“Take off your clothes, Mia, and I promise I’ll go easy on you for a bit.”
Mia shook her head, but she didn’t try kicking Wallace when he entered her cell a moment later. Instead, she pressed her back against the wall and remained passive as he approached. It was surprisingly easy to quell the instinct to resist as he came nearer, and it didn’t take deep self-analysis to figure out why.
Fighting Aldo had been a matter of pride and necessity. He seemed to regard her resistance as a nuisance, but he’d wanted her enough to deal with it. Shane had viewed it as a challenge, and it had evolved into a fucked-up version of foreplay, but he had also wanted something else from her.
She could see in Wallace’s empty expression that he wanted her body, but not for anything pleasurable or kinky, beyond inflicting pain. He wanted her to hurt and bleed for his pleasure, and he wouldn’t care if she lived or died. In fact, he would clearly prefer she die, though he probably wouldn’t take it that far without Shane’s assent.
Self-preservation kicked into high gear as she acknowledged she was at his mercy, and the best way she could minimize her suffering was not fight him. It was bitter to accept, and she found herself in the crazy position of once more viewing Shane as a source of salvation. He had saved her from Aldo. Would he save her from his own man, or was he planning to do even worse to her?
14
“What? You can’t sign yourself out, Shane.”
With a wince, he angled his cell phone from his ear as his sister shrieked shrilly into it. Maybe he wasn’t so appreciative that Bruno had retrieved his possessions, including the phone, from his sister that morning. “I’m fine, Siobhan. I can rest at home as easily as I can at the hospital. Better, in fact, without every goddamn nurse in a ten-block radius coming in to check my vitals every five minutes.”
“No way. The doctor told Cormac and me you’d need several days in the hospital, along with recuperation at home. Three days doesn’t qualify as nearly long enough.”
He grinned, imagining how hopping mad his little sister must be right then. “Sorry, honey, but I have to get out of here. I have things to handle.”
“Like Mia?”
He stiffened slightly. “Maybe.”
She sighed. “I wasn’t going to tell you this yet, but she called to check on you the night you were shot.”
He jerked in surprise. “Oh?” Perfect. His tone was neutral, betraying no hint of interest.
“I don’t know the story, but Cormac told me not to judge her too harshly.” Siobhan sighed again. “Maybe you should keep that in mind too and not go into full get-revenge mode.”
Shane frowned at the phone. “Revenge? For what?”
“She got you shot.”
He laughed softly. “I suppose, but that’s a gross oversimplification of events, Siobhan. There are things I can’t tell you—”
“I know, Shane.”
“So you’ll have to take my word—”
“No,” she interrupted, “I mean I know the things you can’t tell me. Cormac and I had a long talk. With all your…responsibilities, you need to stay in the hospital and rest a bit longer before resuming them. Please just stay there until I can come talk to you, okay?”
He sighed. “Sorry, sis, but I’m already in the car headed home. I’ll talk to you later.” Without giving her a chance to continue her campaign for him to stay in the hospital—or go back, he supposed—he hung up the phone, put it on silent mode, and slipped it into the pocket of his pants.
Bruno glanced at him from the front of the car. “Everything okay, boss?”
He gave a humorless laugh. “Just fucking peachy, Bruno.” His sister knew he was in the mafia, and the woman he lo—was fixated on—had run out on him when he was bleeding on the ground, hovering between life and death. At least Wallace had tracked her down with the GPS chip he’d slipped into the birth control shot, and she’d be waiting for him at home.
He was going to make her wait a day or two, he decided, before confronting her. Let her stay locked up and imagine the worst before he went to see her. It wouldn’t do his temper any harm to get some time to regain control, too. Right now, rage and resentment burned in his belly like cheap whiskey, and he knew it wasn’t safe to go near her just yet.
* * *
Even not knowing exactly what Shane had planned for her, Mia was still relieved to see him when he entered the basement two days after Wallace had taken her from the street. Her first thought was that he looked like hell. His normally robust tanned skin was pale, and his face looked gaunt, though he couldn’t have lost much weight in the four days since she’d seen him, even with a gunshot wound.
Her gaze darted to the sling encasing his left arm, where she could see the bulky bandage covering most of the left side of his chest and clavicle underneath the thin fabric of his T-shirt. It was insane, but she had to physically bite her tongue to keep from asking how he felt and fretting over him being out of the hospital already.
The reality of her position and situation made it easier to rein in the concern. She lay on the cold concrete, naked as the day she was born, with her hands cuffed to her ankles, which were spread by a metal bar. It was an obscene, undignified pose, but Wallace seemed to have no sexual interest in her.
Instead, he’d contented himself with hurting her in a physical, rather than sexual, fashion. He’d hit her with his fists a few times in the ribs before switching to a solid paddle he brought out every few hours. Mia knew some people used those toys in sex games, but she could never look at the thing and imagine it bringing someone pleasure after the way he’d hurt her with it.
