My stomach sinks, and the food I’ve eaten is somersaulting in my stomach.
“You need to watch the video,” Dante says. He’s calm. Too calm, given the sadness that passes across his gaze.
I shouldn’t be surprised, and yet I’m disgusted that there is no privacy. “Did you plant cameras in this house, too? What about my bedroom?”
I shove my hands onto my lap to keep them steady, but I’m trembling both inside and out. This knowledge has me riled up inside.
Why did I think that I could trust him?
He doesn’t answer my question, and I stand and drop the tablet at his desk.
“Sit!” Dante cracks like lightning, and his voice bellows and echoes off of the walls like thunder.
I drop back into my seat.
Dante presses play and forces me to watch the video.
“Nicole has been poisoned,” Papa says.
Vance stands, his hands bunched into fists as he paces the room. “Why? You couldn’t possibly have known Dante was going to show up and suggest buying your daughter.”
“Of course not. We drug the girls, so they’re less likely to fight. Nicole took a heavier dose, and when she was out with the last batch, we mixed in a special cocktail. She’s been a problem lately. One who needs discipline. I thought after she’d be sick and on her deathbed that she’d come to see I was doing right by her.
“But now she’s with the Ricci’s,” Rafael says. “Are we going to abduct her? Bring her home?”
“No. We’ll send flowers and our condolences. She’s already exhibiting symptoms, I’m sure of it. She’ll be dead in forty-eight hours.”
“No. It’s not—that’s not my papa.” The room is hot and suffocating under Dante’s scrutiny. I escape from the chair and bolt out of his office.
I tear down the hall. The room spins, and I grip the wall to hold myself upright.
It doesn’t work.
Dante is two steps behind, and as I sink to the ground, he catches me, scooping me up into his arms.
“He would never,” I begin, but I can’t finish my thoughts. It doesn’t make sense.
Did papa drug me?
No.
He isn’t a monster. Dante is the monster. It has to be a trick—some type of video manipulation.
“Let me go.” Even if Dante releases his hold on me, I don’t think I can stand. The room is spinning wildly, and my stomach is doing somersaults. I’m not sure that I won’t pass out or vomit. Either seems a plausible reality.
Dante wordlessly carries me up the flight of stairs to my bedroom.
I hate how even I’ve designated itmy bedroom. It isn’t mine. It shouldn’t be mine. I don’t want to stay.
He lays me down above the sheets. The bed is made. Dante has servants who tend to his every need. Were they bought in the same way that I was purchased and brought to his home?
“I hate you,” I say. I feel the softness of the bed beneath my body. It’s a welcoming distraction from my jelly legs, but I don’t want to be in here. I don’t want to be his. I should never have slept with him at the bar.
Is that what started this catastrophe? Or had it been that I stole his stupid truck?
He perches himself at the edge of my bed. He hasn’t said a word to me. His silent treatment is worse than anything else. Why won’t he argue and fight back?
Even uninvited on the bed, he seems relaxed, like he belongs.