Page 9

CHAPTER 9

Sienna

I feel like Rapunzel, trapped up in this tower with nobody else for company. No wonder the Disney princess resorted to talking to a chameleon. At this point, I’m really wishing for a chameleon of my own.

With an irritated groan, I shut the book I’m reading and toss it away from me. I’m going stir-crazy being trapped inside here with nobody to speak to. It’s been five days since Vin—no—Alessandro walked out of those doors and seemingly disappeared.

Five days of me twiddling my thumb and dreading the day he decides I’m not of any use to him alive after all.

As an artist, I’m used to endless hours where I do nothing but inhale instant noodles and paint, but the monotony was often broken up by phone calls to either my dad or Kat, my rap playlist, or cute cat videos on the internet.

I can’t remember the last time I went more than six hours without talking to either my best friend or father. While I often used to see their constant checkups as being intrusive, it’s the thing I crave most of all.

Never again will I disregard their efforts to reach out to me.

That is if I even survive this. I have to survive this.

I’ve never really thought of death. It has always just been something that is distant. The past few days, I have felt it like a boulder crushing down on my lungs and taunting me.

Will today be the unlucky day?

“If you’re not going to help me, you can at least talk back to me.” I glare at the woman who is pushing a vacuum cleaner around my room.

The woman is five foot nothing with silver hair that’s always tied into a severe bun at the back of her head. She ignores me, as usual.

I’m really starting to suspect Alessandro promised her torture, followed by death, if she ever speaks to me.

Well, today, I’m not taking silence for an answer. I jump out of the bed and move toward her.

“I’m talking to you,” I say.

She jumps, turning around to face me with her eyes saucer wide.

“Did he tell you he’ll kill you if you talked to me?” I demand. “Where is he? What is he paying you to keep your mouth shut? I can pay you double to let me out of here.”

All of the money I got from The Revelation has to be enough to bribe the cleaner into helping me, but she only presses her mouth into a thin line and turns back to her cleaning.

I’ve never been a violent person, so it comes as a shock to me when I see my hands reach for the woman’s shoulders and then yank them to me.

She yelps as I bring her to my face.

“What is wrong with you? Are you so heartless that you don’t care I’ve been kept here against my own will? Is all the money he’s paying you enough to buy your sense of humanity? When I get out of here, I’ll make sure you end up behind bars like your boss.”

For the first time, she speaks. My jaw drops open as gibberish begins to fly out of her mouth, with her gesticulating wildly.

I immediately jump away from her. “What?”

More gibberish that I now realize is Mandarin comes out of her mouth.

“Oh God,” I whisper.

She has no idea what I’ve been saying this whole time, and who knows what that jerk told her. He probably made it seem like I’m a crazy, unpredictable woman who he’s trying to keep safe here.

The older woman is now staring at me warily.

“Carry on with your work. I’m going to bed.”

What else is there to do anyway? The books Alessandro filled the room with are shitty, and it’s my own damn fault. I recognize several of the titles as having graced my own bookshelf at home.

But I know for a fact that he just bought copies of my books and didn’t take the ones from my shelf. I know this because my books are a front.

The first time Sal caught me with a steamy romance book, he made such a fuss about them rotting my brain, and then he bought me some self-help trash the next day. I didn’t read them or any of the other ones he bought. Instead, I ordered book jackets and wore them over my smut books.

Modern problems require modern solutions.

Unfortunately, I’m now reaping what I sowed. I shift my gaze to the How to Become a Powerful Woman book lying at the foot of the bed and then sigh.

I can’t just continue to accept my fate. I’m sure the people who cared about me were going crazy, as was I. I have to do something.

But what?

My gaze lands on the tiny cleaning woman. I have about four inches and several pounds on her. It shouldn’t be difficult to overpower her. Or trick her.

A plan begins to form in my head.

My hands feel clammy as I make my way to the bathroom while making sure she sees what I’m doing. I shut the bathroom door and bolt it, then grab some wet wipes off the counter.

Taking a deep breath, I get to my knees and begin to stuff the drain with the wipes. Satisfied, I turn on the shower and get my head under it to wet my hair a little, then I wait for the water level to rise up.

A few minutes later, I rush out of the bathroom.

“Can you fix that?” I point at the flooded bathroom. “Water. Everywhere,” I emphasize, so there’s no mistake about what I mean.

Her sharp eyes take in my wet hair and the towel slung over my shoulder, then she follows the direction of my finger to the bathroom.

A sound of irritation falls out of her mouth, and she grabs the plunger from her bucket of tools and marches to the bathroom.

As she walks past me, I make myself stumble into her. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

She mutters something in Mandarin and continues on her way. As soon as she’s past the bathroom doors, I grab it and shut it before bolting it behind her. She screams from inside, rapid words sounding from the other side of the door. I don’t need to know the language to realize she’s cursing me out.

With a smile, I stare at the key card I’ve just picked out of her pocket.

“Yes!” I exclaim with a laugh.

Tossing the towel away, I jump into action, swiping the key card over the room door to unlock it. The red light on the glass turns green, and I whoop, a smile splitting my face.

There’s a living room and kitchen on one corner and a hallway on another. I follow the hallway, and it leads me to an elevator door.

I swipe the card over the door.

“Access denied,” a robotic voice informs me.

“What!” I cry, swiping again and again.

“Access denied. Access denied,” the voice repeats.

I let out a growl of frustration, even as my mind continues to race. How has she been using the elevator? How has she been getting out of the building? There has to be a staircase somewhere.

With that thought in mind, I begin to race frantically from room to room.

I find the door leading to the stairwell tucked beside a home office, and I push it open, relief causing tears in my eyes as I stare at the stairs that represent my freedom.

I race down the stairs with my heart thumping in my chest, but I don’t make it very far. At the last stair before the landing, my wet feet slip on the smooth metal of the staircase, and I crash to the ground, catching myself with my hands at the last minute to save my face.

I try to get up again, but a sharp pain slices through my ankle, and I drop back down with a painful howl.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a dark voice growls at me.

My head snaps up to see none other than my captor standing at the top of the stairs. Today, he’s in a brown plaid double-breasted suit, complete with a dark brown tie and pocket square.

“Look who decided to grace me with his presence,” I whisper snidely.

He walks down the stairs leisurely, his gaze zeroing in on me. I resist the urge to smooth down my hair. Whoever did the clothes shopping for me needs a bat to the shin. An endless row of matching two-piece loungewear fills my new closet. It wouldn’t have been so bad, except they are all either grey, navy blue, white, black, or a faded green.

Just another reason I have to leave here and stop wearing this awful, dystopian, prison-like uniform.

He squats in front of me, shifting his eyes to my hurt leg.

“I didn’t think you had it in you.” I can’t place the tone of his voice, so I choose to ignore him.

“Are you going to shoot out my kneecaps to stop me from escaping again?” I try to sound fearless, but I just end up sounding nervous.

My only reply is the grim look he shoots me before lifting me into his arms.

“Put me down!”

“Shut the fuck up. You’re in so much trouble.”

A full-body shiver goes through me, and I freeze, the pain in my ankle momentarily forgotten.

He carries me to my bed and drops me into it before leaving the room. I look around for the Chinese maid, but I don’t see any signs of her. I hope she doesn’t get killed for what I did.

As soon as Alessandro returns, I open my mouth to beg him not to hurt the woman, but my words die a quick death when I see the first aid box in his hand.

I still as he takes a seat at the foot of the bed and cups my ankle in his big hands.

“I don’t need your help,” I bite out.

His eyes flash. “Don’t tempt me, Sienna.”

“Do your worst, Alessandro.”

He applies something cool to the skin of my ankle and then wraps it in a bandage, his fingers deft. The whole time, I try to breathe normally, not wanting him to see how rattled I am by his hands on me.

Heat licks up my leg, and I pinch myself to distract myself from the sensation, hating myself for wanting him to slide his hands a little bit higher.

“Done,” he says, squeezing my foot.

A moan slips out of my mouth, and we both freeze. My cheeks heat up, and his eyes darken. As if he can read every illicit thought in my head, his hands begin to slide up and up and up.

At that moment, I’m transported back to the charged feeling with the stranger at the gallery. The stranger who turned out to be a man with a personal vendetta against my father. Reality breaks through the desire curling up inside me, and ever so slowly, I reach out for the vase at the side of the bed.

It’s now or never.

With a ferocious cry, I grab it and start to bring it down on his head. What happens next is a blur. The vase is knocked out of my hand, and it crashes to the ground, shattering into pieces. My hands are immediately pinned over my head by one big hand, and Alessandro’s other hand is wrapped around my throat, his body pinning me to the bed.

To my surprise, my sense of danger remains dormant. Instead, his body pressing over mine causes an ache, and my nipples are hard points in my bra.

I don’t realize I’m biting down on my lip until his fingers move up from my neck and tug the abused lip free. A small gasp leaves my throat. His mouth is so close.

Yes. Please.

The moment is shattered by a sudden loud, buzzing sound. I flinch, horrified by my own actions, and Alessandro leaps away from me like I’m contagious.

He shoots me a look of disgust that makes shame clog my throat, and then he turns away and presses his phone to his ear.

“Yes?”