Page 63 of The Celtic Resolution
“About time.” The straps are barely in place when the first guard grabs me by my elbow. Pain lances up my arm and I whimper but he ignores me, dragging me after him toward a door at the other end of the room with the second guard following.
Where are we going? Is he taking me to Bruno?
As soon as he leaves us alone, I’m taking my chance.
Fuck entertaining this hell.
We walk from the cold, stone water room down a long, winding corridor and into a warm, well-lit office at the end. It’s so exquisitely decorated that I feel like I’ve just entered a completely different dimension compared to the cold hose room I just left.
Leather chairs are scattered around the room, placed lazily around several small tables holding cigar boxes, finance magazines, and electronic tablets. An unmanned bar sits againstthe wall at the far end, framed by two floor-to-ceiling windows covered in heavy, deep red drapes. Only two men occupy the room.
Bruno and his father Domenico.
Seeing them together breaks my heart. How foolish did I look, falling for Bruno’s act? Believing him when he said his father had been set up? I should have trusted my instincts and killed him the first night I saw him. What did I ever see in that guy?
“Sir.” The guard releases my elbow as he introduces himself.
Domenico turns to face me. He has a half-drunk glass in his hand and an uncharacteristically rosy look around his face. Clearly he’s in a good mood.
“Excellent,” he says.
Behind him, Bruno turns to face me and his gaze remains as cold and expressionless as it was in the auction theatre.
“Well, my dear.” Domenico lazily walks toward me while tipping his glass back and forth. “Who would have thought it would come to this?”
“I—I’m not yourdear,” I force out past my burning throat with every ounce of strength I have left.
Domenico’s hand flies out lightning fast and he strikes me across the face, sending my head snapping to the side. Warm blood bursts over my tongue as my cheek splits while Domenico grabs my chin and forces me to look at him.
“No,” he says quietly. “You’re not mine. You’re his.” His head jerks back toward his son. “But I can’t wait to see you crumble. Day by day, the great Saoirse Gifford will be reduced to ashes and every day here will be worse than the last. And I will enjoy it so you get to experience even a fraction of the irritation and disruption you’ve caused me. My son, too.”
Behind Domenico, Bruno appears to be in agreement.
My heart throbs painfully and nausea twists in my gut. Was there a part of me clinging to what Bruno and I once had? A deep, hidden sliver of hope that Bruno was still on my side or even that I’d been wrong all along and his father really was being set up.
But no. It’s as clear as a cloudless day.
I’ve lost.
Domenico has won.
He looks me up and down with his lips curling in disgust, then he steps away from me and turns to Bruno. “I expect the best behavior from her, Bruno. No more disruptions.”
“Yes, sir.”
“She will stay at one of our facilities. The last thing I need is her getting one over on you and escaping. Understand?”
Bruno seems completely uncaring, bored almost as he agrees with a casual nod of his head. “Works for me. Means I don’t need to watch the bitch all the time.”
“Indeed,” Domenic scoffs softly and drinks. “Take her away.”
They druggedme to knock me out for travel. The last thing I saw was the insufferablesmuglook on Domenico’s face. Given the chance, I’d want to kill him too.
I wake up in a small square cell with a single mattress in one corner and nothing else.
No window and my only light source is a single lightbulb dangling down from a ceiling far too high for me to reach. Slowly, I pick myself up off the stone floor and glance around for anything else I might have missed, but my set up is pretty simple. Empty.
Just me and my mattress.
