I spent another two days and two nights in the hospital, during which Dante did not leave my side again. But at least I feel much better and have medication to control the sickness if I need it.
I look up at the beautiful house through the car window. I completely get now why Joey sees this place as a prison.
“Are you sure you can manage?” Dante asks as I take his hand and step out of the car.
“Yes. I’m fine now. I promise,” I remind him.
He runs a hand over his thick beard.
I walk beside him toward the front door of the house, and with each step we take, a knot of anxiety builds in my stomach. The thought of going back to that room and being isolated makes me feel like bolting for the gates.
“Dante?”
“I’ve moved you to my room,” he says, because of course he can read me so well. “That way, I can keep an eye on you.”
“Okay. Thank you.” At least there’s a TV in his room. And books. And a clock. And him. And despite my brain’s refusal to accept the new status quo that we have officially lost our marbles, been Stockholmed if you will, and have fallen for the man who kidnapped us, my body is all clued in, and it shivers in anticipation.
Dante escorts me to his bedroom and places my bag onto the bed. He clears his throat. “Your things are all in here now. The closet on the end and the bottom two drawers are all yours.”
“Thanks,” I whisper, unsure how to navigate this new dynamic between us. I’m sharing his bedroom, but I’m not his partner or his girlfriend. I don’t know what I am, other than his prisoner.
“I’ll leave you to unpack,” he says, then he leaves me alone.
It takes me a few seconds to realize that he’s left the door open. I’m not locked in.
I look around the room, waiting for the trick. Like maybe a huge alarm is about to go off to signal the prisoner has been left unattended. But nothing happens. So I summon the courage to creep toward the door, expecting steel bars to come slamming down as soon as I get within a foot of it. But, no. Just an open door.
My heart races as I poke my head outside. No laser from a sniper rifle waiting to take me out if I step into the hallway. No armed guard to tell me to get back into my cell. The hallway is empty. I could walk out of the room and nothing would stop me.
Despite that, I don’t. I go back inside like a good little prisoner and unpack my bag.
Afterward, I flick on the TV, but I’m too restless to settle. That open door is calling to me. Is it some sort of test? Am I supposed to be conditioned to stay in my room now without any need for locks or bars on the windows? Or am I allowed to walk around the rest of the house?
I turn the TV off and walk toward the door again. I mean, he never told me to stay in here, did he? He just said he’d leave me to unpack. That was an hour ago and nobody has checked on me since. I stick my head out of the door again, waiting for a surprise attack.
Jesus, Kat! You are a grown-ass woman. Go walk down the stairs and speak to another human being.
I straighten my shoulders, smooth my dress over my hips, and stride out of the door with my head held high. Fake it ’til you make it, right? As I reach the stairway, one of Dante’s armed guards is walking from the opposite end of the hallway.
Shit! He’s going to call the other guards on his little radio thing he has clipped to his belt and I’m going to be pinned to the ground with a gun at my head. But he simply nods a polite greeting as he passes by.
With a renewed sense of courage, I walk downstairs. Maximo is the first person I run into, almost literally because my head is on a swivel, waiting for Dante to jump out on me any moment. But Maximo catching me if I’m not supposed to be out here is as good as the devil himself, I suppose.
“Kat? How are you feeling?” he asks.
“Um. Much better. Thanks.”
“Good. Joey is in the den. She’s been waiting for you to get home,” he says casually before heading off down the hallway in the direction of Dante’s office.
Home? That would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. I head to the den and sure enough Joey is in there with her feet on the coffee table reading a magazine. The bruise on her face is almost faded now. I have a vague recollection of talking about how she got it, but it’s a fuzzy memory that I can’t fully recall. At the time, I wondered if I was imagining her, but the bruise is definitely real.
“Kat?” she says, tossing her magazine onto the sofa when she sees me walk into the room. “You’re back! And you look so much better.”
“Thanks,” I say with a faint smile. That’s all I seem to be doing today, thanking people.
“Sit.” She pats the sofa cushion beside her, and I take a seat.
“Your eye looks better too,” I say.
She traces her fingertips over it softly. “Dante wouldn’t let me come with you to the hospital because of my black eye. He said it would look bad and people would ask too many questions.”
“Well, he’s right. It does look bad,” I say with a frown. “Did he do that to you because you helped me?”
“No. I told you that already, but you were kind of out of it.”
“So, who?”
“It’s nothing,” she says with a shake of her head.
“Clearly not. Somebody hit you. Who? Maximo?”
“Oh my God, no.” She laughs loudly. “Maximo would never. He’s a big teddy bear really. He wanted to kill him, but Dante handled it.”
“Kill who and handled what, Joey?”
“It was our dad, okay? He found out what I did and he hit me. But Dante stopped him and he’s not allowed back in the house for a while, so…” She shrugs.
“But why? What does me trying to escape have to do with your dad?”
“Nothing, I guess, maybe he didn’t like that I tried to undermine the chosen one, you know?” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, he was furious with Dante and he’d never hit him, so I think I got it instead.”
“He’s furious with Dante?”
“Yeah. Like sooo mad.” She shudders dramatically. “He’s even making Lorenzo come home.”
“Lorenzo? Your older brother?”
“Yep.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Bad for Lorenzo, yeah,” she says. “But Anya, his wife, will be coming too, so that will be nice.” She smiles, and I figure they share a close relationship. I know how hard it is to lose your mom so young and need some positive female energy in your life.
