Page 21 of Owned By the Mafia Don
"I don't want to keep you here," he says. "But your father needs to pay what he owes."
"He's not coming." The words come out flat because I have stopped dressing them up, at least in here, at least with myself. I have been turning it over for days and the shape of it doesn't change no matter how I approach it. Alana is a coward and she would have told Gerald the moment the pressure became inconvenient, and Gerald would have told my father, and my father would have looked at whatever information landed on his desk and made a calculation and the calculation would not have landed in my favor. He is probably relieved. One less thing in his vision, asking for his attention.
I look at him.
"He doesn't care about me," I say. "He never has. Not after my mother died." I pause. "You can use me as collateral. I won't fight it. But I have one condition."
He watches me.
"Want me," I say. "Look at me. Pay attention to me." I hear how it sounds and I keep going anyway because I am past the point of protecting my dignity about this. "I know how pathetic thatis. The closest thing I have to a friend is a cousin who actively dislikes me and you are, genuinely, the only person who has looked me in the eye for longer than I can remember." I hold his gaze. "I won't run again. I'll wait here until you sort whatever you need to sort with my father. But until then, be good to me."
He is quiet for a moment.
"Princess," he says, and his voice is soft in the way that means nothing gentle, "I can kill you right here. What cards do you think you're holding?"
I lean forward. "You need me alive. And I can hurt myself."
His face changes. Something pulls tight behind his eyes and I file it away.
Someone needs me alive. Someone needs me in one piece. I have not felt that in a very long time and the fact that the someone in question is my kidnapper is a conversation I will have with myself at a later date.
"Audacious," he says. "I'll give you that." His voice hardens. "I don't like being threatened."
"It's not a threat." I reach up and cup his jaw and I feel him go still beneath my hand. "It's a plea. I don't know you and I don't know what any of this is but?—"
He pulls back.
"Then beg for it," he says.
I stare at him.
He leans in and the softness is entirely gone now, replaced with something sharp and deliberate and almost cruel. "You're a pathetic rich girl that nobody likes, aren't you?"
He almost smiles. "That's why you're asking your kidnapper to want you. That's quite low, princess. Really low." He tilts his head. "You can go lower. Beg for it. Tell me how good you'll be for my crumbs. How badly do you want someone to love you since your daddy doesn't?"
I try to pull back. His hand clutches my chin.
"Say it," he murmurs.
His eyes are very close and very still and I can feel his breath and the tears that sting my eyes are humiliation and exhaustion and something older and more fundamental than either and I am so tired of holding all of it in rooms where no one is watching.
"I'll be good," I say, and my voice shakes on it. "I'll do anything. Just look at me."
He kisses me, biting down on my lips gently. My eyes flutter shut and he pulls back and kisses the tears off my face, my cheeks, the corner of my eye, and the tenderness of it after the cruelty of the last sixty seconds makes me shudder.
He pulls back and looks at me.
"That's more like it," he says quietly. "I like this deal, princess. We can work with this."
Then he winces.
I look down. A small dark bloom is spreading through the white bandaging at his chest and I feel my stomach turn over.
"You need to change the dressing," I tell him.
"I know." He stands. "Since you've promised to behave, you can move through the house. But the chain stays on and if you try anything," he holds my gaze, "my men will not hesitate."
I nod.
