Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Maya
Omar doesn’t say anything to me after that. For once, I am grateful.
He walks beside me in silence as we leave the sitting room behind and head toward the stairs, my last words still sitting between us like something that should not have been said out loud.
Sometimes children need someone willing to lie to fate, even if they won’t lie to them.
It sounded better in my head. Less reckless.
A promise I have no legal, tactical, or moral right to make inside a house owned by Stefano Savarese.
But I made it anyway.
By the time Omar leads me back to the guest room, the bed has been made, the water replaced, and the pills removed from the nightstand.
A garment bag hangs from the wardrobe door, black and expensive and smug before I even unzip it.
He stops at the threshold, but he doesn’t close the door and retreat.
He stands there with one hand on the frame, watching me look at the black bag wearily.
“You’re expected downstairs in thirty minutes.”
“I’ll be there when I’m ready.”
“He thought you’d say something like that. And I’m to remind you of your part of this plan. To behave.”
I look over my shoulder at him. “Does he do anything besides anticipate how irritating I’m going to be?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“Was that humor?”
“No,” he says quickly.
I wink at him, teasing him. “It almost was.”
His gaze drops over me once, taking in the robe, the bandage on my wrist, the bruises on my knees, the disaster Erin has made of my hair. “You should look in a mirror and see what you look like; that will prompt you to get dressed. I’m sure of it.”
I turned to him then, crossing my arms defiantly. “You should learn how doors work. Usually, people stand on the other side of them.”
“Technically, I am on the other side.”
“You are in the doorway,” I protest.
“Close enough.”
“For a man who works for someone obsessed with precision, this discussion is pointless. Careful, I might tell your boss that you’ve found a sense of humor.”
That does it. Omar’s expression shifts, and before I can decide whether I have pushed the wrong button too hard, he steps into the room.
I don’t have time to step back. He crosses the room in two strides.
This close it dawns on me that he is larger than I am, armed, rested, and not recovering from being drugged.
He stops in front of me, close enough that I have to lift my chin to keep his face in view, close enough that I can feel his breath on my neck.
“Do you ever get smart enough to stop provoking the dangerous men that surround you?”
I smile because spite is sometimes all a woman has left, and mine is in excellent condition. “Not when they make it so easy.”
His eyes narrow.
“You are in Stefano Savarese’s house,” he says.
“You are alive because he finds you useful. You have seen the children because he allowed it. You are walking around with a sharp tongue and no weapon because, for some reason I cannot begin to understand, he finds that entertaining. I, however, find it utterly annoying.”
“You forgot charming.”
“No, I didn't.” He leans in a fraction, not touching me, not threatening me outright, just filling the space until the room feels smaller because of his size. Testing. Waiting.
I hold still.
“Hmmm.” His gaze flicks once to my feet, then back to my face. For one second, nothing happens. Then his mouth twitches.
Barely.
It is so small I almost miss it, but there it is. Like he has found another irritating piece of evidence that supports Stefano’s bad judgment.
“You are a problem,” he says flatly.
“So I have been told.”
He stands upright, still looking down at me with a critical eye, but with less strain in his body, “I’m beginning to see why he likes you.”
I grin despite myself. “Did that hurt to admit?”
The twitch at his mouth deepens by a fraction before he kills it. “Thirty minutes, Maya. Get dressed. Make yourself impressive.”
“His word or yours?”
“His.”
“Good. I would hate to think you were flirting with me.”
Omar’s face goes flat, and he snorts, “I would rather be shot.”
“Aww, pity,” I tell him with a wink. “The feeling is mutual.”
“Good.”
He steps back into the hall, finally giving me the room, and reaches for the door. Before he pulls it shut, his gaze moves to the garment bag again.
“And Maya?”
“What?”
“If you come downstairs looking like you're dressed for a hostage situation, he will enjoy that even more than if you wear that dress.”
I hate to admit that he is probably right. Omar closes the door, leaving it unlocked.
I stand in the center of the room for a moment, listening to Omar’s footsteps retreat just far enough to be polite and not far enough to matter.
My body feels cleaner after the day with the children, though not rested.
Erin’s attempt at braiding my hair left my scalp aching in three separate places.
Heath’s quiet okay still sits under my ribs, small and dangerous.
I have barely known them a day, and already I understand the problem with children in a way I had forgotten.
I unzip the garment bag. It is a deep, blood-wine shade that looks almost black until the light touches it, fitted through the waist with a neckline that pretends to be respectable until I hold it up and realize respectability depends entirely on the angle of the person looking.
The fabric is soft, heavy, expensive, and the tag has been removed.
Apparently, Stefano’s version of captivity comes with tailoring and plausible deniability.
There are heels too. Black. Strappy. Annoyingly beautiful. And lingerie. I stare at the delicate scrap of lace for a long moment before lifting it with one finger.
“No,” I chide, pushing the lace back to the bottom of the bag. “Absolutely not.”
I shower quickly, needing to rinse the last day off my skin.
The hot water stings every scrape and bruise.
My wrist looks ugly when I unwrap the bandage, swollen along the cut from the zip tie, but clean.
Whoever tended it knew what they were doing.
That irritates me. Bad men should do bad work. It would make sorting the world easier.
By the time I finish, the mirror has fogged and the last of the drug feels scrubbed from my skin, even if the bitterness still lingers when I swallow.
I undo what is left of Erin’s braid with as much care as possible, comb my hair out, and put on the dress because refusing to wear it would accomplish nothing except giving Stefano proof that he can make me react with fabric.
It fits perfectly. That annoys me too. I leave the lingerie on the bed out of spite and use underwear from the small stack placed in the drawer.
Clean. Folded. Taken from wherever my undercover belongings ended up after the raid.
The fact that my things are here means his men went through them.
The fact that they returned any of them means Stefano wanted me to notice.
Nothing in this house is careless. That is what makes it dangerous. When I open the door a few minutes later, Omar’s gaze moves over me once, professionally blank, but I catch the hint of masculine appreciation behind his eyes.
“Well?” I ask.
He clears his throat, “You look presentable.”
“Try not to overwhelm me with praise.”
“I survived the urge.”
“Heroic.”
His mouth tightens into that tight line I’m becoming familiar with. “The Don is waiting.”
“The Don sounds needy.”
That earns me something close to a look of pity, which from Omar, feels almost intimate.
He leads me downstairs through a route I recognize enough to resent.
Past the sconce camera. Past the landing.
Down the staircase. Across the foyer, where the front doors gleam under too much security and not enough honesty.
Men glance at me and look away quickly, not because I intimidate them, though I am willing to make the case, but because Stefano has given orders about how I am to be treated.
Not a prisoner. Not a guest. Something undefined enough to make everyone cautious of my presence.
The dining room tonight is not the breakfast room.
Of course, there are multiple rooms for eating, because men with blood money apparently require options.
This one is darker, lit by low sconces and candles placed along the table, with a view of the back lawn and the black shine of water beyond it. Only two places are set.
Stefano stands near the window with a glass in one hand, speaking quietly to a man I do not recognize. He stops mid-sentence when I enter.
The man with him looks at me once, then immediately decides he has urgent business elsewhere.
Smart.
Omar remains at the door for half a second, long enough to look unhappy about leaving me alone with his boss, then disappears into the hall. The door remains open behind him. Not courtesy. Strategy. Everything in this house is strategy.
Stefano’s gaze moves over me with appreciation, and no apology.
It doesn’t feel oily or repulsive. Not like the men at the auction.
I keep reminding myself of that difference, even though it should not matter.
The auction men looked as if they wanted to take something and prove they could.
Stefano looks as if he has already taken inventory and is now deciding which part of the room to burn down first.
The bruise on his cheekbone is darker tonight. His mouth curves up at the edges when he sees me. “I wasn’t expecting this.”
I lift my brows. “You’re pretty easy to impress.”
“No.” He sets his glass down. “I’m not.”
His eyes stay on mine when he says it, and that is worse than if he had looked at the amount of skin exposed by the dress. Worse, because it doesn’t feel like admiration. It feels magnetic. And interest from Stefano Savarese is the kind of thing sensible women should cross borders to avoid.
“You sent the dress,” I say, putting my arms out and twirling to display it.
“I did.”
“Then what were you expecting?”
“For you to make it more difficult to get you in it.”