her cousins would never forgive or forget.
So deep was she in her thoughts that she hadn’t noticed Gino addressing her, not until he rose from his desk.
“Your cousins wish to speak to you.” His tone told her it was something he’d already said.
Gazing at him, her heart suddenly beating in a whole new way that was nothing like the beats of desire she’d been enjoying, she had a sudden vision of the deeply golden skin that wrapped his muscular body all cold and pale, the beating heart contained within it lifeless.
Her chest plunged into a coldness that spread through her skin before she’d finished nodding her assent.
Gino held the phone’s screen in front of her, and she found herself looking at Mattia and his brother Tommaso.
“How are you?” Mattia asked without any preamble. “Has that bastard hurt you in any way?”
Still so cold from that awful image of Gino lifeless, she shook her head and rubbed her arms for warmth. Her throat felt incredibly tight. “He’s treating me well,” she croaked.
Both of her cousins’ eyes narrowed. “You are sure?”
“Yes.” Realising her demeanour might be telling a different story, she followed her instinct and swallowed.
“Please, comply with his demands. He hasn’t laid a finger on me, but he scares the life out of me, and I’m scared if you don’t comply, he’ll…
” She burst into tears. “Please, give him what he wants. Please. It’s the only way I’ll get home. ”
“We’re working as hard and as fast as we can.” That came from Tommaso.
Not daring to look at Gino, Francesca wiped her eyes.
“I have to believe you are,” she sobbed, “because it’s the only thing keeping me going.
” As an afterthought, she quickly added in her most pathetic voice, “Please don’t tell my parents that I cried.
I know how upset they must be at the situation.
Tell them I’m keeping strong and positive. ”
“We will get you home to them,” Mattia said tautly. “You have my word.”
Putting her fingers to her lips, she then put them to the screen as a kiss. “Thank you,” she whispered as the screen was moved away from her.
“Satisfied?” She heard Gino say, his tone as taut as Mattia’s had been. “The clock is ticking. Remember that.”
Only when a long passage of silence passed did she lift her face.
His arms were folded over his chest, his phone gripped in his hand. The expression in his eyes was, for once, unreadable.
“How was all that?” When he made no response, she said, “Would you have preferred I played it a different way?”
His eyes narrowed to a point. “That was all fake? The tears?”
“Apart from the bit where I asked them not to tell my parents. I don’t want them upset.” She didn’t care that they deserved a bit of upset for going behind her back to marry her off, and to a man who thought her virginity a prize. They would be suffering enough.
A pulse ticked on Gino’s jawline, visible even through his beard.
“I have no doubt my cousins believe you will harm me if your demands aren’t met,” she said, thinking on her feet…
well, her bottom. She couldn’t tell him why she’d had to play it the way she had.
She didn’t want to bring that awful vision back to her mind’s eye, not ever.
“I just thought it would be more convincing if they thought I believed it too.”
“You don’t?”
She didn’t drop her stare. “No.”
“Then you need to start believing it, because this isn’t a game, Miss Marino,” he bit out.
“I am well aware of what this is,” she stated calmly, even as her heart thumped hard against her ribs.
“You’re gambling with your life. You should be thanking me – if my cousins weren’t working flat out to comply with your demands, my little performance should have gone some way into focusing their minds, and on the subject of gambling, you now have to teach me how to play poker. ”
A host of emotions punched through him. Gino had put his phone in front of Francesca without a clue of how she was going to act for her cousins. Whatever way she acted would make no difference to anything because she was his hostage and had not a single mark on her, inside or out.
The last thing he’d expected was tears. He’d watched them pour down her face, unable to believe them but unable not to believe what he was seeing.
Even as he’d watched them fall and heard the sob in her voice, even as he’d felt his guts twist sharply in response, there had been a real sense of unreality about it all.
His instinct had been right. Francesca’s tears had been fake. But her cousins had believed them.
He shook his head. “You are unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Do you understand that your performance means you’ve gone against your family?”
She smiled. It was the first smile he’d seen from her that didn’t meet her eyes, and when she spoke, the cheeriness in her voice sounded forced.
“Not at all. For all the fun I’m having here with you, I do want to go home, and I’d prefer if that could happen without any bloodshed.
Maybe I’m being foolish, but I don’t believe you’ll hurt me.
I do believe, though, that you will go after my cousins if they fail to comply – you wouldn’t have a choice, I see that.
” She swallowed, her smile fading. “If things don’t go according to your plan, there will be bloodshed, so, in what I believe is a gambling term, I’ve stacked the odds more in your favour.
When it comes to not spilling blood, I’ve stacked the odds in everyone’s favour.
” The smile gone, her voice lowered to a whisper.
“But I don’t believe the odds will stay in your favour, Mr Vicario.
You will probably win the game, but they will never let you claim your winnings.
” Her eyes clouded and then widened a touch, an almost minuscule hitch forming in her voice. “They will kill you for this.”
For the first time in all the long hours they’d spent together, Gino sensed genuine distress from his hostage, and it was as disarming as everything else about her. “The future will take care of itself.”
“Do you value your life so little?”
“Not at all. I value my life greatly.”
“Then why risk it in a gamble you can’t win?”
“Every gamble comes with a chance of winning. I’ve never rolled the dice on a gamble that hasn’t come in, and I’ve played all the odds.”
“Every winning streak comes to an end.”
“Says who?”
“Logic?”
“Even if logic does dictate that, it doesn’t mean my winning streak is going to come to an end with this gamble. I take risks – great risks – but I also take precautions, and I never roll the dice if I’m not confident of success.”
Her throat moved. “I hope for your sake that your confidence pays off.”
“Because you care what happens to me, Miss Marino?” he mocked. She was his hostage. It was beyond the realms of possibility, even where Francesca was concerned, that she could give two fucks about his future.
“I care about many people, Mr Vicario, and your gamble threatens many of them.”
“And yet you want me to teach you how to gamble.”
“I want you to teach me how to play poker. From what you’ve told me about it, the only thing you can lose is the stake you bring to the table.” Her smile returned, a wryness forming in her beautiful translucent eyes. “I won’t be staking my life – I’ll leave those kinds of gambles to you.”
Somehow he pulled in a breath through a chest that had tightened into a knotted ball. Jerking a nod, he looked at his watch. “I have a video meeting with my legal team soon. Let’s wait until after our dinner, and then I will teach you how to play poker.”
The flirtatious sparkle made its return. “I look forward to deciding what our stakes are going to be.”
Only by exerting supreme control did Gino stop his gaze drifting down her body and his tongue from forming the words his own body ached for him to say. “I’ve agreed to teach you to play the game, Miss Marino. Nothing more.”
That knowing smile now made its return, too. “We’ll see.”