“I do have a key for this fucking place, you know,” he says, but his playful smile dissipates the moment his eyes leave Lucifer and focus on me. “It’s showtime, princess,” he snarls while he throws something at me over Lucifer’s shoulder: a box that bounces across the floor and lands at my feet. It’s black, withTrojanwritten across the sides in gleaming silver script.Ribbed for her pleasureproclaims the tagline. “We do this now,” Arno says.
Now.I blink and only now do I seem to realize how dark it is. The laptop’s screen casts a bluish light that paints everything in a morbid glow. It reflects off Lucifer’s back, emphasizing the muscle straining the cotton of a shirt nearly identical to the one hanging on me.
“Take her across the hall,” Arno tells Lucifer, who seems to stiffen at the request disguised as an order.
There’s an uneasy truce between these two men, I sense. Lucifer isn’t one of his lapdogs, and yet helps him out of a reason other than fear.Loyalty?It’s such a strange contrast to the way Vinny interacts with his goons. They are loyal to his money but obey him solely out of fear.
Lucifer sighs a violent sound. Then he cuts his gaze to me and jerks his head toward the doorway. “Come on.”
I scuttle from the couch and bend to grab the box of condoms. They weigh me down as I enter another hallway lined with several closed doors. Only one is open now, displaying what appears to be another apartment, but the layout is different from Lucifer’s. I swallow hard as I creep up behind him and toe the edge of the doorway.
In the space meant to serve as the living room, someone placed a bed. Black sheets hang from the walls, obscuring thewindows. Perched on a tripod in the far corner is a camera, its lens centered on the mattress.
“Change.” The red-haired man, Arno, shoves another object in my direction. It’s a bag.Victoria’s Secretis written along the side.
My fingers shake when I take it. Then I force myself to step over the apartment’s threshold. It smells different than Lucifer’s. There’s the lingering scent of cigarette smoke and the faint odor of the men who most likely set up this little showroom.
I don’t let myself picture which of those men might be chosen as my costar. I’ll survive. I’ll live long enough to at least make a dent in the shackles Vinny has enslaved me in for so long. I will...
But my traitorous body isn’t as easy to reassure. It tenses as I creep across the room and find a narrow bathroom nearly identical to the one in Lucifer’s apartment. I strip his shirt and then fish my “costume” from the depths of the shopping bag. It looks like something the women in those videos might wear: panties and a black bra that seem to contain more bits of revealing lace than they do fabric. My nipples show through the bra, and Vinny’s brand is a blazing reminder of the man and his rules. The panties are just a triangular strip and then a slender line of string that I guess is meant to separate my legs. I pull them on woodenly, observing my reflection with a frown.
Lynn is a disjointed mess. Her bruised face serves as a harsh reminder of the duress she’s under. I’ll have to do my best to pretend—no, toact. I want this.
“You want this,” I tell myself, though my trembling voice has trouble even reaching my own eardrums—let alone Lucifer’s.
He’s waiting on the other side of the door when I come out. His face is expressionless, though a part of me shivers with the grim knowledge that he heard what I said.
“Are you the one—”
“No,” he says coldly, and I can’t smother a relieved sigh.
Some nameless, faceless man who smells...I can handle. Not Lucifer. His eyes see too much. His body is too big—too muchlike Vinny’s. My act won’t hold up around him. It’s a good thing if...
I shake my head. “Who, then?”
He focuses his gaze down the hall, toward the main room, as if wondering that very thing himself. “Wait here.”
Dante
“So, who is it?” I demand of Arno.
He’s seated on the bed. Both hands are braced on his knees, and for the first time since Parish...I see a hint of the old dog peeking through the haze of grief.
“Why?” he snaps. “You want her?”
“Cut the shit,” I snap. I picture the girl—I can’t help it. Wearing the shit Arno bought for her, she looked like a child hooker. I know she has to be legal if she’s legally engaged to Stacatto, but still... There’s something inherently creepy about seeing her tits bound by a push-up bra, her eyes wide and empty in porcelain sockets.
“I know the perfect man for the job,” Arno insists.
“Who?”
He holds my gaze for a second, his eyes narrowed. Then, all at once, his shoulders slump, weighed down by exhaustion. He looks ten years older, and something tells me that, despite that promise to sleep, he hasn’t laid off the drink since this morning. “You,” he says.
I whirl on him. “The hell I am—”
“Please, Dante.” He stands and starts to pace. He moves his hands through the air as if to illustrate the fucking insanity his mind must be entertaining if he thinks I’ll agree. “I’ve been thinking,” he starts. “You’re right. If we play our cards...Stacatto will be willing to negotiate for her. And, fuck, I want... Ineedto make the fucker squirm.” His eyes glow with an unsteady gleam. Stacatto will pay, all right—and dearly—if Arno has any say in it. “But thisshit has to go down properly. I can’t trust one of those other fuckers to do it right. To let her... I would ask Francisco, but he’s gay.” He breaks off suddenly, his eyebrow raised. “Unless you’re...”
I roll my eyes and bunch my hands into fists, trying to ignore the infernal itching. It creeps up again, inching toward the first knuckle of every single finger. “I’m not.”
