Chapter 17 Captured
I spun around.
Giovanni stood at the intersection of the hallway, blocking my path back to the stairs. He was not winded or rushing. He stood with his hands in his pockets, flanked by two guards who looked like they were carved from granite.
"Get out of my way," I said, backing up until my shoulders hit the cold metal of the elevator doors.
"You made a mess," Giovanni said, glancing toward my open door where the maid was now sobbing. "The Don doesn't like messes."
I looked left and saw a heavy vase on a console table.
I grabbed it and threw it at the fire alarm on the wall.
I missed. The vase shattered harmlessly against the plaster.
Giovanni sighed, a sound of profound boredom, and nodded to the guards.
They moved.
I did not go quietly. When the first guard reached for me, I drove my knee into his groin.
He grunted and stumbled, but the second one grabbed my hair and yanked my head back so hard white spots danced in my vision.
I screamed, clawing at his hands and kicking out blindly. I connected with a shin, then a stomach. I fought with the desperation of a creature that smells the slaughterhouse.
But they were professionals, and I was a malnourished girl who had spent twenty-four hours pacing a room.
Giovanni stepped in then. He swept my legs out from under me with a precise, military efficiency.
I hit the floor hard. The air left my lungs in a painful whoosh. Before I could inhale, a knee was pressed into the center of my back, pinning me to the carpet like a butterfly on a board.
"Enough," Giovanni said.
I gasped for air, struggling against the weight, watching the world tilt sideways.
"Is she secured?"
The new voice did not come from the guards. It came from the shadows of the staircase.
Dante walked into the light. He was buttoning his cuffs as if he had just finished dressing for dinner. His face was a mask of absolute, glacial fury. He looked down at me, pinned to the floor with my hair wild and my chest heaving against the carpet.
He did not look disappointed. He looked like a man who had finally run out of patience.
"Get off her," Dante commanded.
Giovanni stepped back immediately.
I scrambled to my knees, ready to fight or run, but Dante was faster. He reached down and grabbed a handful of my shirt, hauling me to my feet with a violence that made my teeth snap together.
"I gave you a room," he snarled, dragging me closer until I could see the gold flecks in his furious grey eyes. "I gave you food. I gave you protection."
"You gave me a cell!" I spat back, shoving at his chest. "I won't just sit there and wait to die!"
"So you attack a girl half your size? You act like a savage?"
"I act like a prisoner who wants to survive!"
"Survival?" He laughed, a dark, humorless sound.
"You think running into the hallway is survival? If you had made it to the lobby, my perimeter guards would have put a bullet in your leg before you reached the gate. I am the only reason you are breathing, Lilith."
"Then let me go!"
"No."
He shifted his grip to my arm and dragged me back down the hall. I dug my heels in, sliding on the rugs and fighting him every step of the way, but he was an immovable force.
He marched me past the weeping maid and the shattered dinner tray and threw me into the room.
I stumbled, catching myself on the bedpost.
Dante turned to Giovanni, who was waiting in the doorway.
"Clear the room," Dante ordered. "Everything. Books. Lamps. The chair. Leave nothing that can be broken or used as a weapon."
"And bring the chains."
My blood ran cold. "Chains? You can't be serious."
He turned on me, advancing until my back hit the wall. He placed a hand on the wall beside my head, caging me in.
"You proved tonight that you cannot be trusted with freedom," he said, his voice dropping to a terrifying whisper.
"You want to bite? You want to claw? Fine. If you want to act like a wild animal, you will live like one."
Giovanni returned with a set of heavy steel handcuffs connected to a long chain.
I did not fight them when they secured one cuff to the heavy oak post of the bedframe and the other to my ankle. I stood there, trembling with a rage so pure it felt like it was burning my organs to ash.
Dante checked the lock. He tugged on the chain. It held.
He stood up and looked down at me.
"Think about your choices, Lilith. Because the next time you try this, I won't put you in chains. I’ll put you in the cellar."