I didn’t know whether it was in amazement at my stupidity or just exasperation that he had to babysit such a pathetic person.
“I want to know,” I said, my temper getting the better of me now. I could feel my heart start to thump. “How you found me.”
He started glaring at me.
“I don’t think it’s proper for you to ignore me. You work for me.”
This statement he was quick to respond to. “I don’t work for you.”
Chapter 22
Sienna
My stomach broiled with anger. I grasped Mickey’s leash and shot to my feet. “Let’s go, Mickey,” I said, and began to walk away. However, I was so furious I couldn’t let it go. I had to have my say too. How dare he treat me as if I am being childish and foolish just because I wanted there to be some peace and understanding between us if we were going to be on top of each other all the damn time. Well, not exactly on top of one another, but in each other’s way.
How could absolutely no one understand me? Understand that even though my method had been risky, the intention behind my escape yesterday was valid. Why was everyone manipulating me into feeling childish and foolish and over entitled?
I felt too undeservedly hurt, so I turned around and went back to him. “I just want to say that you’re terrible at your job. Otherwise, I shouldn’t even have been taken yesterday. We were literally three girls in a Camry, and we managed to ditch you. Great fucking job.” I stormed off, feeling more pathetic and petty than I ever believed possible, and it made me want to shoot someone.
“You’re a fine one to talk?” he sneered.
I froze and spun around to face him. “What?”
“There were just four men,” he said scornfully, “and yet you allowed yourself to be kidnapped so easily? Your father told me you were better than a dozen men. That you’d been trained in self-defense since you could walk.”
I was sure I was mistaken, but he sounded angry. Why? I did not know. “My friends were there,” I replied. “I couldn’t be careless. They had guns. Self-defense and outrunning a bullet are two different things.”
“You actually thought that they were going to shoot you?” he asked.
The abject condescension in his tone was staggering to me. “I had a gun stuck in my ribs,” I shouted.
“I refuse to believe that you could be that naïve. Do you know absolutely nothing about the world you live in?”
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
He raised his voice. “Couldn’t you tell that they had been sent to capture you? Killing you would have been the same as taking their own lives.”
“No!” I argued miserably. “I could not tell. It all happened so fast. I was in shock. The girls were screaming. How could I possibly tell the only thing they had been instructed to do was to capture me alive?”
“Even so … how could you just go with them? Your father would have done anything to get you back. His entire empire could have crumbled overnight. Surely, you must know, you are all that they need to get to him.”
My eyes watered with frustration. “My friends were with me,” I repeated. “They put a gun to Christine’s head and knocked Mandy to the ground. What did you expect me to do? Let them kill my friends? They sure looked like they would have done it.”
He shook his head. “Did you have to go to college in London to get this dumb?”
Hot tears burned their way out of my eyes and ran down my face. I swiped at them angrily. “Go on then. Tell me what I should have done? Sacrificed my friends for my father’s business. Is that what I should have done, oh, super smart man who didn’t have to go to college in London to become as dumb as me?”
He ignored my tantrum. “Didn’t you also notice,” he said quietly, “that the men were waiting for you at a particularly strategic location?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Your friend took you there, so that they could get to you.”
“Are you out of your mind?” I yelled in disbelief. Christine was my best friend.
“Does it look like I’m out of my mind?” he responded calmly.
I shook my head. It felt as if my head was exploding. “No, no, you’re wrong, buster. You don’t know anything. If you think my friend set me up you’re delusional. I’ve known that girl for years and I trust her. Far more than I trust you!”
He straightened away from the tree. “Why don’t you believe you were set up?”
“Because it’s impossible.”
“Who else apart from your friends knew of your planned escape?”
My heart … was hurting.
He shook his head mockingly. “I don’t want to be rude about your mother, but I’m beginning to doubt you are Siciliano’s daughter.”