I drop down on my chest and peek under the door crack again but see no feet this time. I suppose she could be laying down in the bed, but she might also have passed out due to hunger, or maybe climbed out the window and plummeted to her death. I don’t want to break down and give in, but for all I know, she might not even be still alive in there. So, I knock on the door and wait for an answer. “Camille?” I ask when there is none. “Camille, are you still in there?” Still no answer. “I know you’re hungry. Don’t you want to come out and get some food? Or maybe bathe in the clawfoot tub again?” I try to tempt her with the things I know she probably wants. Talking to me is likely not one of those things.
When I’m still met with only silence, I decide that I’m much too frustrated to wait this out any longer. I pull out my master key that opens every door inside this apartment and shove it into the lock. There isn’t a single corner of this place I can’t get into, just like there isn’t a single thing in this city I can’t exert my control over. Except, apparently, Camille. I’m not sure what I’m going to find when I open the door, but I’m surprised when I come face-to-face with her. She’s sitting in an armchair she must have dragged from the corner of the bedroom to put smack in the center, positioned to face the door, staring back at me with a vehement glare. Her eyes look tired, and her face looks drawn and hungry, even though it’s only been a day. It’s not like she has she has a lot of body fat to fall back on.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask, talking to her as if she’s acting like a child, because she is. “Why won’t you come out and get something to eat? You’re making all of this harder on yourself than it needs to be.”
“I’m making things hard on myself?” she asks with narrowed eyes. “You do realize that you’re the one who stole me from my home and brought me here against my will, right?”
“So you’re going to sit in here and pout until you pass out from hunger? Stop acting like a child. I’m trying to keep you safe.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” she scoffs. “But who’s keeping me safe from you?”
“You don’t need protection from me, Camille.”
“Don’t I?”
“Well, for one thing, I’m not trying to kill you,” I say, taking a step closer to where she’s sitting. Her eyes look up at me as if she’s challenging me, and even though I should be angry at her continued obstinance, all I can think about is twisting my hands in her hair and kissing the top of her supple breasts.
“Why have you imprisoned me here?” she demands. “You haven’t given me any answers since I got here.” That’s been a little hard to do, considering she’s been holed up in this room the entire time.
“I think the Grecocapois out to kill us both,” I answer bluntly.
“Johnny?” she asks with a wrinkled nose. “My estranged uncle with the patchy beard? I don’t see what reason he’d have to kill either one of us. Trust me, most of my estranged relatives want nothing to do with me. And again, I’ll ask you, why do you even care what happens to me? It’s not as if your crew couldn’t protect you from the Grecos.”
The more Camille presses me for an answer to that question, the more I resist giving her one, mostly because I don’t even understand my own feelings for her yet. All I know is that I feel the strong need to protect her and keep her here with me. But if she stays in this room refusing to come out even to eat, I’m not really living up to my promise of protecting her. So, I decide to give her an ultimatum.
“Look, you can either come out on your own and start assimilating into myborgataand joining my crew, or I can have my men force you out—your choice. But one way or the other, you will be coming out of this room.” In the back of my mind, I know my threats are empty. I wouldn’t actually send my men in to force Camille to do anything. She’s too beautiful and I’m too protective. As much as I trust my men, I don’t trust any of them alone around her. But she doesn’t know that.
“So, this is how I’m going to live now for the foreseeable future? I’m going to be a prisoner here, and you’re going to use your goons to force me to do things against my will? What kind of protection is that? I’d rather be free and in danger than safe inside this cage you’ve put me in.”
“No, that’s not what I want,” I say as a last-ditch effort to implore her to cooperate. “And if you’d stop being so damn difficult, maybe you’d see that I’m not your enemy here. The only way to keep you under my protection is for you to join myborgata. Then, you’ll be under the protection of my men. If you officially join the Adamis then I can ensure your safety, and you can have free rein here as my princess.”
“Come again?” she asks with her mouth hanging open. “Do I look like a princess to you?”
I want to tell her that she does—a very stunning, stubborn and sexy princess. Instead I say, “You look like someone who’s going to wind up with a bullet in her skull if she doesn’t start listening to me.”
She shrugs me off and rolls her eyes. “I’ve never needed anyone before, and I sure as hell don’t need you now. I’ve lived for years on my own, and if any of my distant relatives wanted me dead then they would’ve attempted it long before now. You have no right to just swoop in and yank me out of my life, simply because I rode your cock for one night.” Ouch. I can hear her voice weaken while she talks, showing me that the night we spent together was more than just another roll in the hay for her too. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it was.
“I am not anyone’s princess,” she snarls at me. “Literally the mere word makes me gag. I have work to do and bills to pay and—”
“All of which is literally too dangerous for you to continue to be doing at the moment,” I interrupt.
“I want to talk to Leo,” she glares. “If you won’t let me go see him, then bring him here, or at least bring me a phone.”
“You can talk to me instead,” I press. “What is it you want?”
“I want to talk to Leo.”
“You are by far the most hotheaded, incredulously stubborn woman I’ve ever met,” I sigh in exasperation.
Camille folds her arms over her chest as if she’s in the practice of making demands. Ironically, I find it more attractive than I should. No one ever stands up to me, either because they fear me or they fear the means I have of destroying their lives. Camille, on the other hand, seems to fear neither of those things.
“It’s not a good idea for me to bring my brother here yet until he cools down,” I say, thinking about what a pain in the ass Leo can be.
“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of bringing Leo here. What do you think he’s going to do, help me escape? Or try to fight with you again?”
I can’t help but to let out a laugh at her last remark. “Trust me, my little brother knows better than to pick a fight with me. And as for escaping this place, you can’t. Every means in and out is guarded to the max, especially after the parking garage incident exposed a hole in my security.”
“Hmph,” she pouts as she jumps to the defense of her best friend. “Leo’s tougher than you think.”
