Page 10 of Owning Nicci

I push back the thought that my father has something to do with this. It doesn’t fit. Ever since I failed to snare Dimitri and have Evelyn murdered, it’s been a slow slide downwards. Once I was at the Lily, the chance of me being sent to service some rich associate of his was long gone.

Savio chuckles. “Oh, I know exactly who you are, Nicci Armand. But it seems you’re not in any mood to listen. I’ll come back when I have something more…convincing for you.”

For a brief, frightening moment, I think he’s going to grab me again and drug me. But instead, he just turns, unlocking the door and slipping out of the room. I hear the click of it locking again behind him, and my stomach drops.

I’m trapped. The only hope that I have is that when I don’t come home tonight, my father will look over the security cameras and see what Savio’s done. Which begs another question—whydidhe do it without trying to hide his identity or anything about what he was doing to me? Hesaidhis name, out loud, right before drugging me. He didn’t just leave breadcrumbs to find him, he left the whole fucking recipe to make the loaf.

None of this makes sense. I dig the heels of my hands into my eyes, fighting the sense of panic that settles behind my ribs and makes my heart race. I’m used to being locked in a room. I’m not allowed out of my suite of rooms in my father’s mansion except for meals and to go to work, and most of what I would entertain myself with has been taken away, like a child who’s been naughty. But this feels different. Worse. More dangerous. Ican feel myself on the edge of a panic attack, and I walk around the room, flicking on every light in an effort to keep myself grounded.

There’s a clock in here, on the nightstand, that tells me it’s just past one in the morning. The time ticks by—two a.m., three, four, and I can feel exhaustion weighing me down. I hear the sound of footsteps in the distance, occasionally, but nothing else. It must be Savio, moving around the apartment, but he doesn’t come back. Finally, when I can’t take it any longer, I fling myself back onto the bed and let myself drift off into sleep, taking some consolation in the fact that I haven’t showered since being taken from the club, and I’m getting his fancy bed absolutelyfilthy. I still smell like cigarettes, alcohol, and that awful fake-smelling lotion. And now his bed is going to smell like it, too.

Orabed in his house, anyway.

I’m woken up by the sound of the door opening again. I jolt awake, pushing myself up, and catch a glimpse of the clock just before the door fully opens. It’s six a.m., and I can see the sunrise outside turning to the blue of the morning sky.

And then I see who walks into the room, and every other thought flees from my head as my stomach drops.

4

NICCI

My father steps into the room.

Savio is just behind him. He looks at me, catches my expression, and a self-satisfied smirk that I’d fucking love to slap off of his face curls his lips. He stands near the door as my father walks a few paces into the room and stops, and I stare at him, anything I could have thought of to say dying on my lips.

Looking at my father, all I feel is hate. I know there was a time when I was much, much younger, that I loved him. When I thought he loved me. But all that has been erased. Now I hate him in a way that feels like a physical thing, like a fist shoved into my chest, wrapped around my heart and squeezing. I look at him, and all I can think of is what Savio asked me last night about Bryce.

Would you like that? If I cut off his hands? One finger at a time?

If he’d asked that about my father, my answer might have been different.

But none of that explains why they’re both standing here in the same room, or why my father doesn’t look at all surprised or angry to find me here.

He’s always been an imposing man. Now, his stomach has rounded with age and good food, and his short beard is greyer, but nothing about it changes the force of his presence. It makes me shrink back into myself, unable to look away from him, as much as I want to.

“What’s going on?” I demand, putting as much force in my words as I can manage. “This man…he kidnapped me!” I gesture at Savio, pushing myself off the bed as I stand up, my heart hammering behind my ribs. “Hedruggedme. He?—”

“According to him, you refused to leave of your own free will.” My father shrugs. “I don’t see that he had much of a choice.”

I stare at him, unable to quite reconcile what I’m hearing. “What? You promised me…you said I would never have to leave the club with anyone. You said it all stayed there, that I—” I break off, seeing something flicker in Savio’s gaze, something that almost looks like anger…or jealousy. But neither of those emotions makes sense, and I don’t have the energy right now to try to parse that out. “He said I belonged to him,” I manage, my voice smaller than I want it to be, but still colored with anger. “I don’t?—”

“You do.” My father’s voice falls between us like a gavel, ringing with finality. “You do belong to him now, Nicci. It’s been arranged between the two of us.”

I stare at him, sure that I’ve heard something wrong. “You—what do you mean? He can’townme. That’s not—”You don’t even own me,I want to say, but deep down, I know that’s not true. If anyone in this world owns me, my father does. He’s proven that time and again. He owns me, and in the past, he’s leased me out as he sees fit.

“Did you—you gave me to him?” I stare at Savio, trying to make sense of it. Barca Valenti failed my father, just as I did. I can’t imagine there being good blood between Savio and my father. I can’t imagine them working together.

My father chuckles, and there’s real humor in it, as if there’s anything funny about this situation at all. “I sold you to him, Nicci,” he says, enunciating the words as if I’m too slow to understand what’s happening here, as if I should have figured it out by now.

Behind him, Savio smirks. The room narrows, and for a moment I think I’m going to pass out again—reallypass out this time. I search my father’s face for some hint of a joke, some indication that he’s making this up for some unfathomable reason, but there’s nothing.

“For how much?” I whisper. The question sounds inane to my own ears, but for some reason, I want to know. It matters to me.

My father looks at Savio, and he shrugs. He looks back at me. “Just over a million dollars,” he says calmly. “You’ve made me quite a bit of money at last, daughter. Try not to make him regret the purchase.”

He glances back at Savio, a sneer curling his lip. “She’s your problem, now,” he says with a shrug—and though I thought I was far past being hurt by anything my father says or does, every word feels like a twist of the knife driven into my chest.

And then, without another word, he turns and leaves the room, walking past Savio and shutting the door behind him without so much as a goodbye.

---