Chapter Twenty-One
Roe
My mind was still racing as I filled Alley’s dishes before putting on my makeup and doing my hair.
Because I was pretty sure I was the one who figured out what happened to Dom. Well, at least who was involved.
I wasn’t sure, after the guys seemed somewhat unswayed by my earlier argument. Which was why I wanted to rewind the footage and see if I could find anything else.
Sure enough, there she was.
Where she definitely didn’t belong.
I mean, it was possible she did belong there. She could have been hooking up with Dom. And we had no footage earlier to see if maybe they’d come into the suite together the night before or something.
But it was something.
It felt good to help.
Milo was hiding it well, but I knew he had to be worried sick about his cousin.
Because whenever he spoke about his family, it was with a warmth I could hardly relate to.
He couldn’t have one of them missing and be as calm as he was trying to appear.
I imagined that now, with me gone, he was running around like a crazy person.
I probably should have felt guilty about keeping him from searching earlier. But, well, there was nothing about the time we spent together that I regretted.
If anything, I was just frustrated that I had to go to work because every part of me wanted to stay in his room, in his bed, in his arms.
I was almost a little afraid of how much I wanted that, how much I wanted him.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever had such a strong, immediate sense of connection with someone before. It was thrilling and terrifying and delicate.
Which was why it was probably a good thing that I was getting a little space to make sure I kept my head on right.
I was so distracted by all the memories of the night before (and that morning) that I forgot to even be nervous about work, about how things stood with Frank, about anything that had to do with my little spying mission.
I figured that whole thing was on hold until Domenico was tracked down anyway.
So I got on stage.
I sang my flirty, sultry songs.
Only they had a lot more personal references in them as I imagined what Milo and I shared, as I thought about singing only to him.
I finished my last set, my heart set on getting out of here, texting Milo, and sneaking back to the hotel for more alone time with him.
And I was heading toward the door when one of Frank’s guys moved in my way.
“Frank wants employees to use the employee doors from now on,” he said, his tone absurdly condescending, seeing as he was also an employee.
“Okay,” I agreed, not caring which way I got out of the place, just that I got to Milo and got us both undressed as quickly as possible.
I turned to walk back toward the side of the bar, pushing through the hidden door that brought me right into the long, dark, windowless hallway system that made up the back of the casino.
I’d been avoiding the whole area, coming to work fully dressed and made up, ready to get on stage and get the job done. No more silly romanticism about the process.
Everything felt shabbier than I remembered. The faded paint, the random junk lining the walls.
I turned up the small hallway to get back to the main one.
I was distracted.
I was so busy thinking about how I might be able to sneak into the hotel without being seen that I didn’t notice the shadows moving, didn’t see them closing in.
I didn’t know anything until it was too late.
Until a hand slapped over my mouth as another wrapped around my waist. I was dragged off my feet, my legs pedaling in the air as a scream muffled against a man’s large hand.
My blood whooshed in my ears.
My heartbeat thundered in my chest, my neck, my temples.
I couldn’t think.
I just… flailed, grabbed, scratched.
But whoever this guy was, he was huge, solid. Even if I were on my own two feet, I didn’t think there was a way to get away.
That didn’t mean I didn’t keep trying. Even as he carried me like I weighed nothing more than a child throwing a tantrum through the inner workings of the casino.
He turned down a hall I’d never been in before as my belly flip-flopped, as bile rose up the back of my throat.
I didn’t know whether to choke it back down or get sick all over him. I remembered advice about being as disgusting as possible when a man tried to take you. That sometimes that alone was enough to make them drop you and run off.
But before I could even make up my mind, my attacker was kicking an unmarked door.
Then we were moving inside.
If I thought I’d been afraid before, it increased tenfold when the door slammed shut behind us.
Because until then, I was able to think this was just a simple opportunistic crime, that some guy saw something he wanted and set to taking it.
But it was worse.
It was so, so much worse.
There was hope when it was just one guy with bad intentions.
But inside the small, windowless room with a thick black security door, was not only another large man.
It was Frank.
And worse than that by far… it was the pit boss.
She was sitting on a metal chair, her face bruised, swollen, and bloody. There was an alarming amount of red in her strawberry-blonde hair. Like she’d been hit hard in the head.
But that blood?
It was starting to dry.
How long had they had her?
How much had been done to her that I couldn’t see?
She was still dressed, at least.
There was that.
Though, given Frank’s borderline obsession with me, I didn’t imagine I would be so lucky.
I was suddenly too aware of the state of me: the too-tight dress, the low-cut bodice, the skirt that could so easily be hiked up, the barely-there thong that was not really a barrier at all.
I was so exposed.
So vulnerable.
So outnumbered.
“Let her go,” the pit boss demanded, jerking her chin up in defiance as the man standing near her took a threatening step forward. “I told you it was me.”
Oh, God.
She’d been trying to take the fall for me?
Why?
Why would she do that? Risk that?
Did she feel it was only right because she’d been the one to let me go?
Or was she trying to protect me from the very specific kind of torture she knew Frank would have in store for me?
She was trying to protect me.
And I didn’t even know her name.
“Monroe, I’m so glad you could join us,” Frank said, his tone slick.
Ice slid down my spine.
I lowered my legs to the floor, but they wobbled.
I still had my purse on my arm.
Somewhere inside, I had the heavy door lock Milo had given me.
But that would only momentarily disable one of the men. The other two would be on me in a second.
I had my phone.
But there was no way I’d get a chance to send out a text or call.
“You can release her mouth,” Frank told the man towering over me. “These walls are reinforced. I’ve heard stories that the mob that used to run this back in the seventies used this room to cut off fingers or hands of cheaters. They never got caught.”
Great.
That was a lovely tidbit I could have done without.
Knowing that he said it to scare me, though, only made me determined not to despair.
I might have been alone in this moment, but it wouldn’t be long until someone noticed I was missing.
Milo would wonder why I hadn’t texted that I was out like I promised. Remo’s guy, who was supposed to be trailing me, would get curious why he hadn’t spotted me yet.
Someone would get worried.
Someone would investigate.
Someone would come for me.
At least, that was what I was putting my faith to rest in.
I just had to stall as best I could.
I wasn’t going to fawn.
Those days were behind me.
But, damn it, I refused to let him see how terrified I was. I wouldn’t give him that pleasure.
“That was all unnecessarily dramatic,” I said, forcing my tone to be calm, cool, maybe a little condescending.
Frank’s head jerked back a little, like he hadn’t been expecting that reaction.
“You could have simply told me to meet you.” And I would have run like hell in the opposite direction.
“This isn’t a meeting,” Frank spat.
“No?” I asked, my tone bored. I sounded seconds away from yawning. “What is it then? Your goon broke my nail,” I said as I inspected the nail that broke off when I’d been scratching the guy who grabbed me.
“That’s going to be the least of your problems,” Frank said.
“So you finally admit it, then?” I asked, sighing out a breath.
“Admit what?”
His face was getting ruddy. He was never as in control with me as he wanted and he hated that.
But that was the upper hand I had here.
He wanted to get a reaction out of me.
The longer he didn’t, the better off I would be.
“That you’re a problem,” I said, my smile saccharine sweet to mask the bitterness beneath.
“I… what?” He was sweating. His hairline and upper lip were damp.
“I mean, come on, Frank,” I said, shaking my head. “This casino could be worth upward of fifty million. But look at it, barely scraping by. Everyone getting shitty pay. Terrible working conditions because you haven’t updated anything. It’s a problem. You are a problem.”
“I…”
“Want me to shut her up?” the man standing near the other woman asked.
I was glad for an excuse to glance in his direction so I could check on her again.
She shot me a pinched look, like she didn’t know what I was doing.
I’m trying to bide us time, I tried to convey to her. We’re not as alone as we look right now.
Each moment I could keep Frank talking rather than beating or raping me or both of us was one more minute for the Grassi men to track us down.
And they would come.
Remo had already saved me once.
I looked from her to the man beside her, feeling my stomach twist. Because I didn’t recognize him.
I thought I knew all of Frank’s henchmen. But this guy wasn’t familiar at all.
Was he new?
Did he have a bigger crew than I realized?
Or was this something else entirely?
“Well, do you?” I asked Frank.
“Do I what?”
“Want him to shut me up? That’d be weird. Since all you’ve ever wanted is my attention. You have it. So are you going to have him shut me up, or…”
“So you admit you were a fucking tease.”
This was good.