Hold You Against Me (13 page)

“What’s your name?”

She doesn’t look up from where she’s setting out silverware.

“Please,” I say, approaching her. “I’m being held against my will.”

She pours a cup of steaming coffee. “Cream?”

There’s a faint accent in her voice, but I can’t place it. “Please help me.”

She pauses, and I feel her distress vibrate in the air. At least she’s considering it. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Does it matter?” She stands back. “Eat now. I have until he returns with the dog to take the tray.”

“At least sit with me.”

Her lips purse. She doesn’t want to, but there’s not really anywhere else to sit. “It’s not right.”

“None of this is right. He drugged me. He—”

“Mr. Costas is a good man.”

Her loyalty hits me hard—not only because it means she won’t help me. Also because I used to have that kind of unadulterated trust in Giovanni. Not anymore. “He’s forcing me to marry him. He’s going to force me to…” I can’t even speak the words, not where he’s concerned. Force me to have sex with him. As much as I know he’s changed, it’s still impossible to believe he’d do that.

She looks pained, and I have to wonder at the exact nature of her loyalty to him. Giovanni wouldn’t be the first man to use the household staff to meet his needs. My father certainly did.

A pang of jealousy hits my breastbone. I ignore it because that doesn’t matter.

He’s probably been with a hundred women.

And now it’s hard to breathe.

“Senorita, are you okay?” Her voice sounds far away.

I feel her guide me to the chair, and I’m grateful for that. My hands grasp her, keeping her close. I meet her dark gaze, pleading. “Just a message, so my sister knows where I am. So she knows I’m not dead.”

Her lips part, and I’m praying, hoping. Nothing comes out. Her brow furrows. Genuine worry shades her brown eyes, and I think she might actually do this for me.

A sharp yip comes from the hallway, and she jerks back.

Seconds later Lupo dives into the room and under the bed. Romero appears, looking disgruntled, his suit askew. “Let’s go,” he says, not waiting until the girl complies.

She gives me one last worried look before hurrying out.

The door closes. The lock turns.

She didn’t agree to send a message, but she didn’t say no either. I’ll ask her again when I see her. I’ll get down on my knees and beg her. I really do want my sister to know I’m okay. Maybe she can help me escape, but even if she couldn’t, I know she’ll rest easier if she hears from me.

And I am desperate to break free. I don’t want to think that Giovanni will do what he says. He wouldn’t. I’m sure he wouldn’t force me to have sex.

Don’t push me, bella. You won’t like what happens.

I want to believe he wouldn’t, but I’m terrified to find out for sure.

T
he low murmur
of male voices bleeds through the door.

Lupo’s ears perk up, and his growl fills the room. He had another walk at lunchtime. I had a bowl of soup and thick focaccia bread, but the girl wouldn’t talk to me again. She wouldn’t even meet my eyes. I may be captive here, but at least they’re keeping me well-fed.

I’m expecting Romero again or maybe the girl with a late afternoon snack.

So it’s a shock when Giovanni walks into the room.

I saw him yesterday, so I should be used to the way he’s changed, his expression harder, shoulders somehow more broad. Is it possible for him to be taller than he was at eighteen? He definitely seems that way. He may as well be a giant the way he fills the room.

And he’s carrying something. Not a tray of food or a leash, though.

A dress.

Something shimmery and glittery gold is draped over his arm. He sets it on the bedspread in front of me. “For tomorrow night.”

Lupo growls, but he ruins the effect by backing up until he’s underneath the bed.

I narrow my eyes. “How do you know it fits?”

His gaze flickers over my body, and suddenly the tank top and jeans I’m wearing may as well be see-through lace. It’s like he can see all of me, every inch of my skin, every shadow and curve. My body responds with inappropriate heat, starting in my core and spreading outward to harden my nipples.

His eyes darken. “Try it on.”

He makes no move to leave, and I have no desire to undress in front of him. “I’m sure it fits.”

“Do you have everything you need?”

The amusement in his voice turns my stomach. How dare he find this funny. I could be in chains, could be beaten and starved, but it’s hard for me to be grateful. I’m a captive just the same. “Oh, let’s see. Food, check. Water, check. Freedom? Not so much.”

His amusement evaporates like a drop of water on hot concrete. “Freedom is for other people. People who aren’t born the daughter of mafia royalty.”

“They’re dead,” I mutter through gritted teeth. My mother didn’t care enough to stick around. My father…well, let’s just say I would have preferred for him to care a little less.

“Which makes you their heir. But you know this.”

“I know there are people who would use me. I just don’t understand why you are one of them. Where is the boy who held me in his arms when I cried? What happened to the boy I loved?”

A moment passes in utter stillness. I didn’t mean to let out so much frustration. And I don’t expect a real answer, because he hasn’t given me one before. He shifts, and I push up from the bed, backing into the wall. No, I don’t expect a real answer—but he might do something worse. He might punish me. He might prove just how bad captivity can be.

He turns just enough to shut the door. It closes with a quiet, painful
click.

A shrug of his large shoulders drops his jacket to his hand. He tosses it on top of the dress, and it’s a strange intimacy, seeing our clothes mingled together. Next his fingers work at the buttons of his white shirt.

My breath strangles in my throat. “Giovanni. What are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer except to continue working the buttons, exposing more deep bronze skin and sculpted muscle. Down, down, to the sprinkle of dark hair in a sharp V.

I’ve seen naked bodies before, many of them. Amateur models undress almost daily in the art building for classes to draw. I’ve shaded that line down the middle, sketched those indentations arrowing down. I have run the tip of my pencil over a hundred different bodies, but never have I see one as hard and as strong as his. He’s all muscle, no fat—not even the kind of padding that makes a body warm and comforting. There’s nothing comforting about the way his abs ripple as he takes off the shirt.

“Gio,” I whisper.

I thought I had more time before he forced me. I thought he’d wait until we were married, even if that’s only days away. God, I thought he wouldn’t really do this to me.

His expression is flat, barely human. “You wanted to know, bella. You asked.”

It takes me a moment to register the question.
What happened to the boy I loved?

He turns to face the door, and my breath sucks in. This is his answer. There are crisscrossed scars on his back, wounds shaped like talons, skin that healed in thick ropes piled over each other. He wasn’t just beaten. He was tortured.

“Who did this to you?” I choke out.

He turns enough that I can see his face. The complete lack of pain there is almost more disturbing than the scars on his back. Whatever they did to him changed him, turned something off inside him. And I understand why he’s showing me this.

The boy I loved really did die years ago.

He lifts one broad shoulder, a shrug casual enough to break my heart. “The place was swarming with security for the big party. They were prepared for an attack against the Russians, considering your sister’s engagement would have been bad for them. You wouldn’t have made it out undetected.”

A knot has formed in my throat, so hard and so big I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to breathe normally again. I knew that he helped us escape. I suspected that he paid a price. Seeing the proof of that is almost too much to stand. “So you distracted them?”

“They were looking for an attack. I gave them one.”

“And they realized it was you?”

“Not right away.” Something cold flickers over his expression. “When they connected me to the explosion, they figured out why I’d done it. Nunzio told them we had been meeting in secret.”

I gasp because they were family. Cousins, technically, but like brothers. Giovanni had told Nunzio about meeting me in the pool house, had used his help to do it. “How could he do that to you?”

“They probably threatened him. Threatened his parents.” A pause. “Or maybe he didn’t want to get strung up in the basement like I was.”

Without meaning to, I take a step forward. A step toward him.

He puts his hand up to stop me. “I don’t need your pity, bella. Don’t waste it on me. I show you this so you’ll understand. So you don’t look to me for mercy. I have none.”

I swallow hard. He’s right. How can I beg him for freedom when he was tortured to try and save me? Those are not his scars. They’re mine. He took them for me. Grief shudders through me for the boy who died that night, in spirit if not in body. I may have believed him gone all this time, but now I know exactly how it happened. It broke something in him, and God, just the knowledge is breaking something inside me.

“You want me to wear that dress tomorrow night? Fine. I owe you that.” I force myself to take a breath. “I owe you more than I can ever repay. You want me to stand up in front of a priest and say the words
I do
for whatever power it will bring you? Fine.”

If I expected to see satisfaction, I would have been disappointed. I’m giving up everything I have to a statue made of stone. He doesn’t move, still naked from the waist up, still impenetrable.

I do take a step closer then, because I’m not completely defenseless here. At least, I hope I’m not. “But you can’t force me to consummate this marriage. I’m asking—” I’m more than asking. I’m begging. “Please, Gio. I may not love the man you are now, but don’t make me hate you.”

His head cocks to the side, his eyes incisive, like he’s trying to figure me out. “Do my scars disgust you that much?”

The crack that formed inside me at the sight of them breaks into a thousand pieces. “No, Gio—how could you think that? Your body doesn’t disgust me.” His body is beautiful and strong, a temple of masculine power. The scars don’t detract from that. He’s been forged in fire.

“Then what?”

“I don’t want to be forced, Giovanni. Not about that.”

He takes a step close, and his legs are long enough that we’re only inches apart. The air fills with the salt and spice of him. My heart races. His eyes are dark pools that I can sink into, quicksand, pulling me down faster the harder I struggle.

“Then don’t make me force you, bella. Don’t fight.”

My mouth opens, but nothing comes out. I can’t agree to this. It would be the same, whether I lashed out at him with my fists or whether I lay still and accepted him. Either way, it would be force. Because I have no choice. I can have no real choice as long as he holds me here.

“One more thing,” he murmurs. “Don’t ask Maria for help again. It won’t work.”

My breath catches in my chest. I hadn’t been sure she would help me, but I’d hoped she wouldn’t tell on me. Apparently her loyalty to Giovanni runs deeper than I thought. Certainly deeper than any of the household help felt for my father.

Before I can respond, he turns and strides from the room, his shirt and suit jacket still draped over the gold fabric of my dress, a symbol of his command over me even when he’s gone.

I
told Giovanni
I would stay and do what he needed. I think I might owe him that, not that I have much choice at the moment. But I’m not going to stay forever. Whatever power play he’s working on will end eventually. My mother escaped my father. I’ll find a way to leave too.

For right now, I’m focused on getting a message to Honor. She’ll be crazy with worry. She would have tried to call me the night of the party at the Grand and expected me to meet her for a spa day the next morning. For that matter, Amy will worry too. I have to at least let them know I’m alive, that I’m safe.

As safe as you can be with a mafia capo holding you captive.

The next morning I’m determined to find a crack in the walls. Clearly the girl, Maria, told Giovanni about me asking for help. Asking again won’t do any good and, more than likely, would just piss off Gio once he heard. Instead I focus on trying to get information. Maybe she can tell me something useful.

The tray she brings in this morning is piled with thick French toast and sliced fruit. She sets it down while Romero takes a snarling Lupo downstairs. Worry tugs at me as I watch the gray mop of fur disappear through the door, tail between his legs, body low to the ground. He doesn’t trust Romero, which is understandable. I don’t either. But he doesn’t trust me, doesn’t trust anyone.

That’s no way to live.

Maria looks like she’s about to leave once she sets the food out.

“I’m sorry,” I say quickly.

She doesn’t say anything, her eyes wary.

“I’m sorry I put you in that position. I know it would have been risky for you to do anything to help me. You could have gotten in trouble.”

Her dark brows lower, and I sense her indecision. Some part of her did want to help. Then her lips firm. “Mr. Costas is a good man.”

Forcing myself to look casual, I take a seat at the small table. The orange juice is freshly squeezed, like drinking sunshine—sunshine I desperately need after being indoors for two days now. I wonder if he’ll let me walk Lupo if I ask him.

He’d have to trust me for that.

“You seem very loyal to him,” I say. “I’m not sure anyone was that loyal to my father, even his men.”

“Loyalty is the only thing holding us together,” she says, her tone fierce.

My father said something similar, except he used the word
blood.
Blood was the only thing holding us together. It’s interesting to hear how things changed now that a man who wasn’t in line has the helm.