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As soon as I can speak, I croak, “You’re alive.”
“Yes.” He moves so his face is in shadow, and there’s no emotion in his voice. Not that he lets much show on his face. “Despite your best efforts.”
“So am I.” I raise my head and look around. I’m naked, my body shockingly tanned in this cold, sterile place. The cuffs encircling my wrists and ankles are steel half circles that look sautered right to the table. The room is long and low-ceilinged, without windows, and only white walls, silver cabinets, and glaring fluorescent lights. Like a lab. “You haven’t killed me.” Yet.
Victor steps away, and the harsh overhead light blinds me. I turn my head and blink rapidly. My brain is scrambling to figure a way out of this.
He’s fully dressed, of course, in simple slacks and a T-shirt that’s nondescript in a stealth-wealth sort of way. All black. A good color to hide blood.
How many victims have died in this room? I inhale, but I only smell cleaning chemicals. Sanitation, the professional murderer’s best friend.
“Why would I kill you?” He touches me then, wrapping a long, graceful finger around my ankle. My heart leaps, every cell in my body straining towards his touch, his warmth. I’m laid out like a cadaver, but his touch reminds me I’m alive.
He strokes the inside of my leg like I’m an object he acquired at great expense. “There’s no fun in that.”
“So you’re not going to kill me, then?” I try to scoff, but my voice wavers.
“Do you want to die?”
“Everyone dies.” My answer comes too quickly. He removes his hand.
“No, beautiful. You will not die tonight.”
One night. I have one night. My heart beats a sad, fragile rhythm like a moth with broken wings fluttering toward a light.
I seduced him once. Could I do it again? My body suddenly thinks that’s why we’re here. All it took was Victor’s touch and his delicious scent. It’s not cologne; it’s just him. A fresh, sexy cocktail of pheromones perfectly calibrated to entice me.
My core throbs with a second, shadowy beat. A wave of lust turns my nakedness and my bound wrists and ankles into a kinky game.
I take a deep breath and let it roll through me, elongating my torso and arching my breasts. I lick my lips, ready to speak, but he beats me to it.
“No, my little liar. I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to break you.”
Victor
Lucrezia Romano, daughter of Giovanni and Vera Romano, scion of the Regis family. A mafia princess by birth. A lawyer by training. Lula to her family.
My prisoner. She lies on my table with her silky dark hair pooled around her head. A Madonna in repose, but for her sharp gaze flitting around the room. Searching for escape. Naked and bolted to the table, she is still mentally throwing herself against the walls of her cage. Figuring out her next steps.
I will have to stay ten moves ahead to win this game. She is my equal in every way. The bullet she put in my belly is proof of that.
The healed wound in my gut twinges as I move around the table.
“Break me? What do you mean?” She looks up at me through her lashes.
I grip her face and let my thumb stroke the line of her jaw. “Oh no, beautiful. I know your tricks. You will not make me forget myself again.”
She quivers like a rabbit. A small part of me wants to unlock the steel cuffs and gather her close. Shush her until she relaxes in my arms.
I’ve never had such weakness around anyone before. It is a novel sensation.
Another part of me knows she’s playing a part, allowing me to see what emotions she wants me to see—the better to bend me to her will. But I have too many elaborate plans and ways I will wreak my revenge.
“How will you break me?”
“You want to know my plan? Do I owe you the truth? Vera?”
Her dark eyes turn flinty. “Did you expect me to give you my real name?”
