Page 10 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
I turn left. The first room I come across is a sitting room. Empty. So I backtrack heading in the opposite direction. I find a dining room. Empty. Long table. Sixteen chairs. One vase of white flowers in the center. No children. No sign of them. No jacket, no toy, no cup left behind. Nothing that says Erin and Heath were brought through here.
My chest tightens as I keep looking.
The kitchen is occupied by two women and one very startled man who nearly drops a tray when I suddenly appear in the doorway. One of the women looks me over, takes in the robe, the bare feet, the bandaged wrist, and decides with the speed of a professional survivor that she saw nothing worth mentioning.
“Coffee?” she asks.
I pause. Of all the possible greetings, that was not on the list of expectations.
“Do people usually say yes when asked if they want coffee after your boss drags them here unwillingly?”
Her mouth twitches before she catches herself. “No, miss.”
“Then there’s your answer.”
She nods and turns back to her work, seemingly unbothered by my refusal. I leave before I can decide whether the coffee is worth the trouble. It is probably good. That annoys me too. Nothing in this house has the decency to be cheap, ugly, or poorly maintained. Even the silence feels polished.
I am halfway down the next hall when I hear the sound of a paper page turning. It is soft. Almost nothing. But it stops me all the same. Tracking it to a room at the end of the hall where a door is open by a few inches. Warm light spilling through the gap.
I move toward it.
Bare feet on tiptoes. Slow, controlled breaths. Quiet as I can be. No weapon except whatever I can make from the room once I reach it. I am not in good condition for a fight, but I have never required ideal conditions to make someone regret touching me.
Inside, Stefano is reading. Actually reading.
He sits in a leather chair near the window with one ankle crossed over his knee, a book open in one hand, and a glass of something dark on the table beside him. His shirt is black, sleeves rolled to his forearms, tattoos visible now beneath the warm lamplight. There is a faint red mark along one cheekbone where my head caught him before he drugged me.
That improves my mood considerably.
He doesn’t look up as I slip inside. “You’re awake.”
I hate him for knowing.
“Disappointed?” I ask.
“More curious.”
“About?”
“How long it took you to find me.”
I step into the room. “You weren’t exactly hiding, you left the door open.”
“I left several doors open.”
“I noticed. I know what you're doing. A gilded cage is still a cage.”
“Perhaps,” he says, turning another page. “But it’s more entertaining.”
The room is cozy, lived in. Dark shelves line three walls, stacked with books that look read rather than staged. A heavy desk sits near the fireplace, too neat to belong to anyone with a soul. There are files arranged at one corner, a fountain pen placed parallel to the blotter, a crystal decanter, and a letter opener with a narrow silver blade.
It’s the first thing I’ve seen that might give me even a slight chance at having the upper hand in this entire house. I glance at Stefano; he still has not looked at me. I cross the room as if inspecting the books on the shelves.
“You drugged me,” I say simply, keeping the conversation moving.
“I did.”
“You kidnapped me.”
