Chapter 8
ROSALINA
Seven days.
Seven whole days I have locked myself in this spare bedroom like some kind of deranged Rapunzel, except instead of letting down my hair I have been plotting increasingly creative escape attempts and wondering if I can fashion a weapon out of a decorative pillow.
The room is nice enough—too nice, actually, which somehow makes it worse.
Cream-colored curtains that probably cost more than most people's cars.
Furniture so expensive I am afraid to touch it.
Windows that overlook a garden I am not allowed to visit because apparently fresh air is a privilege I have not earned.
The door is solid oak with a lock that would make a bank vault jealous—actually two locks, I discovered on day three: the sliding bolt deadlock they installed on the outside to keep me trapped in here, and a secondary lock on the inside that I'm sure was meant for security in case of intrusions.
Mafia paranoia at its finest. I've been using it religiously, sliding the interior bolt home every time one of them leaves, taking whatever scrap of control I can get.
If they want in, they'll have to break down the door or wait until I decide to let them. It's petty, maybe, but it's mine.
I have tested every single inch of this room for weaknesses approximately seven hundred times and found exactly none that will not result in me breaking multiple bones.
I tried to escape twice.
The first time, I made it all the way to the front gate—actually made it, tasted freedom for approximately forty-five glorious seconds—before Gabriel caught me.
He threw me over his shoulder while I kicked and screamed and clawed at his back hard enough to draw blood, carrying me back inside like I weighed about as much as a particularly angry house cat.
The second time, I got the brilliant idea to scale the building from my fourth-floor window because apparently I have a death wish, and Gabriel caught me halfway down, hauling me back through the window by my ankles while I cursed him in English, Italian, and the extremely creative Irish I learned from the guards back home.
After that, they stationed someone outside my door twenty-four hours a day.
Prisoners get more freedom than this.
I have been refusing food—or at least, I was until hunger started making me so dizzy I could barely stand, and now I pick at whatever they bring me just enough to keep my strength up for the next escape attempt that will inevitably fail.
I have demanded to speak to Seamus at least a dozen times, screaming it through the door until my voice went hoarse and my throat felt like I had swallowed broken glass, and every single time they have refused.
"Your father knows you are safe," Gabriel said through the door yesterday, his voice so maddeningly calm I wanted to claw through solid oak just to get at him. "That is all he needs to know right now."
I threw a lamp at the door.
It did not help, but it felt good.
I tried the window again last night—not to escape this time, just to see if I could get it open, if I could feel air on my face that did not taste like expensive carpets and my own rage—but it is screwed shut, and when I tried to break the glass with the second lamp, Gabriel was through the door before I could get in a third hit.
I should have locked the door from the inside but I forgot!
He did not say anything. Just took the lamp away and left.
I would scale this entire building if I were not on the fourth floor. If Gabriel had not caught me the first time I tried. If I thought I could make it to the ground before one of them noticed and dragged me back like a misbehaving cat.
But I cannot.
So I pace. I plot. I imagine all the different ways I could kill them if I just had access to a decent knife and the element of surprise and maybe some kind of distraction involving fire.
A knock sounds at the door.
"Go away," I snap, not even bothering to get up from where I am sprawled across the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying very hard not to think about Erin, trying not to wonder if she made it somewhere safe with Dolan, if they are happy, if Seamus is looking for her or if he let her go like I begged him to in the letter I managed to sneak out with one of the maids.
"Rosalina." Dante's voice comes through the door—smooth and raspy like expensive whiskey poured over gravel, and edged with something that might be amusement or warning or both. "Open the door."
"No."
"I am going to count to three," he says, and I can actually hear the smile in his voice now, the dark satisfaction of someone who knows exactly how this is going to end and is enjoying every second of it. "If the door is not open by the time I reach three, there will be consequences."
I roll my eyes so hard it actually hurts. "Oh, I am terrified. Truly shaking."
"One."
I do not move. Do not even twitch.
"Two."
I examine my nails with exaggerated interest. There is dried blood under one of them—a dark, jagged crescent from where I scratched Gabriel yesterday. Good. I hope the fever sets in by morning.
"Three."
Silence. Then the heavy, rhythmic retreat of footsteps down the hallway.
I smirk at the ceiling, victory a hot, heady flood in my chest. "That is what I thought, you absolute—"
A sharp, metallic clink cuts me off.
I freeze. It’s followed by a rhythmic, scratching sound—steel dancing inside the lock’s cylinder.
My breath hitches, my lungs suddenly feeling two sizes too small.
I launch myself off the bed, my bare feet slapping against the floor, but I’m too late.
A heavy, final thunk vibrates through the wood as the bolt is forced back into its housing.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me," I breathe, slamming my palms against the door. "“Dante! You aren't coming in!" Despite my best efforts, he pushes the door open.
Then comes a new sound: the sharp, percussive clack-clack-clack of a hammer striking a screwdriver. I watch in shock as he methodically removes each pin from the hinges. He’s at the bottom hinge, tapping the pin upward.
"Dante, don’t you dare—"
The first pin pops free, skittering across the hardwood floor like a spent shell casing.
"I warned you," he says, and I can see the smirk on his face. He looks genuinely entertained, savoring the frantic rhythm of my breathing.
"You are insane! This is a kidnapping, not a home renovation!"
"And you are stubborn. We all have our flaws, darling."
Clack-clack-clack. The second pin drops. I watch in mounting horror as the door groans, shifting unnervingly in its seat. It’s no longer a solid barrier; it’s a hundred-pound slab of dead weight held up by nothing but gravity and the few remaining hinges.
"Stop," I demand, my voice cracking despite my best efforts to sound authoritative. "Stop right now or I swear to God—"
The final pin hits the floor with a heavy, metallic ring.
The door lurches. Without the hinges to anchor it, the wood screams against the frame.
I’m forced to stumble back, tripping over my own feet as Dante catches the weight of the door.
He handles the massive slab of oak like it’s made of balsa wood, lifting it clean out of the frame and leaning it against the hallway wall with a dull, final thud.
The barrier is gone. The hallway light spills in, blinding and intrusive.
Dante stands in the gap, framed by the empty doorway like a dark omen.
He looks annoyingly, devastatingly good—dressed in charcoal slacks and a crisp white shirt.
His sleeves are rolled back, exposing the corded muscle of his forearms and the intricate black ink that disappears beneath his cuffs.
His hair is a mess of dark silk, and those oceanic blue eyes lock onto mine with a predatory heat that makes my pulse stutter.
"You have lost your door privileges," he says simply, like this is a perfectly normal thing to say.
I gape at him. Actually gape. "You cannot just take my door!"
"I just did." He steps into the room—my room, my sanctuary, the only space I have had to myself in this entire nightmare—and looks me over with slow, deliberate attention that makes heat crawl up my neck. "Now. You are coming down for dinner."
"No."
"It was not a request."
"I do not care. I am not going anywhere with you."
His eyes darken in a way that sends warning signals firing through every nerve in my body. "Rosalina, I am tired. I have had a very long week dealing with alliance politics and cleaning up the mess your little substitution created. I am not in the mood for your attitude."
"Then leave," I snap, crossing my arms over my chest and lifting my chin in what I hope looks defiant instead of slightly terrified.
He moves so fast I do not have time to react—do not even have time to process what is happening before his hands are on my waist and then I am upside down, thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes while I shriek in outrage loud enough to wake the dead.
"Put me down!"
"No."
I pound on his back with my fists, but he doesn’t even flinch, just walks out of the room and down the hallway while I thrash and curse and seriously consider biting a chunk out of his shoulder just to make a point.
"I hate you," I snarl.
"You have mentioned that. Several times. This week alone." He sounds completely unbothered, which makes me even angrier.
He carries me down the stairs—down all four flights of stairs—while I alternate between hitting him and trying to wriggle free, and by the time we reach the dining room I am breathless and furious and plotting increasingly elaborate murder scenarios.
He sets me down in a chair at the long dining table with enough force that I bounce slightly, and before I can launch myself back up, his hand lands heavy on my shoulder, holding me in place with effortless strength.
"Sit," he says, and it is absolutely not a request.
I glare up at him, breathing hard, and consider my options. I could fight. I could try to run. I could—