Page 31 of The Wrong Mafia Bride
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, metallicclinkcuts 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, finalthunkvibrates 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.
