"So you know about me."
"Willow knows about you. I know some of what she knows. She says you have Stockholm syndrome."
"I know where I fit," Bobby replied. "The question is, what will you fit into when I'm done with you?"
"Good threat," Gemma said. "You should have a threatening urn for when you say that part. Or a matchbox."
"Be quiet," Bobby growled. "I'm trying to threaten you."
"I think you're doing a really good job," Gemma said, with all the condescension in the universe.
"Quiet, or I'll take you back down and put you in the cage."
That shut Gemma up successfully.
"I don't like small spaces," she mumbled, looking at her hands. "I really don't like them."
"I've got nothing but small spaces for you if you don't tell me what I want to know."
"But I already told you that I'd tell you what you wanted to know. Why isn't that enough?"
She was starting to panic again. He could see it in her eyes and hear it in her voice. She was going to bolt…
Gemma made a sudden dash. Bobby did too… for the door. But Gemma wasn't going for the door. She feinted backward and went through the window, throwing the sash up with surprising speed and then hurling herself out of it. In a matter of seconds, and before Bobby's shocked eyes, she was gone.
He'd lost her. Angelo had only just given her to him, and he'd already lost her. He felt like a kid on Christmas Day who had just broken his favorite new toy.
"What to do with the two of you."
With the youngsters out of the way, Angelo was free to unleash on Digby and Willow, neither of whom had the sense to look ashamed, though Digby did at least show a little fear.
"You should let us go," Willow replied. "Keeping us here will only ensure that you are hunted by every agency with a budget for anything more than a water pistol for the rest of your days."
"You don't want to be let go. You wanted to be captured. That's clear enough. The question is, why? You have to know that Matilda Braybrooke is alive and well, not to mention in full possession of her inheritance. You've lost that battle already, Spencers. Why do you insist on fighting it?"
Willow and Digby exchanged looks.
"It's a matter of honor. You wouldn't understand."
"It's a matter of honor to hunt a barely more than teenage girl to the ends of the Earth and beyond?"
"Debts are owed, Mr. Vitali. They will be paid, one way or another."
There was almost more arrogance in that sentence than Angelo could stomach. Digby had been a cocky little shit from the get-go, but Willow surpassed her brother's most aggressively pompous statements without any awareness whatsoever.
Angelo knew precisely what he was going to do with these two. He was going to break them to his will and use them in the same way he used so many others. Digby was already shattered. It was Willow who needed a taste of his treatment. He had no doubt that the haughty facade and general ambiance of aristocracy would disappear the second her put his hands on her. She was a tall, proud, and physically able woman, but she was still only a woman.
"ANGELO!"
Bobby was calling his name. Loudly. And with a certain note of panic in his voice.
"You think about the price you are paying in the effort to reclaim those debts," Angelo said, turning on his heel and leaving the Spencer siblings alone in their respective cells.
"Quite the rescue, Willow, thank you," Digby said with no small amount of sarcasm the second they were alone.
"I came for you," Willow whispered.
"Not in any real hurry," Digby hissed back. "I've been here for months."
"You're intact, physically. And you haven't fallen in love with him, have you?"
"Of course not."
"Then no harm has been done," Willow declared. "Everything is going as planned."
"This better work," Digby grumbled.
"It will, dear brother. I can assure you of that."
"What is it, boy?"
Bobby looked harassed and irritated. He usually looked surly and aggressive, so it was quite the change.
"Gemma," Bobby hissed. "Is on the fucking roof."
Angelo gave him an impassive look. "Then get her off it. Without pushing her off, preferably. Willow would be rather upset if you murdered her, and losing the girl as leverage would be a mistake."
"The fucking roof," Bobby repeated, cursing.
"Frustrating, isn't it, trying to wrangle a force of nature," Angelo observed with no small hint of irony in his tone.
"Tilly was so much easier. This one..." Bobby let out a breath and shook his head so furiously his forelock performed its own shimmy. "She's gonna kill me."
A rare smile of genuine amusement passed over Angelo's features, transforming him. For years, Bobby had been the dark little core of their existence. If there was trouble, Bobby was at the center of it. His murderous impatience, his barely restrained aggression, his tendency to try to stab things, they all combined to make trouble for anyone who was foolish enough to try to contain him.