Page 110 of Velvet Cruelty

“I’m not smart enough to lie!”

His face shifts, eyebrows drawing together.

My heart jolts. He believes me.

“You heard Parker talking about a safe?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it?”

“I’ll… I’ll tell you if you take me to my Zia Teresa.”

Adriano shoves me to the floor. “I’m done with you.” He raises a boot as though to step on me.

I throw up my arms to cover my face but I force myself to keep talking. “If you kill me, you won’t find the safe.”

A moment of silence and I’m hauled to my feet.

“Mr. Rossi?” Gretzky says.

Adriano turns to him. “You got something to say?”

“No, sir.”

“Good.”

Adriano drags me up the hall and through the door he came through. Black spots pop in front of my eyes and I see different futures stretched out like invisible roads. Life. Death. Naples. Zia Teresa. Mr. Parker. I wish I’d been brave enough to run away at my wedding. To stop all of this before it happened. Adriano steers me up wooden staircases and down sweeping halls. His hand is as cold as the gun he put in my mouth. I wish I could shake it off, but I know better. He might be leading me to my death, but it’s a chance I have to take to get closer to Zia Teresa.

He opens a set of double doors with his thumbprint and practically throws me inside. The room is a gothic hell chamber. Knives on the walls and paintings that would give children nightmares. Monsters shrieking in front of red skies, crows, bones, scaly long-fingered dragons. There’s an art to it, but it’s ugly. Mean. In the middle of everything is a huge bed with black sheets. It’s hard to believe Adriano Rossi does anything as vulnerable as sleep. He should prowl the grounds of Velvet House at night, tossing back his horns and bellowing at the sky.

“You have one minute. Tell me what you know.”

“I… can you take me to see my Zia Teresa?”

He pulls his gun from his shoulder holster. And a snort of hysterical laughter escapes me. “Are you going to put it in my mouth again? Is that why we’re in your bedroom?”

Adriano does something to the gun so it sounds more ready to deliver death. My blood turns to ice. “You can’t kill me. If you kill me, you won’t find out what I know.”

His nostrils flare, but I can see him turning the dilemma over in his mind. My gaze falls to a bottle of vodka on his bedside table. “I’m sorry, can I… can I have a drink?”

His eyes skim my face, reading me like a novel he hates.

I fight back another crazy giggle. “I’m pretty sure I’m about to die. And if I am, I don’t want to do it sober.”

He stares a little longer then shrugs and stomps to the bottle, tossing it to me. It’s not vodka, it’s grappa, and when I twist off the lid, the oily scent almost makes me gag. I swig from the neck and choke and sputter. Adriano watches me. I can tell he’s enjoying himself. I drink again.

“Parker’s safe. Where is it?”

“What happened to my Zia Teresa?”

He crosses the space between us in a stride and presses his gun to my head. A cold little circle. He smells like earth and stone. An ancient forest hiding behind mountains. “You want me to do it?”

The liquor burns down my stomach in a scorching trail. “If you kill me, I bet the others will be angry.”

“The others. If they weren’t so cuntstruck, I’d have killed you weeks ago.”

“Sorry,” I say icily.

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