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CHAPTER 7

ISLA

I t’s been a few days since I’ve been able to leave my room again. Since Vincent’s gone, Marco’s been my only companion. I’ve heard other men outside the door in the penthouse. One of them, the man who was here with Vincent the night that I broke the window, sounds like a real jerk. Now I can hear him out there talking with Marco on the other side of the door. “Don’t get too soft with her, Junior,” he warns. “Consider that woman nothing but trouble for Vincent; treat her like a hostile prisoner. If it were up to me, I’d have gotten rid of her already.”

“Come on, Alonzo,” Marco says in my defense. “She’s not a threat as long as she’s inside that room. Besides, I’d imagine that being Vincent’s underboss means that you’ve got more important things to take care of than a ballerina.”

I can hear Alonzo let out a disagreeable grunting sound. “Ballerina or not, she’s trouble , mark my words. And I don’t want to see the boss getting distracted by her pretty face. She’s barely old enough to be turning his attention as it is. Trust me, I’ve got a daughter her age, and I know how they can be. She’s a dancer too. And if I didn’t keep a tight leash on her, Sera would be out throwing herself at the feet of any handsome, powerful men like Vincent as well. Women need to be kept on a short leash, especially the young ones, or else they cause problems.”

I try to place the name I hear, Sera , to see if it’s a dancer that I’m familiar with. I wonder if he means Serena Ferraro. She’s been a dance rival of mine ever since I started rising in the world of ballet. It seems like another lifetime ago now that I’ve been stuck inside here. One week felt like an eternity. And just when I wonder why Madame Durant hasn’t turned the city upside down looking for me yet, Alonzo mentions her name.

“We’ve got Durant curtailed for now,” he continues. “She’s a manipulative witch, but she’s easy enough to coax into cooperating.”

I bristle when I hear anyone attack Madame Durant’s character and call her names. She’s been a mother figure, fiercely protective of her dancers and company. That said, I guess there are a few things I don’t know about Madame Durant from the sounds of it too.

“Oh?” Marco asks. It almost seems like he’s trying to keep Vincent’s underboss talking, as if he knows that I’m listening from inside my room. That’s impossible, right? Why would one of Vincent’s men want to help me? As kind as Marco has been to me, I have no delusions about his loyalty lying firmly with Vincent.

“Yeah,” Alonzo chuckles. He must find all of these games that they play with people’s lives very entertaining. “I think the old woman still carries a lot of grief and guilt over her dead daughter. Blames herself, if you ask me. It’s no surprise then the way that she latches onto her favorite dancers like Isla Hart. She’s trying to fill a hole in her chest, an open void. Which makes it pretty damn easy to convince her to keep quiet.”

“I don’t understand,” Marco says. “How did you get Celeste Durant to agree not to go to the cops?”

“Simple. I told her if she opened her mouth, we’d kill her star dancer. I told her I’d do it myself, hack our captured ballerina up one piece at a time. She won’t be squealing to anyone anytime soon.”

Stepping back from the door, I’m horrified by the enforcer’s ruthlessness. If what he said is true, then it’s clear he prefers violence as his main negotiating tool. He’s not a man I want to cross. He’s the kind of man who would kill me on impulse and then ask for Vincent’s forgiveness after the deed is done. I’ve never been more thankful to have Marco standing outside the door and keeping him out. Vincent’s harsh world seems filled with terrifying men, but at least Marco’s small moments of kindness and protection help to humanize it a bit.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go,” Alonzo says to my relief. “While Vincent is busy with that pretty face inside, our enemies are still scheming on the streets. Someone has to keep this operation from folding.”

Just as I hear footsteps walk away, Marco calls after him. “Alonzo,” he says in a measured, softly aggressive tone that is impressive for his young age and lesser position inside this gang of thugs. “I’d be careful not to undermine Vincent.”

“Are you threatening me, Junior?” Alonzo asks as he walks back.

Vincent speaks before anyone else can.

“Is there a problem, gentlemen?” Vincent asks in an icy tone.

“No, sir. I was just checking on Junior here. Now I’m leaving to go take care of some other matters,” Alonzo backpedals.

“Good, I won’t keep you then.”

A couple of minutes pass silently while Marco shows Alonzo to the penthouse exit. There’s volatility between Vincent’s underboss and some of the rest of his men. Maybe even with Vincent himself, and I’m glad that man is now gone.

A minute passes as I listen, unsure if Vincent will seek me out. When he doesn’t, I decide to calm my nerves with a hot bath. Hearing about how Madame Durant is being blackmailed and knowing that anytime Vincent or Marco isn’t standing outside my door leaves the chance for one of the more brutal men to slip in and kill me, has my nerves on edge and my outlook feeling bleak.

I step into the bathroom and draw the water for the tub. There’s a whole plethora of scented bath salts and bottles of bubble bath at my disposal in here. I choose one that smells like ripe peaches and toss a splash into the running water. While undressing, I think about how strange yet comforting it is to enjoy a simple pleasure such as a hot bath while still in captivity. I guess that’s what people do when they’re traumatized. They look for the little things they can grasp onto to help them feel some sense of normalcy.

After dipping a toe in to check the temperature, I slide down into the tub, resting my head on the back of the porcelain and letting the warm, silky water cover me. The feeling is one of instant relaxation for my muscles, even if my spirit is still uneasy. The bubbles only partially cover my breasts, leaving my nipples and knees exposed. It isn’t until I’m already comfortable that I look up and realize I’ve forgotten to close the bathroom door. I suppose it doesn’t matter because no one brings my next meal in for a few hours, still. That’s when I notice the tiny cameras in the corners of the room. Two of them, both pointed directly at the bathtub as if they rotated viewpoints to follow me in here. I expected monitoring given my confinement, especially after my window-breaking attempt. I stare into the camera nearest me and can practically feel Vincent’s eyes looking back through the lens at me. It’s wrong. I feel more enticed to stay right here and keep staring at the camera rather than get out of the tub and cover myself.

Upon glancing at the camera’s blinking light, I realize I’m being watched. A sudden feeling of no longer being alone washes over me. Sure enough, as I turn to look, Vincent enters the bathroom.

In the doorway, he stands silently. He doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t try to touch me. He just… watches .

I don’t know what comes over me, but instead of telling him to leave, or getting out of the bath, I reach for the bar of soap and wash. My eyes hold his as I run the slippery bar over the crests of my breasts and sit up straighter in the tub until the bubbles no longer hide the pinkish flush of my skin.

My eyes drop to the crotch of his pants when I can’t help noticing the growing bulge there.

I should stop—I know I should stop. By doing this, I’m tempting fate—and tempting the Devil. I expect something unwanted to happen. Despite that, I can’t seem to help myself. Instead of being afraid of Vincent, I’m turned on by the way he’s watching my hands trace over my body.

I let my hair fall down around my shoulders as I sink back down in the tub, keeping my chin just above the water and my lips slightly parted as I continue to stare back at him. Vincent stands frozen, his steely eyes unblinking, his body motionless except for the subtle swelling in his pants.

When I reach my hand down with the bar of soap between my legs, the tension between us rises to a level that seems unbearable. I tremble, wondering and maybe even wanting whatever is about to happen next. But then, as quickly as he appeared, Vincent turns and leaves without ever having spoken a single word.

As soon as he’s gone, I realize what a mistake that could have erupted into. What the hell was I thinking? He isn’t some dark knight or seductive anti-hero—Vincent Moretti is a mafia man, a cold-hearted killer, and a vicious man who has stolen me from my life. Any fantasies I’ve allowed to creep into my head need to stop right now .

I avoid lustful thoughts about him during the day, but my subconscious desires take over when I try to sleep. Almost as soon as I drift off into a deep slumber, I dream.

My dream feels so real that it’s hard to distinguish what I’m imagining now in my sleep from what happened earlier today. In my dream, I’m back in the bath again and Vincent is still standing in the doorway watching me. This time, he doesn’t stay still or quiet. This time, he walks toward the tub and reaches his hand down into the water beside me. I can hear his voice in my head as if it’s actually taking place.

“ You want me to touch you, Isla ,” he says with an insatiably sultry look in his eyes. “ Don’t you ?”

I nod, unable to speak even though I open my mouth to try.

He slides his hand between my legs, and his fingers open me like parting the petals of a flower. When he strokes me, I can feel it every bit as intensely as if I were awake, as if his touch were actually really happening.

Tilting my head back against the tub’s side, I let him touch me until I feel like I might burst.

“ Stop, ” I beg, even though I want him to continue. “I shouldn’t…I can’t?—”

“You can do anything you want with me,” he says smoothly as he keeps his hand in place. “You’re my little ballerina, and I can make your body dance for me.”

The sensation rises to the point of no return, and right at the moment when I feel myself cascade over the edge of pleasure, I open my eyes.

I sit up in bed, breathing heavily and urging the ache between my legs to subside. The dream may not have been real, but the fact that I woke up soaked in shame is.

I stare out the window as I try to calm myself down and get my bearings. Outside the door, I can still hear Marco standing guard. Inside my room, I can see the tiny blinking red lights of the surveillance cameras. I wonder if Vincent is still watching me through them now. I wonder if he could see the pleasure coursing through my body before waking from that dream. Most of all, I wonder why he watched me for so long in the bath without making a move to touch me.

Perhaps he’s having trouble sleeping tonight, too, and is watching the cameras right now. As if to tempt fate even further, I step out of bed and slip my wet panties off and toss them onto the nearby chair. Then, without replacing them and wearing nothing underneath the soft shirt that falls just above my knees, I climb back into bed.

If he is watching me, then he’ll have seen that. And Vincent will know I’m here between these silk sheets with nothing keeping him from coming in here and touching me how he just did in my dream. Am I playing with fire—yes, definitely . Do I feel ashamed by the way I’m feeling? Yes, at least a bit. But when I close my eyes again, I feel something else too. I feel a sort of sweet satisfaction in knowing that maybe, just maybe , I’ve caused the powerful, feared mafia leader who can control men with a single sweep of his hand to lose a little bit of control over himself thanks to me. Clearly, he has an iron will. From the looks of the hardening at the front of his pants earlier today, he might have an iron cock too. I can’t help but shake the feeling that there is a pressure point inside that man somewhere. I could open a crack in him, releasing his tightly held control. Maybe that’s how I go from being captive here to becoming queen .

Madame Durant once told me that beauty is a currency to be spent wisely. I’m beginning to understand what that means.