Page 36 of Taboo Flames

He turns to face one of the attendants and demands, “Get me the manager in charge. Someone’s either about to lose their fucking job or have their eyes fished out of their sockets with a plastic spoon.”

His words cause the attendants to scatter away in fear like cockroaches.

“I’m sorry, boss,” Carlos says slowly and warily.

“No, you’re not,” Gio snaps, “but you’ll soon be. I’ll make sure of that.”

A man in large, framed glasses approaches Gio with an easy smile. “Good day, sir. I was told that?—”

“You have two options,” Gio interrupts him with a fierce look. “Either you start running now and spend the rest of your life in hiding, or I’ll decapitate you right now, and you can live the rest of your miserable?—”

“Gio, stop,” I mumble weakly. “You’re scaring me.”

Hearing my voice, he snaps his head down to look at me. “What’s wrong with you? Why do you sound like that?”

“There was something in the cloth,” I reply softly.

“What cloth?” he demands.

I’m unable to answer as the world spins and swirls around me, and I begin to fall. The last thing I see is Gio’s panicked look before everything fades to black.

When I come to, I’m in Gio’s bedroom, and he’s barking threats at someone. I blink slowly until the room comes completely into focus.

“Look, she’s awake,” a man says in an exasperated voice.

“Princess.” He kneels beside the bed until we’re at eye level. “How are you feeling?”

“Stop threatening people,” I tell him.

He snorts. “You must be feeling fine if you’re giving me orders.”

“She inhaled a bit of the chloroform, but not enough to do any major damage,” the other man in the room said. I assume he’s a doctor.

“There’s bound to be a bit of a headache and disorientation. Anything other than that, or if it persists past tonight, don’t hesitate to let me know,” the doctor says.

“Goodnight,” I tell him politely.

Giovanni just grunts. The doctor sighs and walks out.

“A doctor? Really?”

“You passed out,” he says as a way of explanation.

“I’m sure you’ve seen worse.”

He merely frowns. “Are you up for a bath?”

“Did you get my clothes? The ones I picked before I got attacked?” I ask.

He shoots me a dark, scathing look. “That’s not what’s important right now. You were attacked in broad daylight.”

“Help me sit up, please,” I tell him.

He handles me like I’m made of extremely fragile glass as he helps me into a seating position. I look down at myself for the first time since I woke up and see that I’m in another one of his shirts.

“I think I need to shower,” I mumble.

He immediately lifts me into his arms and carries me to his ensuite bathroom with the enormous, jetted bathtub. There, heplaces me on the covered toilet before going to turn on the taps to fill it.

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