Page 36 of Passion and Revenge

This isn’t the plan. Everything feels wrong.

Outside, the sky is a muted gray, and it matches my shitty mood perfectly.

CHAPTER 12

Sienna

“Damn it,” I bark and immediately reach out to turn up the knob on the water heater.

I sigh in bliss as the hot water pelts over my skin and does a little to relieve the tension in my muscles. I can’t count how many showers I’ve taken since I was thrown in here and abandoned.

Well, it’ll serve Vin—no, I have to stop thinking of him as businessman Vincent. He’s cold-blooded murderer Alessandro, and it’ll serve him right when I run his water bill up to six figures.

In the absence of activities to keep me occupied, I spend all my time trying to get into the books in the room and taking endless showers. I’m cleaner than I’ve ever been in my life. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve considered drowning myself in the tub once or twice.

First off, I’m too much of a coward to kill myself, and secondly, I’m not giving that asshole the satisfaction of knowing he had broken me so much that I did his dirty work for him.

I begin to rap under my breath as the water pushes out from different directions. I make a mental note to beg for some source of music. Even an iPod will do.

After several minutes in the shower, I turn off the water and step out, grabbing two fluffy white towels.

While one goes around my body, I use the other to wring my wet hair. A glance in the mirror reveals what a mess my hair is, and I make a face. I need my hair products and a diffuser, not just a lousy hairbrush and hair ties.

My gaze shifts down to my neck in the mirror, and I brush my fingers over the device locked around my throat. I hate it so much. It’s the worst humiliation I’ve ever had to face—being collared like a flight risk mutt.

With an irritated grunt, I march out of the bathroom and immediately freeze as I take note of the man lounging on one of the room’s chairs.

“What are you doing here?” I bite out, crossing my arms over my chest.

The move causes his stormy blue orbs to zero in on my chest, and I self-consciously tuck the towel tighter around myself.

Water drips from my still-wet hair and begins to soak the fabric that’s hugging my body.

Alessandro is perfectly still in the chair, except for his eyes, which trail leisurely down my body. The hooded look in his eyes is enough to make me want to run screaming back into the shelter of the bathroom, but I steel my spine and stay rooted in place.

“Don’t you have people to stab in the back? Cocaine to snort? Children to kidnap from the neighborhood park?” I ask with a raised brow. “I’m surprised that with all that on your daily agenda, you still have time to visit me.”

“Don’t you miss me, Sienna?” He sounds amused, and I grit my teeth.

I want to lash out at him and say he shouldn’t say my name like that. That he shouldn’t turn my respectable name into liquid seduction, slipping past my defenses, but instead, I just give him a closed-lip smile.

“The day I start missing you, you can drag me kicking and screaming to the nearest mental hospital,” I reply snidely. “Speaking of mental hospitals, if you’re going to kill me, do it and get it done.”

His eyes sharpen, and I’m not sure, but it feels like all the air is being sucked out of the room.

“And why is that?” His voice is so low that I barely catch the words.

I nudge my chin up and do my best to stare him down. “Because I’d rather go out with my dignity in place than go crazy in here. In all the ways I imagined I would die, I never factored in dying of boredom.”

“Oh?” Alessandro breathes. I narrow my eyes, trying to pick up a tone in his voice, but it’s completely lacking in inflection.

“Put a gun to my head and end it,” I growl. “I’m tired of your games.”

His knuckles turn white as they tighten on the arm of the chair. “This isn’t a game, Miss Marino. And you don’t get to be tired. You’ll continue to run on the hamster wheel until I say otherwise.”

“It’s D’Addario,” I correct.

“What?”

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