But there was no making sense of it.
Either he’d lost his mind… or I had.
Or maybe I was in some drug-induced dream… maybe I’d taken that hit the night he’d broken into my apartment. Maybe I was in my tidy, boringly efficient apartment staring at the ceiling as the sweetness of my high coursed through my blood and flooded all my senses.
I stood there, frozen in a state of confusion and disbelief as Luca raised my arm like I was some rag doll.
“There’s no safety on this type of gun, so it will fire every time you pull the trigger until the clip is empty,” was all he said when he finally released his hold on me.
After he’d placed the gun against his own chest.
The gun I now had complete control of.
“Wh-what are you doing?” I asked shakily. My instinct was to drop the gun, but my mind wouldn’t let me do it. “It’s not loaded, right?” I asked—no, demanded.
“It’s loaded,” he calmly replied. “Take your finger off the trigger and pull back just a little on the front of the gun. You’ll see the bullet in the chamber. There’s also a chamber indicator on the gun…”
I didn’t listen to the rest of what he said because I was too focused on the weapon in my hand. I knew in my gut he was telling the truth… that the weapon was loaded. I shouldn’t have believed him, but I did.
How many times had I dreamed of a moment like this? Of having something at my disposal that would let me fight back against my captors and win? Or at least cause them some of the same pain they’d caused me? When I’d been sucking guys off in alleys or some trick had decided to take more than what he’d paid for, how many times had I fantasized about being able to pull out a gun like this and point it at them? I’d carried a little knife with me when I’d started working for Les because the pimp hadn’t wanted to pay for handlers for his merchandise, but the thing hadn’t done me much good. And Les hadn’t given a shit if his “property” ended up raped or beaten or lying in a pool of our own blood in some back alley somewhere. I’d never had the funds to buy a gun, though. And I doubted I would have had the courage to use one.
But now?
Now I wasn’t sure what I felt.
Powerful?
Definitely.
Safe?
Not really.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered. I still had the gun aimed at him, but it was almost like I’d forgotten about it. I was so fucking angry at him for doing this to me… for confusing me like this. If it was a mind game, he’d bested me by a million percent. I reached up to pick at the nonexistent scabs on my head. The soft, clean hair that greeted me still felt foreign, even after two years.
“So you can tell me why you do things like that,” Luca said softly.
When his eyes shifted to the fingers that were still scratching at my scalp, I stilled my hand.
“The truth about why you do them,” he added. “How many times have you wanted this moment, Remy? This moment where you get to tell me anything and everything that happened to you… because of me? Because I didn’t come back for you?”
He was provoking me. I knew that.
And it was working.
I shook my head. “You don’t care,” I murmured. “You don’t—”
“Hurt?” Luca interrupted. “Feel?”
I nodded.
“You’re right,” he said coolly. He held out his hands and said, “I don’t.” He said it so easily… too easily. “Why do you touch your hair so much?”
I dropped my hand but didn’t answer him. “Why were you in that house that day?” I blurted. I’d had no intention of revisiting the past, but the question was out before I could stop it.
“I was looking for someone.”
I waited, but he didn’t continue. His calm manner angered me. I felt like I was going to implode from the way my body was violently reacting to him, the situation, the weight of the gun in my hand and what it meant… but he…
It was like he said… he didn’t feel.
“Why do you touch your hair so much?” he asked again.
“Who were you looking for?”
He didn’t answer. The rules of the game hit me then. I told myself not to play because it was exactly what he wanted and I couldn’t believe anything he might say, but he’d said he wanted the truth. So fuck if that wasn’t what he was going to get.
“I’m not used to it long. Who were you looking for?”
“My son.”
He said it without hesitation, without emotion. I nearly stumbled back, and I had to tighten my grip on the gun so I wouldn’t drop it. “You’re lying,” I said angrily. “Game’s over.”