Page 9 of The Enslaved Duet

“So, this is how you repay me?” I snapped.

“I told you that day to take care where you stick your pretty little neck out. A hunter like me might find you too pretty a thing not to take a bite out of, or at least to use as bait.”

Despite myself, his cruel expression scared me. Goose bumps ripped like torn Velcro across my flesh. “I didn’t take you for a man who would resort tobuyinga woman like livestock.”

A shift came over his face unlike anything I had ever seen before. His placid expression melted away to reveal the cold as stone heart of him.

I opened my mouth to say something but stopped when he took a massive step forward into my space. His fingers found my chin and held it in a firm grip so that I couldn’t look away from his liquid black eyes.

Without thought, my lips curled into a snarl at his proximity.

“Irish and Italian,” he scolded with a soft click of his tongue against his teeth. “I doubt you’ll prove the stereotypes incorrect and prove to be an obedient, docile little slave.”

“Hai ragione,” I said, agreeing with him.

He surprised me by smiling sharply into my face, pressing a thumb over the middle of my closed lips so that I couldn’t speak. “No problem, my beauty. I look forward to breaking you.”

Then, before I could bite his thumb off the way I planned, a sharp, small pain erupted at the side of my neck, and I passed out.

Four months earlier.

Outside, Milan was sweltering and bright. A baby cried somewhere in the street while another couple argued furiously in Italian dialect. The yellow light of a mid-spring dawn saturated the waiting room and made the multitudes of beautiful women lining the white plastic chairs blink sleepily. It was five am and no one had the right to be attractive at such an early hour but for these women, visible fatigue was not an option.

I sat in the corner in the small, stuffy room clutching my portfolio with both damp palms. It was abysmal really, next to the stacks of photos weighing heavily in the other models’ laps but I couldn’t afford to be pessimistic. There were sixty-seven girls vying for the same multimillion-dollar campaign, and each was more beautiful than the last. A gorgeous African woman with skin like polished bronze and a caramel kissed Afro sat next to me chatting with one of those rare Asian women who are both tall and curvy. Across from me, sat Cara Delavigne and the girls beside me were speaking quietly about Kate Upton’s chances of being chosen. This kind of gig was a model’s golden ticket and everyone in town wanted it.

The only edge I had against them was this; Ineededit.

The money from a job like this could go beyond just paying Giselle’s art school tuition and using the meager remains to keep the rest of the family in Naples afloat. It could set up Elena in university, get Sebastian out of his dead-end factory job and put Mama in a house with working heat and plumbing. It would get the black-eyed mafia men circling our dying economy like carrion away from us for good.

I shifted the weight of the world on my shoulders so it settled more comfortably and reminded myself that if Atlas could hold up the world, I could withstand holding up my own.

The door to the interview room swung open and a ruffled blonde emerged. Her heels made atsksound as she hastily crossed the floor between us all and it reminded me of my mother, her finger wagging, tongue clacking as she chastised me.

“Cosima Lombardi.”

My head snapped up and I took in the sight of the slim redhead who called my name. She had freckles and a pinched look that I could empathize with; it was obviously stressful catering to exacting businessmen and neurotic models. I smiled demurely at her as I moved passed her through the doorway she stood in, but she only blinked up at me and closed the door firmly behind us.

I took a deep breath to center myself, pulling every particle of confidence like a shield around myself, before I turned around to face the panel for the go-see.

Four people would be my judges. The first was perhaps my biggest challenge, Freida Liv. Arguably the most successful model in the world in the past ten years, she was heartrendingly beautiful. Her golden hair was cut short, she had been one of the first to adopt the radical page boy cut twelve years ago, and showcased a perfectly symmetrical face made striking with pale, luminous blue eyes. Despite her beauty, her expression was unattractive, pinched and distorted as if someone were pulling her apart. I guessed someone was, after all, since she was interviewing for her replacement.

The other was an older man, deeply tanned with eyes like the faded denim of his button-up shirt and brilliant white blonde hair. This was Jensen Brask, the infamous director of the St. Aubyn fashion house who often forced his models to commit heinous mental tasks before hiring them. Modelling might seem glamorous, he was once recorded saying, but it required true mental fortitude. I was surprised he was here, at the second casting call, when I knew this was only the intermediate step in the selection process. He watched me with a slight frown as I stepped before them, my arms at my sides, my face carefully devoid of emotion. It was always this way at go-sees, the inevitable staring contest while they judged you unashamedly on every physical asset they could reach with their eyes and imaginations. In my limited experience, it was best to stand still and take it.

Next to him sat Willa Percy, the CEO and founder of Looking Glass Models, one of the largest modelling agencies in the world. If I landed this job, not only would it secure me this massive, international campaign but also a place on Willa Percy’s golden docket. She was a beautifully groomed African-American woman clad entirely in Chanel, but there was a look in her eyes that didn’t speak of class but of ruthless, poverty-given ambition.

I knew that look because I’d seen it in my eyes often when I looked in the mirror.

The final critic was none other than the man I’d be modelling beside in the campaigns, Jace Galantine. In less than three years, he had appeared on the American model scene and without skipping a beat, he became one of the biggest names in the industry. Now, he had secured his place as the male face of the St. Aubyn brand, and he had the authority to veto whomever he wanted as his female accomplice. He was staring at me intently; his square cut facial features compressed as he studied me.

Boldly, I met his gaze and winked slowly at him.

He blinked before erupting into throaty laughter that was absurdly attractive. “Who is this, Renna?”

The redhead checked her clipboard. “Cosima Moore, 17 years old, Italian, Tivoli Models Roma.”

The judges efficiently located my headshot amid their folders and spent a moment reading it over. It was a short portfolio, and I wrung my hands nervously when Freida Liv tossed it aside with a flick of her thin wrist.

“Your biggest campaign was in June with Mila Cosmetic,” Willa Percy confirmed. “And most recently Intimissimi lingerie?”