I raise my eyebrows. “Me?”
“Yes,” Baros says. “He’ll release Renata if you give yourself up.”
“What makes him think I would ever agree to that?” I ask incredulously.
“Maybe you’d like to ask him yourself,” Baros offers. “I can dial him for you.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” I ask, jutting my chin towards the phone on my desk. “The less time I have to waste talking to you Greek assholes, the better.”
Unruffled, Baros struts over and picks up the receiver. He dials in a number and then puts it on speaker phone.
“Hello?”
Hearing Rokiades’s baritone makes me furious all over again. “Is this some kind of joke?” I demand, skipping the pleasantries. “Do you think I’m a fucking blue light special at the department store? ‘Trade in some girl, get a don for free’?”
The Greek don chuckles. “On the contrary, I’m extremely serious.”
“You really expect me to give myself up for the Lombardi girl?”
A shuffling of motion comes through from the other side. Rokiades is on the move. He’s walking somewhere. “I know you will,” he tells me confidently. “And I’ll tell you why…”
I wait for his explanation. The sound of footsteps is obvious now. A door squeals open.
“…Because I know she means more to you than you want to let on.”
I freeze, warning signals firing off in my brain as I think of a way to maneuver out of this situation. How the fuck had he managed to figure that out?
“That’s a pretty big assumption on your part,” I say calmly. “And you know what happens when you assume…”
“It’s not an assumption,” Rokiades scowls. “I know the little slut means something to you. I know you mean something to her. When I fished her out of the ocean and breathed the life back into her, it was your name she cried out. And at night, when she sleeps, it’s your name she screams.”
That revelation has me feeling both fear and elation. In her most vulnerable moments, she called for me. She wanted me.
I wish I could puzzle out exactly what that might mean.
“The girl has an unhealthy interest in me. She’s hardly the first. That doesn’t mean the feeling is mutual,” I point out.
“No?” he asks. “Well, then, perhaps I’ve misjudged the situation. Hold on a moment while I put you on speaker phone.”
I hear a few sounds on the other line and then—a scream.
Renata’s scream.
I can’t help myself. “What the fuck are you doing?” I snarl viciously.
“Considering you don’t give a shit about her, I thought you wouldn’t mind hearing her in pain. And trust me, I haven’t even gotten started yet.”
More movement. And then another scream. This one louder and more tortured than the last.
I try and steel myself off from it. I try not to care. To at least pretend like I don’t for the sake of appearances. But the pain in her voice is unbearable.
“Enough!”
Her scream cuts off and I hear her panting in the afterglow.
“What was that?” Rokiades asks innocently.
“Don’t fucking touch her,” I growl.