CHAPTER FIVE
The thought of eatinganything, particularly the threat of poisoned food, has my stomach churning. Even the water doesn’t tempt me, despite my dry, hoarse throat and my cracked lips. The sun is high in the sky, and I have no idea how long it has been since I last ate.
If I’m still in San Diego, it would be at least twenty-four hours. But the man, Lorenzo’s man, had said the ocean was the Mediterranean Sea, which means I’ve gone back in time in more ways than one.
My body trembles, partly from hunger, mostly from fear. I need food and water for energy if I have any chance at escape. As soon as my captor left, I tore the place apart, searching every drawer, under the bed, behind the furniture, for cameras, microphones, or anything I could use as a weapon against my captors.
I found nothing. Whosever room I am locked in holds nothing but normal things a woman would have in her suite. Well, normal for someone with wealth. I recognize many labels and brands from my teenage closet, and from my mother’s.
I don’t miss any of it. Not the soft fabrics or expensive perfumes. Freshly laundered sheets, cotton T-shirts, and comfortable leggings is what I find familiarity in now. Granted, the buttery smooth ones I have on do feel nice.
It doesn’t matter how fine the Egyptian blend is, or how high the heels in the closet are, I want none of it. I pray Jo and Danielle will stay with Mama until I return.
Because I will return.
Making my third sweep of the room, I drop to the floor and look under the nightstand. For what, I don’t know. A bug, a camera, a mic. I know I’m being watched.
Movement to my left catches my eye and I turn my head. A pair of black loafers are inches from my face. Without lifting my gaze, I know it’s my captor and not the burly bodyguard. I can smell him.
Yesterday, if it was yesterday, I thought him startling, then charming. His scent was magical. Clean and expensive without being overpowering. The intensity behind his stare had frightened me at first, but I’d relaxed during our brief walk at the farmer’s market.
Now I know why the changes of persona. He’d been stalking me before the kidnapping, trying to soften me so I wouldn’t put up a fight before he brought me back to Sicily, and it had worked.
Show no fear. I’m not proud to be a Parisi, but I am one, if only by blood. Pushing up off the floor, I rise to my feet and face the man.
“What’s your name?” I demand.
The middle of his right brow lifts ever so slightly, and he dips his head to the side in an even more subtle gesture. Only a centimeter, but it is movement.
He keeps his dark eyes pinned on me. “Stone.”
The trembling Gia on the balcony didn’t cause him to falter, so I dig into my inner diva and lay on the snark, the attitude I’d picked up on from living in the states. “Is that a fake name or did your parents hate you the second you were born?”
The tick in his jaw tells me I’d struck a nerve. I keep prodding.
“Is that why you have the arrogant asshole thing going on? Hated by your own family, thrown to the curb so you allowed the devil himself, Lorenzo Parisi, to turn you into one of his monsters?”
“Parisi doesn’t own me,” he growls, his lips barely moving.
“It seems to me he does.”
Stone seizes my wrist as he’d done earlier and drags me to the chair he’d left me in. He lifts the domes from the plated food and pushes the cart in front of me. “Eat,” he barks.
“No.” I kick the cart away.
“You’ll do what I say, Gia.”
“Or what? You’ll rape me? Or are you more into ruining young girls and selling them off as sex slaves?”
I’ve struck another nerve. Stone wraps his hand around my neck and yanks to me to my feet, pinning me to the wall. I choke but can still breathe. He isn’t trying to kill me—yet—he just wants to show me he is boss. It is something I’d witnessed my father do to innocent victims as well as his staff time and time again.
And his family.
He had taken pleasure in the fight. Remembering this, I stand still, forcing my arms to hang at my side instead of clawing at Stone’s face.
“I don’t rape women,” he growls behind gritted teeth.
“Just...molest...innocent...children.” I watch as his ebony eyes glass over and a vein in his forehead pulses.