WHEN I WOKE, MY HEAD throbbed and my mouth felt like I’d swallowed a bag of cotton balls. I wasn’t in the jet anymore; instead, I was in a small room I didn’t recognize. I rolled over and swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, holding the edge of the mattress until the urge to puke passed.
Where am I?
The furniture was dark wood and the linens were gray and navy, masculine colors. The shades were drawn, and the only light in the room came from a small lamp on the bureau. The glow cast a circle of light on framed pictures, and I moved toward them, hoping they’d give me a clue about where I was.
But all they did was confuse me more.
They were all pictures of me. In one, I recognized a dress I hadn’t worn since dinner after my college graduation. I remembered because Dom had taken me out to celebrate, one of the rare times we’d had a father-daughter moment in the last decade. Another picture was from only a few days before I left New York as I was leaving work. Finally, it was the last one that scared the ever-loving crap out of me. I was naked. In my bed. My vibrator in my hand and my eyes squeezed closed as I orgasmed.
I wanted to throw up, and it had nothing to do with my aching head.
Angelo.
How? And why? He’d always been more kind and personable than any of my other babysitters, but everything seemed to point to it being a front for something much scarier.
He kidnapped me. Hit me. Drugged me.
None of that seemed like the guy I thought I knew.
And now he has a picture of me at my most intimate moment? Shivers of revulsion tore through me. Any sense of security and privacy I had was destroyed.
But why?
I knocked the frame facedown on the bureau so I didn’t have to look at the picture. I wanted to take it out and tear it up, but I had to focus. I had to escape. It was up to me now.
I rushed to the door and yanked on the handle.
Locked.
I spun and headed for the window, but didn’t make it more than a few steps before the door swung open.
“I saw you were awake. You like our room? I thought you might. You don’t need all that girly shit like you have at home. That’s not who you really are.” A smug smile stretched across Angelo’s face.
“Where am I? Where’s my father?”
“You don’t need to worry about anything, Eden. I got you covered. This is our new place. No one’s going to bother us here. You slept longer than I thought, though. It’s almost time for breakfast.”
“You said you were bringing me home. I want to go home!” I was trying to hold on to my sanity and not lose it in hysterics, but Angelo’s crazy talk was making it hard.
“You are home.” He emphasized every word. “This is where you’re going to be from now on. I’ve been working up to this for a long time. All your favorite stuff is in the bathroom. I bought you new clothes too.”
Working up to this for a long time?
I studied Angelo’s expression, trying to pinpoint what the difference was. Instead of deferential, he was cocky and assertive.
I gestured to the dresser and demanded, “How did you get that picture?”
He didn’t even ask which one I was talking about. “From the cameras,” he said as though it were obvious. There wasn’t a hint of remorse either.
“Cameras?” My brain was having trouble computing.
“Yeah. How did you expect me to keep you safe when I wasn’t around if I didn’t know what was happening? You never had to worry about anything, Eden. I was always there for you. You were never alone.”
Disgust blew through me. “You watched me?”
He nodded. “You can’t pretend you didn’t know. You put on shows just for me. I know you did.”
I wanted to throw up at the thought of him watching that, of seeing me so exposed. My stomach twisted and threatened to rebel.
“How could you?”
Angelo shrugged. “I just wanted to keep you safe. I had to be able to see everything. But now we can be together all the time, and I’ll never let anyone get to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
He was crazy. I’d never seen it before, but I could see it now.
His swarthy skin creased around his dark eyes as a smile spread over his face. “We’re gonna be together. Forever.”
I knew I had to be careful when dealing with someone this unbalanced, but it wasn’t like I had any clue how that worked. I wanted to scream that I was with Bishop and I loved him, but I was afraid it might push Angelo over the edge.
But apparently I didn’t have to bring up Bishop because Angelo was way ahead of me.
“I know you think that guy was the one for you, because he kept saving you. But that was supposed to be me. I didn’t make that shit happen so someone else could rush in and save the day. That wasn’t how it was supposed to work. You were supposed to realize how much you needed me. How only I can keep you safe. He doesn’t know anything about you. He can’t take care of you and love you like I do.”
Love? I barely held back the bile in my throat. Angelo didn’t love me; he was a freaking paid stalker.
“What shit are you talking about?”
“In New Orleans. The guy I paid to drug you at the bar. The tour guide I told to leave you at the cemetery. My buddies at the casino. You were supposed to realize you needed me, but you let that son of a bitch help you instead. He’ll never love you like I do.”
An icy-cold chill engulfed me when Angelo’s words sank in. Those things weren’t accidents. It wasn’t just me not being able to handle myself. I’d been set up. And dammit, I’d survived and thrived against the deck he’d stacked. It wasn’t my naïveté; it was Angelo the whole time.
He was fucking crazy.
“Where’s Dom? Does he know I’m here? Did you tell him I’m back?” I had to assume I was in New York, because I didn’t have any other guesses.
“Dom is busy taking care of Dom like he always does. He’s never had time for you, but I do.”
Another direct strike to the heart. It made me think of all the times that Angelo had hammered home how much Dom didn’t care about me. Was that classic behavior of a crazy person? Trying to isolate me from my family?
“What about Vincent? He told me I couldn’t come back until I got word from that number. I never got word.”
“Vincent let me decide. Dom didn’t have anything to say about it.”
“I need to talk to Dom.”
Angelo’s features hardened. “You don’t need Dom. You only need me.”
“I need to talk to Dom,” I repeated.
“I said no. You’re going to have to learn to follow my directions, Eden. That’s the only way we’re going to be happy and keep you safe. No one loves you like I do. It’s going to be fine as soon as you see that.”
Nothing about this situation was fine. Angelo was unhinged, and I was all alone unless I could reason with him.
I decided to try a different angle. “But my dad will be happy that you’ve kept me safe, so don’t you think you should tell him?”
“He’ll be mad because he wanted you in a safe house and Vincent didn’t follow orders. He sent you away so I could watch out for you. I needed you to get your adventure out of your system before we settled down.”
Then what I’d gathered from the accidental voice mail made sense. Dom had been mad that Vincent had taken liberty with his orders. That meant Dom didn’t want me out of the city. But the rest of what Angelo was saying didn’t make sense either.
“Out of my system?”
“Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t be happy until you got a chance to see some of the world. But you had to learn that it wasn’t safe. You don’t listen so good, so I had to show you. But that dick kept getting in the way. It worked out in the end, because now you know that he can’t keep you safe like I can. Only me.”
Which meant the robbery hadn’t been random either. Angelo had set me up on every level. Made me doubt myself and my ability to take care of myself. As soon as I talked my way out of this, I had a lot to think about. But first, I had to get away from Angelo.
“I’m safe now, so there’s no reason for me to stay here, right?”
“You’re not leaving until I say you can. That’s how this goes now. Are you hungry? I’m gonna get us some breakfast. You’ll feel better after you’ve had food. Take a shower and get dressed in something pretty for me.”
My heart hammered as he came closer. His overpowering spicy cologne filled my nostrils as he leaned down to brush his lips across my temple. My skin crawled where he came into contact.
“I can’t wait to watch you come with my cock buried inside you. I’ll show you what it means to be with a real man. Your man.” He stood tall, his six-foot height dwarfing me. “I’m gonna give it to you so good you forget you’ve ever had another dick. I’m gonna blow my load all over your tits so you’ll remember who you belong to. We’ll call the doctor and get that IUD out so we can start our family. I can’t wait to see you fat with my kid. Knowing I put it in your belly will keep my cock hard all the time. Just wait, Eden. Life is gonna be so fucking good.”
Chills rippled over me because he meant every single word. He pressed another kiss to my head before he turned and left the room.
Oh my God. I had to get out of there. There was no way in hell I was going to let Angelo have the chance to rape me. And it would be rape, because I’d never let him touch me willingly.
I wanted a chance to save myself? Well, I guess the universe decided to make it count.
I tore through the room, searching for a phone. A laptop. Anything.
Of course, there was nothing. Why would there be? That would be too damn easy.
I rushed to the windows and shoved open the curtains. The glass was frosted, and beyond I could see the shadows of bars.
The connected bathroom didn’t turn up anything useful either—except for a tiny window with more frosted glass. It wouldn’t budge. I jammed all my weight into it, but it held firm.
Did I dare break it? Even if I did, there was no way I’d squeeze myself through the window frame. My hips would never fit. I just wished I could see out and get some idea of where I was.
I needed a plan.
I wasn’t helpless or a liability.
I didn’t need to be rescued. I could rescue myself.
I hoped.