Chapter 4
four
The guards cut Dom’s zip ties, then shoved him through the door hard enough that he stumbled.
He caught himself on the arm of a leather couch and spun around just as the door slammed shut behind them.
Three locks engaged in rapid succession, each one a heavy metallic thud that traveled through the walls.
Fuckers.
He flexed his hands. His fingers had gone past numb, and he winced as blood rushed back with a tingling, angry burn. The skin over both wrists was raw and welted, and would bruise spectacularly within a few hours. He clenched and unclenched his fists, forcing circulation.
He wanted to put one of those guys through a wall.
Not even the one who’d shoved him. All of them.
He wanted to work through every last man who’d laid hands on Vivi, wanted to do it slowly and with great personal satisfaction.
He cataloged what he’d seen so far: the guard at the door with the bad knee, the way the second one always hung back a half-step.
Hesitant. Green. The big guy who’d cut his ties was the real threat, but he’d eventually show his weakness, too. They always did.
Patience, he told himself. You’ll get your shot.
But, as Davey liked to remind him constantly, he wasn’t a patient man.
He pulled in a breath through his nose and turned to take in the room.
It was admittedly an improvement from the basement.
An apartment, all clean lines and warm lighting, and furniture that looked like it had been selected by someone with taste and a budget that didn’t have a ceiling.
Hardwood floors, honey-toned and polished.
A low-slung sectional sofa in charcoal gray took up the living room, flanked by end tables with lamps.
An open kitchen lay beyond, with marble countertops and copper fixtures.
But a gilded cage was still a cage.
And he hated being caged.
Dom noticed the cameras immediately. Four in the living room alone. They weren’t hidden. Weren’t even trying to be.
The message was clear: We see everything. We want you to know we see everything.
Vivi stood just inside the door, arms wrapped around herself, scanning the room. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. She was running the same assessment he was, studying the room like the thief she used to be.
Dom moved.
Kitchen first. He opened every cabinet, every drawer. Plates, bowls, glasses. Utensils in the top drawer: forks, spoons, butter knives so dull they wouldn’t cut warm bread. No steak knives. No chef’s knife. No scissors. The knife block on the counter was empty. Even the corkscrew was gone.
He palmed a fork and slid it into his sleeve. Given the opportunity, he could do damage with it.
He checked under the sink. Cleaning supplies had been stripped to a single bottle of dish soap. No bleach, no ammonia, nothing that could be weaponized by someone with basic chemistry knowledge. Whoever had prepped this place knew what they were doing.
Living room next. The windows were tall, framed in brushed steel, with gauzy curtains that felt like tissue paper when he yanked them aside.
The glass was thick. Behind the pane, barely visible unless you were looking for it, ran a lattice of fine steel mesh embedded between layers.
Reinforced. This was the kind of setup you’d find in an embassy or a high-security government building.
Wilde Security HQ had windows like this.
He rapped a knuckle against it. The sound was dead, no resonance.
He’d have better luck trying to punch through the wall.
He tried the window latch anyway. It didn’t budge even a fraction when he threw his weight against the frame. Locked. Welded, maybe, or bolted from the outside.
He shoved the gauzy curtain aside and looked out.
Fuck.
He knew New York City from a hundred floors up and from street level and every altitude in between, and what he was looking at wasn’t any version of it.
Beyond the reinforced glass, the world opened up in blues and golds that had no business existing in March—water so brilliant it almost hurt, white buildings cascading down a hillside in the middle distance, the silhouette of a windmill against an achingly clear sky.
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in New York anymore.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “If I’m Toto, then you’re definitely the Scarecrow. Desperately in need of a functioning brain. Of course they didn’t keep us in New York. Your family is in New York and—” She yanked back the current and froze. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh. We’re already in Greece,” he said. “Somewhere in the Cyclades, judging by the architecture.”
“Naxos.” Vivi moved beside him, careful to keep distance between them. “Villa Pandora is on Naxos.”
“They got us to Greece.” He said it aloud because saying it made it real, made the scale of it settle in. “They haven’t just had us for a few hours, Viv. They’ve had us long enough to drug us, move us across an ocean, and set up a cage with a view.”
“It’s a lovely view,” she said. “Really softens the whole kidnapping.”
He huffed a laugh and turned away from the window. Transatlantic flight, plus transfer, plus however long it took to get them here. At minimum, they’d lost a day. Maybe more.
And all the while Sabin had been sitting in that concrete room.
Jesus. He had to find a way out of here.
Restless energy screamed at him to do something, fight something, break something. His bruised ribs protested every turn, and his head still throbbed from whatever cocktail they’d pumped into him. He felt sluggish, off-kilter, and he didn’t know what to do with it.
So he paced.
Vivi also turned away from the view, but she wasn’t a pacer like him. Instead, she dropped onto the couch, legs tucked beneath her, and went absolutely still. Still in that black dress from the club, her hair tangled and her makeup smeared, she looked fragile.
But Vivianna Cavalier was a blade wrapped in silk.
“Are you okay, Viv?”
The question was stupid. He knew it was stupid the second it left his mouth. She’d been drugged, zip-tied, abducted, and was now held prisoner by a paramilitary organization that had her brother in a concrete cell with a knife at his throat. Okay wasn’t even in the same zip code as where she was.
She turned her head slowly. Looked at him.
Those eyes.
Green like sea glass, and right now they were stripped bare, haunted. He wanted to go to her, fold her up into his arms, and promise he’d never let anyone hurt her, but that was the last thing she wanted from him, so he stayed put.
“No, Dominic,” she said flatly. “I’m not okay. They have my brother.”
She’d been calling him by his full name ever since they’d broken up. Not Dom. Never Dom. Dominic. The way his mother used to say it when he was in trouble as a kid.
And, fuck, it hurt.
Every time.
“We’ll get him back,” he promised, meaning it with everything in him. This was his chance to make things right, to prove he wasn’t the same controlling asshole who’d locked her in that safe house three years ago. “Vivi, I swear to you, we will get him back.”
Judging by the look on her face, she didn’t believe him. And why would she? The last time he’d made her a promise, he’d locked her in a safe house for a week while her brother was arrested, took away every choice she had, decided her life for her because he was terrified of losing her.
He’d told himself it was protection. She’d called it imprisonment. He’d decided what was best for her without asking, without trusting her to make her own choices.
He wasn’t that man anymore.
Or at least, he was trying like hell not to be.
Vivi searched his face. Looking for what—sincerity? Evidence of change? Some sign that the man sitting across from her wasn’t the same one who’d held her against her will?
Whatever she found wasn’t enough.
That was fair. He’d earned that.
She stood and disappeared down the hallway without a word, her bare feet silent on the hardwood.
He watched her go, his chest aching. He’d loved her to distraction at one time.
It was why he’d risked everything—his military career, his family’s reputation—to work jobs with her and Sabin.
To be close to her. To be part of her world.
To steal what she stole, to run when she ran.
To feel that pulse of adrenaline and see the smile that lit her face afterward.
He’d been reckless for her, and he’d never regretted a moment of it—even when it meant lying to his father, his uncles, his brothers.
Dom pushed off the couch and followed the path she’d taken.
He found her standing in the bedroom doorway, staring at the king-sized bed that dominated the space.
Another camera blinked in the corner, red eye watching.
He wondered if there were cameras in the bathroom.
Probably. Praetorian wanted eyes on them 24/7.
His gaze returned to the bed.
Only one.
Because of course. The universe had a sick sense of humor when it came to the two of them.
“I’ll take the couch,” he said quietly.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Her voice was no-nonsense. “We’re adults. And we both need to sleep off the sedative they gave us if we’re going to be any good for Sabin.”
Adults. Right. Two adults who’d been tearing each other’s clothes off in a backseat before being abducted by a paramilitary organization. Two adults who hadn’t shared a bed in three years and hadn’t shared one without touching in ever.
He swallowed. “Okay.”
They took turns in the bathroom, and to his surprise, there weren’t any cameras. Either Raines had some residual sliver of decency, which Dom doubted, or the room was wired with audio instead.
He splashed water on his face, then assessed the damage in the mirror.
The knot on the back of his skull was tender, but the swelling had gone down.
His wrists looked worse than they felt—angry red welts already darkening to purple.
The bruise on his ribs was a deep, spreading stain across his left side when he lifted his shirt. Ugly, but manageable.
He changed into one of the provided T-shirts and a pair of sweatpants that were close enough to his size that it made his skin crawl. Praetorian knew his measurements.
When he came out, Vivi was sitting on the edge of the bed.
She’d changed into an oversized gray T-shirt that hung to mid-thigh and pulled her hair back in a loose knot.
The black dress was draped over the back of the vanity chair.
Without the armor of designer fabric and stilettos, she looked smaller.
Younger. The cut on her temple stood out against her skin, cleaned now but still raw.
She didn’t look at him as he crossed to the other side of the bed.
They lay down on opposite edges of the mattress, a careful valley of untouched sheets between them. Dom stared at the ceiling. The lamp was off, but the city—wherever this city was—leaked light through the barred windows, casting faint geometric shadows across the plaster.
The mattress was obscenely comfortable. That was the worst part.
His body wanted desperately to sink into it, to let exhaustion and the lingering dregs of whatever chemical cocktail they’d used drag him under.
But every time he closed his eyes, he saw the live feed.
Sabin in that chair. Blood in his hair. The knife at his throat.
And next to him, separated by twelve inches of silk and a chasm of history, Vivi breathed.
The silence felt like a living beast between them.
At some point, she turned onto her side, facing away from him. She made a sound—not quite a sigh, not quite a hum, but the soft exhale that always came right before she dropped from restlessness into deep sleep.
He hadn’t heard that sound in three years. Hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it until this moment.
She shifted again. Her shoulder blade was six inches from his chest. He could feel the warmth radiating off her through the thin cotton of her shirt, and his body screamed at him to close the distance.
To curl around her the way he used to, arm draped over her waist, his face buried in her hair, the two of them locked together like a puzzle that only worked when all the pieces were touching.
He didn’t move.