“Yes,” he said.

“I guess that’s a step up from you throwing me into some incinerator,” I said.

He had the nerve to look offended. “I’m not fucking happy about it either. But, unless you want the Genovese to put you in one of their whorehouses to get fucked until you’re begging for the incinerator, you’ll come around to the idea,” he said.

I sobered. “What’s going on?”

“The Genovse family is responsible for all that bullshit yesterday, and they spotted you. Made me an offer to trade for you, and to be honest, letting them have you would be much easier for me,” he said.

Fear, the kind that had been missing before, came over me.

Here I was laughing, allowing myself to lose sight of what was important.

And what was important was that yet again, my life was in the hands of a dangerous man.

I looked at Nico, suddenly felt nauseous.

I swallowed the bile down and went back through the bags.

But this time, I looked at the clothing differently.

It was beautiful, expensive, and proof that I was in deep, deep, shit.

Hope

“Are you hungry?”Nico asked.

“No,” I said.

The same question he asked three times a day for the past two days, and I had given the same answer.

“Eat anyway,” he said.

Instead of his bedroom, we were sitting in his dining room, one that I loved completely.

It was…homey, with a big circular table, nice wooden chairs, and decor that straddled the line between modern and severe.

But it still felt like a place of life, the kind where my mom and I would play board games when I was a kid, the kind a place where I would invite best friend, if I was the kind of person who could do that.

Now, it had just become a different room in what I was slowly coming to accept was my prison.

Or my home.

I wasn’t sure what name to give it, just as I wasn’t sure if the name I gave it mattered.

Nico put the plate in front of me, and my stomach rumbled.

His expression barely changed, but I could see he was satisfied.

And apparently, I was hungry.

Ravenous, really.

The mashed potatoes, steak, and roasted asparagus and carrot medley looked positively irresistible.

So I dug in, the steak melting like butter in my mouth.

As I ate, Nico watched me.