“Sounds about right.”
“I chased her down to her apartment, but then she crawled through a fucking window the size of a cat door and sprinted down the fire escape… This bitch doesn’t quit.”
The guy chuckled. “She’s got bigger balls than Damien.”
He shook his head and stared at the ground. “No comparison.”
The mention of my brother made me sit up. I squinted because the fluorescent lights overhead were so harsh on my eyes. I felt weak because of the drug that was still in my system, but I fought it off and prepared to rise to my feet.
When he heard me moving around, he lifted his gaze and looked at me. “Great…she’s awake.”
The other man spoke. “Let me know what Damien decides.” The phone clicked when he hung up.
I grabbed the bars and used them to pull myself to my feet. I felt the metal of the cage, shook it with my hands, and was deflated to know it was completely solid. There was no give at all, as if it were a cage from medieval times rather than a modern apparatus. “Let me out of here. Now.”
He relaxed back in the chair and spread his knees farther apart. With his arms crossed over his chest, he tilted his head slightly and stared at me with bright blue eyes. On his right hand was a large diamond ring carved into the shape of a skull, with two eyes and a slight indentation for a mouth. It had to be worth a billion euro.
“Who the hell has a cage like this?” I tried to shake the bars again with my hands. “Do you think you’re a knight or something?”
“Knights serve their king, and I don’t serve anybody.”
Now that I was trapped, I was truly scared, but the worst thing I could do was show that fear. It gave my captor all the power, only made his ego bigger. If I acted like a victim, he would treat me like one. I had to convince him to let me go, to see me as his equal rather than his prisoner. “It sounds like you serve the loser on the phone.”
He looked at me with intense eyes, staring at me in a way he hadn’t before. He seemed perplexed by my existence, as if he didn’t understand me at all. “Business associate.”
“And what kind of business are you in? Raping people?” I could deal with being mugged, I could deal with someone taking me for every single cent I was worth, but I couldn’t deal with someone stripping away all my rights and forcing me to do something against my will.
He was still as a statue in response to my accusation. “Do I look like someone who needs to rape women?” He tilted his head again, and this time, the hardness etched into his features showed he was actually offended by my assumption.
I didn’t pay much attention to the attractiveness of my captor because he was my enemy, but yes, he was a handsome man, a guy I would probably hit on in a bar if I spotted him across the room. But that wasn’t our situation. “Not all monsters are ugly.”
He rose from the chair and came closer to me, his heavy boots thudding against the concrete as he approached, his heavy arms still crossed over his chest. When he was near the cage, he stopped far enough away so I couldn’t grab him. “No. I’m not going to rape you.”
I had no reason to trust this guy, but the answer made me feel better anyway. I could handle anything else, even death, but not that. “Good. Because I’d kill you if you tried.”
“Pretty bold thing when you’re inside a cage.”
I gripped the bars and pressed my face through an opening so I could get as close to him as possible. “Then unlock the door.” My threat was unmistakable. Maybe it was stupid to provoke a man like him, but I had nothing left to lose right now.
It was the first time we’d had a conversation because up until now we’d been fighting for our lives. It was a strange feeling, disconcerting, to talk to this monster like we were having a simple discussion. “You’re no match for me.”
“Open the door, then. Let’s find out.”
He smiled slightly, and it was a shame because he actually looked nice as he did it. On the street, he was a handsome man enjoying a warm afternoon. He even looked harmless. But in here…he looked like the devil. “I can’t tell if you’re brave or just crazy.”
“Both, definitely.” I hated feeling powerless behind these bars. There was no weapon in sight and no way for me to fight for my freedom when I was enclosed in solid iron. “What does my brother have to do with this?” I knew my brother dealt with shady people, did sketchy things, but I’d never worried I’d get involved in it. Yet here I was, a pawn in this violent game of chess.