Page 26 of The Mafia's Captive

“Why have you changed your mind?”

“Nothing’s changed. I feel like I’ve been pretty consistent.”

Why does he like to play at being obtuse? “You know what it means. You’re sending me back to work. I was sure you’d be fine caging me in your penthouse.”

He turns to face me. “Do you want to be caged? I can chain you.” There’s double meaning in his words that's confirmed by the flare in his eyes. If chaining me meant chained to his bed, I wonder what that would be like. Naked and wanting, waiting for him to come from work and have his way with me. I blink away the thoughts. What’s with me? Lately, I’ve been having these dreams and, let's call them what they are, desires to be dominated by him. I should want to kill him and yet…

I shake my head, afraid that if I speak, my voice would betray my thoughts.

“Good. It’s not like it would be workable anyway,” he says, “you’d probably break the bedpost.”

“Oh. So, you were thinking of tying me to a bed?”

He leans in and I’m sure he’s about to say something when the elevator doors open. Rob, who I had forgotten is in here with us, is the first to get out. Dante breaks eye contact and gets out. I follow them to his office, trying the best I can to keep in step with their long paces.

To say the entire casino’s eyes are on us is an understatement. People stop what they’re doing to glare at us. It gets worse when we enter the office floors and everyone pretty much peek from their computers to gawk at me. I keep my head straight, chin up, and face aloof. I breathe a little sigh of relief when we reach the office. Rob stops outside and Dante and I walk inside.

Dante, with the fluid grace of a leopard, glides over to his desk and buzzes in his assistant. A tall brunette who looks like an Instagram model walks in. “Good morning, sir,” she says.

“Get me Sal.”

“How was your trip?”

“Could have been worse,” he says. She seems to get his double meaning. I wonder who she is. She looks Italian like most people who are in his inner circle. Is she part of The Family as well?

“Anything else? Coffee?”

“Not now. Get Sal first. And the floor manager on the line.”

“Sure.” She struts out of the office and a few seconds later her voice booms through the intercom, “I have Brian on line one.”

“Thanks Selena. Brian. Have you filled in Corina’s position yet?”

“Uh. Not yet. Do you have anyone in mind? Because I was thinking —”

Dante doesn’t give him time to respond and dismisses whatever Brian was going to say. “Put Corina back.”

“She’s back? I thought we fired her?”

“She’s here now. Put her back on the tables.”

“Right on. Including the private ones as well?”

For the first time since we’ve entered the office, his gaze goes to me. “No.”

“Okay. Anything else?”

They talk for several minutes, and my attention wanders elsewhere. His office is interesting. It’s a mirror image of his penthouse. Giant black marble desk. Black sofas in one corner and a black table and chairs on the other. The only thing that isn’t black is the charcoal gray tiles. It’s dark, like the man himself. One side of the office, where the door is, has solid walls with similar art as that at his apartment, and the opposite side is a floor to ceiling one-way glass window that offers a view of the casino floor. You can see practically everything that happens on the main floor. It doesn’t even take me time to spot my former table. Jesse seems to be the one working on it now. Her eyes are on a hot guy who’s walking by as she’s raking in chips. Maybe I should text her, tell her to concentrate and spook her. Then I remember I don’t have my phone and that idiot took it.

The next thing I see is Sal coming over to her. I think he’s going to walk past her, but he stops by her table. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but they seem friendly with each other. A little too friendly. He whispers something in her ear in a way that is inappropriate for two co-workers. Jesse hates advances of any kind. She slaps anyone, players included, if they do anything she doesn’t like. I’m sure that’s what she’s about to do when she instead smiles. I’m taken aback. That’s weird. Something is definitely going on between the two of them. I would never peg Jesse as one to date co-workers. She likes the high rollers, not the head of security with Mafia connections. But then again, I might misread things.

“What’s so fascinating?”

I jump at Dante’s sudden presence, only a few inches behind me. “You scared me!”

“Looking for your accomplices?”

“My former work station, actually. I missed it. It’s funny how easy it is to spot it from here.”

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