Page 1 of Dangerous King
A few months before Scarlet’s abduction…
I’ve gotten good at sneaking through the hallways, mostly because I want to be as invisible as possible to the family of this house. I've lived with their brutal cruelty for fourteen years, and there is no end in sight for me.
That's why I stand still as a rod by the open doorway, holding my breath and a piece of cheese. I only dared to slice off a sliver, but after Giovanni—the head of the Giordano family—ordered me away from the dinner table, again,for speaking out of turn, I'm starving. The cheese is my go-to because it's one of the few items the housekeeper won't miss, provided I'm careful with my portion size and wrap it back up just like she does. It's not her fault, and I'd feel bad were thistheftever to be discovered.She might get blamed, and the housekeeper is as much under Giovanni's thumb as I am.
I sit at the table with them day in and day out, but I'm never trulyatthe table. I'm here as a hostage, a way to keep my father in Sicily in line and doing whatever Giovanni wants. I'm tolerated the way you tolerate a splinter you haven't bothered to pull out yet. I stay polite, quiet, and keep my head down as much as possible. This is how I survive.
As if I conjured him up by thinking about him, the sound of Giovanni's voice stops me in my tracks. I don't usually eavesdrop, but I have to pass this hallway to get back to my room, and with the men inside his study and the door open, there is no way I can sneak by without them seeing me.
"Ringo will be here in a couple of hours," Roberto assures his father, Giovanni.
My heart sinks into my stomach. Ringo is the family's enforcer. One time, he peeled off a man's skin piece by piece. The man's screams echoed through the house for days. Cold sweat slides down my back. I don't think I can do that again. Live through days like that. Giovanni doesn't often bring hisworkhome, but when he does, it's ugly and meant to cow us women. It's a very successful strategy—even his wife, when she was still alive, would dance around him on eggshells for weeks afterward. It's the only time Camilla, his daughter, shuts up, too.
If I could leave today, I would. I would beg, I would sneak aboard a ship or plane, anything to get away from Giovanni's brutal reign of terror. But I can't, for two reasons. One, as tantalizing as that daydream is, I'm realistic enough to know that without a passport, I wouldn't be able to leave this country. Ever. Two, even if by some miracle I could, Giovanni would have my familykilled the moment I go missing. All Giovanni has to do is pick up the phone and give the order. He has men attached to each member of my family anytime they leave the house. And he holds the same threat over them in reverse. My father knows that if he steps out of line, he'll receive a body part of mine—and if he had any doubt as to the validity of the threat, he lost it five years ago, when my right pinkie finger arrived with his morning mail. Father was about to lose the re-election andneeded a little incentive, as Giovanni called it.
"Good. Ringo will know how to clean this mess up. What in the hell were you thinking, Roberto, bringing that bitch here?" Giovanni snarls.
"She'syourproblem, not mine," Roberto, the heir to his empire, snaps back. "You're the one who stashes girls in the basement."
Giovanni slams his glass down. "Don't be cute. You really think I'd be stupid enough to take that man's sister without backup? You trying to start a goddamn war?"
"I didn't take her," Roberto denies tightly. "You think I want a family war on my hands? I thoughtyouwere making a play. Sending a message."
Oh God, they have a woman in the basement? I tighten my grip on the cheese because my hand is starting to shake. If those monsters made a grown man scream like that, what will they do to a woman?
Giovanni curses low. "Why the hell would I do that now? They haven't done anything to us. There's too much heat on us already."
Silence falls between them, during which I don't dare breathe. If they catch me now, here… I don't even want to consider the consequences.
Then Giovanni growls, "If neither of us brought her in,howthe hell did she get into my basement?"
"She's tied up," Roberto says slowly, piecing his thoughts together. "Hands behind her back. Mouth taped. She didn't putherselfthere."
Giovanni drains his glass and slams it down. "Wow, did you figure all that out by yourself?" His voice is biting as usual. "So, we've got an uninvited guest… and someone inside our house with enough balls to drag the fucking bitch into our basement."
My lungs seize. I've been in Giovanni's basement. I know the chair the woman is tied to. I know the fear, the pain.
"She hasn't screamed," I whisper so quietly that even I can't hear it. "She hasn't screamed," I repeat in my head. That means so far, she hasn't been harmed.Aside from being kidnapped, my mind adds, or maybe she's quiet becausesomeone taped her mouth shut.
Roberto lets out a breath. "You think it's one of the girls? That quiet little mouse of Camilla's? The one who keeps her head down?"
My heart lurches so violently, it knocks the breath from my throat. He's talking about me. My ears buzz. My body goes rigid. Even the cheese feels like it weighs a hundred pounds now, useless and stupid in my hand.
"Catalina?" Giovanni snorts. "She doesn't take a shit without asking permission. No. Someone else is playing us."
A rush of heat burns through my cheeks, born from shame and fear. Am I really a mouse? To them, probably. Even now, my ribs press tighter with each breath, like they're bracing for a blow that hasn't come yet.
I've survived by making myself small. By never laughing too loud, never asking questions, never letting anyone catch me looking for too long. I've learned how to disappear in plain sight. How to walk silently through hallways and keep my face still, no matter what I hear behind closed doors.
Fourteen years I've lived like this. Fourteen years of being tolerated but never trusted. Of being punished for sins I didn't commit, of holding in screams and swallowing pride. I've seen what happens when people forget their place here. I've seen what happens whenIforget mine.
Giovanni once threw a glass at my head for reaching for the salt without asking. Another time, he tied me up in that chair in the basement for a week because Camilla said I spoke to one of her suitors without permission. I've been slapped, spit on, ignored, paraded out like a pet, and left to rot in locked rooms when they wanted me to disappear for a while.
But I haven't broken yet. I can't afford to. Because if I break, he'd send another piece of me to my father. Or worse, take a piece of them and blame me for it.
I've spent most of my life trying to make myself unnoticeable. I've trained myself to endure hunger without asking for food, to hear screams without reacting, to watch women get dragged from black cars and pretend I didn't see it.
And yes, I'm still here. Still breathing. Still standing in this goddamn hallway with a stolen sliver of cheese, trying not to shake hard enough to give myself away.
