“Yes.
He stares at me, eternally it seems, as is his way. He tries to tear you down, unnerve you. He wants me to reply again because the silence rattles me, but I do not. I won’t. I stare back at him, and while I can still see how I once saw his sculpted face, gray eyes, and thick, dark hair accented with a widow’s peak as handsome, now all I see is a mask for the devil.
“Take your clothes off,” he orders.
I don’t gasp. I don’t give him a reaction. That’s what he wants, and it’s not like I didn’t know this was where I’d be headed the moment I found myself getting into that car.
But this isn’t about me. This is about saving Sara, and living to kill this man. And the bottom line here is that I’m in a plane, in the air, going who knows where, and no one can rescue me. I have to get through this flight to ensure Neuville doesn’t survive this night—if it’s even the same night. I don’t know how long I’ve been out. I don’t know how long we’ve been in the air. And if I refuse his order, he’ll enjoy making me do it. I’m not giving him that satisfaction. I take off my boots, cautious to keep the money and credit cards from his view. Those credit cards might be the only way I have to tell Kayden where I am.
Pushing to my feet, I don’t give him the satisfaction that hesitating and looking awkward would reward him with, or the reluctance it would indicate. I simply take off my clothes and I’m naked, calm, and composed on the outside in only seconds.
On the inside I’m angry, and feeling other things as well. Humiliation. Dread. Vulnerability. Fear. I hate that one the most. But training in mental fortitude saves me from their destructive influences, and I package them up into a tight mental ball and set them aside.
Neuville looks me up and down, lingering at places I know he will touch me, but that ball I set aside is not in the mix. I am my father’s daughter, a CIA agent, a survivor, and Lady Hawk—and a Lady Hawk cannot, will not, cower. I will think of my Hawk. I will remember that surviving this means he will replace every memory of this man with new ones of him. Good things that overcome the wa
y this man rapes me with his eyes and leaves me standing under the cold air that makes my nipples too damn pointed, his eyes too damn pointed as he lusts over them, and me.
It’s at least ten minutes before he stands, placing himself almost directly in front of me, and grabs a chunk of my hair. Again, it’s no surprise, but it bites. It always bites.
“You will change your hair back to red tomorrow,” he orders. “You will be nothing you were with him.” He lets go of my hair and grabs my wrist, showing me the hawk tattoo. “Did he threaten to kill you if you didn’t get this?”
“It’s a tattoo,” I argue.
“That’s a no, and the wrong answer. I will not fuck you with this on your body. I will burn it off before this night is through, and make sure you suffer as a punishment for making me do it.”
And I will kill you before you ever get the chance, I silently vow. I just need to get to Sara. The minute I’m in the same room with her—
He backs me up and sets me down in the chair. “Hands on the armrests,” he orders, and when I do it without question, I get the reaction I want: irritation. He wants me to resist. He wants to punish me. It turns him on. And I won’t give him the triggers he seeks.
I have to remind myself of this when he reaches inside his pocket. At the sight of the rope he produces, I know my mental resistance to being tied up is something not easily fought, and it comes at me fast and fierce, and I have to deep breathe to calm myself. You don’t kill a mob boss on a plane, with his men on it, and live.
I let him tie me up.
When he tugs my head back this time and leans over me, forcing me to look at him, he all but yanks the hair from my scalp. “You are mine, and so is the necklace.” He kisses me, and it’s all I can do not to bite his damn tongue off. But he bites me instead, damn near taking a chunk of my lip, his teeth creating a sharp, intense pain that radiates into my jaw and leaves me oozing blood I cannot wipe away.
He kneels in front of me, spreading my legs and resting his hands on my thighs. “Your father knew where it was, and he wouldn’t tell me either.”
“What does that mean?” I demand, the mention of my father like another bite that radiates through me and becomes a ball of unnamed emotions in my chest.
“He had the necklace, like you do. He was undercover in my father’s operation, and his boss, now your figurehead of a boss, stole the necklace from him. And like you, your father refused to return it to my father. Only your boss, your father’s old partner, was working with me, about to hand that necklace over, when your father intervened and took it. At that point France and Italy were ruled by Niccolo’s mother and my father, who’d married. That necklace was key to my plan to take over the empire when I killed them.”
“You say that like killing your parents is nothing.”
“They were nothing,” he says. “And why, you might ask, do I feel that way? None of your fucking business. What matters is that I waited years for that necklace to show up in order to act on my plans. Years of nothing, in which I had to share the power with Niccolo and turn to you for a solution.”
“I was never a solution. I knew nothing about the necklace.”
“But I knew your father had trained you all your life. I knew if anyone could find that necklace, it was you.”
My world starts to spin.
“I created your covert team,” he continues. “You aren’t really CIA, though even the agency has whispers of your secret unit. It’s really quite comical. I paid for your college education. I paid for your training. I made sure you questioned your father’s death and had the skills to figure out where the necklace was, and finally you gave it to me. Dane Owen Daniels, ‘DOD,’ was the link, an old friend of your father’s who helped him hide the necklace. But we didn’t know who he was until you gave us a way to find him and the necklace.”
My gut knots with my stupidity, for allowing myself to be a token in a game my father lost, and which I am close to losing as well. “And then you had me transport it across the border.”
“It seemed profoundly appropriate. If you fucked it up and got caught, you’d be the thief. I made you. I erased you. I even killed your ‘boss’ at the fictitious CIA operation when I brought you here, to ensure no one could track you. So you see, you work for me. You’ve always worked for me. You belong to me. And you will bring me the necklace.”
“Did you—”