Chapter 5

Sienna POV

The door opened. The car had stopped in front of a villa I had never seen before.

Before I could take in my surroundings, someone grabbed both my arms from behind. There was hardly any light--only two men in black standing in the shadows. I was dragged out of the car, the graze on my knee burning in the cold air.

They marched me down a quiet corridor and into a windowless room. One metal chair. One table. They put me in the chair, leather cuffs secured my wrists behind my back, and straps bound my ankles to the chair legs.

I couldn't move.

It wasn't long before the door opened again. Luca walked in. He had taken his coat off, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled to the elbow, and he lifted a hand and sent the others out, so that there were only the two of us left. He came and stood in front of me, looking down.

"Can we talk now?"

I raised my face and did my best to keep the uncertainty in my voice. "Mr. Hawthorne. I don't know what you want to talk about."

He didn't answer that. He reached out and caught my chin, forcing my head up.

"Who sent you?"

I met his eyes and shook my head. "Nobody."

His thumb stayed where it was against my jaw for a moment, then slowly let go. "You did it alone five years ago too?"

"Yes."

"You were a casino waitress. You got close to me, took one hundred and twenty million dollars out of a Hawthorne family account, and then vanished so clean nobody could find a trace." His voice was perfectly level. "And now you're telling me it was all your own idea?"

"I needed money."

"For what?"

I lowered my eyes. It took me a few seconds to answer. "My grandmother is sick."

"Is she. So you came after me for money."

"Yes. My mother died when I was three. My father was a gambler and owed debts everywhere. My grandmother raised me. I dropped out of school at sixteen and started working--waitressing, cashiering, carrying drinks in a casino. That year I saw you. You were nothing like the men around you. I thought, if I could get close to you, maybe I could change something."

I gave him the story I had rehearsed until it was worn smooth.

And it wasn't entirely a lie. Some of it was true.

I bit my lip and let my eyes redden. "I took the money after that night and left immediately. I know I wronged you. I wanted to say sorry to your face. And I wanted... to ask you for another chance."

Luca smiled, unexpected and brief. He stood and walked around behind me. His fingers pressed lightly against my bound wrists and slid slowly up my forearms.

"You always were good at inventing things. A hundred million dollars would have covered your grandmother's hospital bills many times over."

"I'm not inventing anything. My grandmother is all the family I have. She's in the hospital right now. Most of that money went straight to my father's debts." I looked up and held the helpless look. "Mr. Hawthorne, I know I was wrong... let me make it up to you."

His hand settled on my shoulder, his thumb tracing slowly along my collarbone before sliding down my side and along my thigh.

"So it's anything I want."

I nodded.

"Including keeping you locked in this room, tied up, questioned every day?"

"...Yes."

"Including putting you to work in one of the clubs down below, where the customers can use you however they like?"

My whole body went rigid, and I forced my voice steady through it. His hand didn't stop. It drifted down from my chest along my side and lower, tracing back and forth along the inside of my thigh through the thin skirt, lingering deliberately where I could barely hide anything.

"If that's what it takes for you to forgive me..."

The room went quiet. Luca looked down at me, and I couldn't tell where I stood with him.

"Why come back to me, after five years?"

I lifted my head slowly. "Because I want you to give me one chance. We could start over."

I held his eyes and put everything I had into sounding sincere.

The quiet lasted a few seconds. Luca came back around to the front of me and leaned down. His face came so close to mine that he looked about to kiss me, and stopped an inch short.

"You're very good at pretending." His voice was low. Then his hand moved and he undid the top two buttons of my blouse.

I bit down on my lip and didn't pull away. My body betrayed me all the same--every place he had touched had begun to burn. I dragged my attention back up to his eyes. Luca studied me for a long moment.

I was about to answer when he took a strip of black cloth out of his pocket.

He pulled the black cloth over my eyes, and the world disappeared.

With my sight gone everything else sharpened at once--the sound of his breathing, the heat coming off his body.

Blind, I forced myself to stay calm.

Luca wasn't going to put me in one of his clubs. I knew him. Or at least, I knew the man he had been five years ago. He was still testing, not acting. That meant the situation was still in my control. I had to keep him steady, and I had to use myself as bait and get as close to him as I could.

"Open your mouth." His voice came from directly in front of me.

My body stiffened. In the dark I knew almost at once what he meant. Before I could think it through, his hand had forced my jaw open.

The warmth I expected didn't come. Something colder and harder pressed against my lips instead and pushed slowly inward.

A gun.

The barrel rested on my tongue. I could feel its shape and its weight, every breath I took thick with oil and metal.

I didn't flinch. In the dark, all I did was work at keeping my breathing even.

A few seconds later the blindfold was yanked off.

Luca stood right in front of me, the muzzle still in my mouth, his finger resting on the trigger. He looked down at me, and his eyes were calm in a way that was worse than rage.

"Last time I'll ask you." His voice dropped. "Who sent you? Lie to me once more and I pull the trigger."