The man looked ashamed, and I instantly wanted to smack him. “Forget about it? Do you know it took me nine years to get clean?”
He winced and curled up in a big meaty, muscle ball, like he was more wounded than I was. “Look, don’t tell my dad. If you do, we’re going to get into serious trouble, okay? We’re already getting too many questions.”
So, he was reporting to his father. I was back in undercover mode, back to surviving, even if I had to bury every emotion I felt right then.
He sighed. “Can you just tell me—are you an Untouchable? We weren’t given that information. And we’ve received a call. We thought you were merely a Stonewood employee and it would be a quick fix to get rid of you.”
An Untouchable. It was a high status within the mob. In the Armanelli family. When a woman married in, no other family—Albanian, Russian, Italian, Serbian—could touch them. It meant death. It meant war and pain and wrath from every other family.
I chewed on my cheek and rubbed at the injection site. I needed a plan, and the plan was going to be what he’d just given me. “You know my sister became an Untouchable not too long ago. She’s my twin. You must have known that. And you must know how quickly things happen when families are intertwined . . .”
His eyes widened. “I don’t keep track. This was my first big job. I needed to eliminate election threats, and we’ve been doing that all over the country. And now we got someone hacking our systems—I can’t be responsible for that.” He looked panicked, like he’d been saddled with the worst luck.
Hope blossomed when he said there was hacking going on. Cade had to know I was here. But was I worth the risk? I shrugged at the man sitting next to me, not willing to give anything away.
“Damn it,” he grumbled before leaving the room. The door slammed shut, and I stared at the food.
My hand twisted over the bracelet Cade had bought me, still clean and shiny on my wrist. Did he care for me enough to come? To look for me? I felt a desperation for him then that I hadn’t before. I wanted to see him one last time, tell him how I cared for him, how it wasn’t just fun. Life and death situations would do that to a person.
I wanted to be reckless even if I was afraid to be. Recklessness had got me in trouble before. It was how I got my first taste of drugs. And then, because with them, my mind didn’t worry, didn’t stray into feeling like I was doing anything wrong. Then Vincent found me and told me he loved me.
So, I found myself doing anything and everything for him. Therapy would show me later that I was young, easily coerced, easily preyed upon. So many young girls had suffered the same fate, but it didn’t mean we were to blame, it didn’t mean I had to let my relationship with Vincent define me.
Guilt and shame can envelope and suffocate a soul, but we don’t have to let it. Cade showed me that. He let me breathe, let me be who I truly was. I promised myself if I got out of here, I’d thank him for that.
I growled in frustration at my predicament and grabbed the water they’d given me with the food. I chugged half of it, and my body rejoiced at getting something.
Another man walked in and I scrambled up to face him. He’d been the one who’d stuck me with a needle. His dirty jeans and ripped shirt showed how well he took care of himself. He hadn’t even washed his face where I’d scratched him because the blood was still caked under it.
“My boss isn’t sure what to do with you.” His meaty hand dragged across my jawline as he got within a few feet of me. “I told him I could get answers out of you quick.”
“I’m not sure what answers you want.” I shrugged, not shrinking back at his touch.
“You intercepted data, and we need to know what you found, little girl. We need to make sure you don’t talk.”
Hate is ugly and unkind, boiling in a soul for years and years—like hell itself is heating it. It can be endless and toxic, but it can keep someone going. I hated this man for taking my sobriety, and I felt the hate bubble out of me when I spoke to him. “How do you intend to keep me from talking? I’m an Untouchable, after all.”
He narrowed his eyes and searched my hand for a ring. They were all confused. And I confused them more with my fake admission. Yet, if acting like I was tied to Cade kept me alive, I was going to do that.
“Living alone, without Armanelli? That doesn’t sound like an Untouchable to me.”
“Want to find out?” I lifted a brow, taunting him.
“You’re so brave, huh?” He didn’t like me testing him. I saw it in the way his neck flexed. Then he stomped over to the door and yelled out of it, “Alteo, bring in the bucket.”
His friend heaved in a white plastic bucket filled with water sloshing from it with each step he took. There was a look of anguish on his face. “Dion, I don’t think we should do anything to—”
“Tie her hands behind her back,” Dion commanded.
Fighting would do me no good. So, instead, I aided Alteo by placing my wrists behind me. If I worked with at least Alteo, I might get out of this alive.
“I say we wait for my dad to get here and—”
Dion shoved Alteo away from me and took his place behind me. He whispered in my ear, “Get on your knees.”
My stomach curdled at him this close, at how he said the words with a slimy innuendo. But I listened. I couldn’t do anything else but that at this point.
His hand grabbed my hair and dunked me fast, holding me under long enough for my body to have survival instinct kick in. I inhaled. I choked. I coughed. And I fought. I pulled my arms as far apart as I could, fighting the zip tie to no avail.
He pulled me up and whispered in my ear, “Want to talk now?”
I either embraced the rage or the helplessness or the defeat. All my emotions were there, though. Bright. Powerful. And vengeful.
“Talk to you, Dion? I’d rather die,” I murmured, and turned to look over my shoulder, catching his gaze.
He roared before he dunked me again.
I fought him again, and he held me under until I thought I might pass out, might die from drowning.
I crumbled to the floor, choking, as he let me go while he laughed. His laughter was enough to show me I could kill, that I would relish taking his life. A new hatred grew in me right then, and I embraced it. Embraced that my emotions could bring pain, could bring destruction, could ruin someone. A life-and-death situation that does that makes you accept who you are.
I pulled myself up from the ground. As his smile widened and he dragged his gaze up and down my body, I lifted my chin. He wouldn’t make me cower, even if his eyes hovered at the edge of my baggy T-shirt. I was so thankful I wore shorts, but I knew they wouldn’t hold anyone off for long if they wanted me.
“Are you really an Untouchable? What do you know?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“You won’t get any answers without letting me speak with your boss.”
He struck me hard across the face, and I tasted blood in my mouth as I fell to the cement floor.
“Man, we’re supposed to give her good accommodations,” Alteo grumbled.
“Sure. Sure.” Dion shrugged. “You both realize I get her after your dad meets her, though. I’m going to teach you some manners too.” He bent over me. “I will start by telling you I like a nice woman, one who doesn’t talk back. Until then, you don’t eat.”