Chapter 79

VEDA

I’ve been locked away in this fancy jail cell for two days now.

I think.

I pushed my dirty hair off my face and tried to remember. I was starting to lose track of time. Had it been longer? No, I don’t think so. Lack of sleep and very little food was making my brain foggy, but I thought it had only been two nights. Which made today the second full day I’d been here, and I was still alive.

Closing my eyes for a moment, I let them tear up, hoping it would bring me some relief from these goddamned contacts. The fucking things burned like I’d washed them in nail polish remover, the whites of my eyes so red it made the blue stand out like they glowed.

How this idiot didn’t know I wasn’t Nicole was beyond me. He had to know. He had to. But if he did, he wasn’t letting on, and it was totally messing with my head. Did he know, and he just got some kind of sick pleasure out of watching me skitter around this place trying to be her? Or was my sister such a mess that the way I was acting was normal behavior for her?

My nerves were so on edge, a scream lodged in my throat at every tiny noise. The scuff of a shoe. A cough. The click of a door closing. I felt like I was constantly on the verge of an epic freakout. There’s no way he didn’t notice how jumpy I was, and for the first twenty-four hours or so, I wondered why he didn’t call me out. But then I realized he was distracted, and almost as jumpy as I was. And I knew what was happening.

We were waiting for Luca. It was quite obvious to me now that Mario had no intention of taking his hard fought for prize and escaping. No. He had no intention of running at all. He was using me as bait. Same as his fucking brother. And at this moment, I didn’t know which one of them I hated more.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Nicole, go take a fucking shower already. I can’t stand looking at you walking around here looking like some dirty, broken doll I picked up off the pavement.”

Mario’s angry voice broke into my thoughts. The comparison almost made me laugh, because wasn’t that exactly what I was? However, I would literally kill for a shower right now. I was also terrified of being naked anywhere around this man. Game or not, I knew he would expect things from me. Things I tried not to think about because it made me want to vomit. He’d been so busy planning the execution of his brother, I was hoping he wouldn’t notice that I was still running around in the same fancy dress I’d arrived in.

I glanced over at him, stuttering, “I wasn’t sure if there was time…”

“Some of your clothes are in the closet in my room. Get a shower.”

I sat frozen at the end of the couch. Mario and three of his men were in his office discussing business. They’d been in there all afternoon. He’d left the door open, and not knowing what else to do, I’d sat down and pulled a pillow into my lap until it was time to eat dinner. Luckily, I wasn’t expected to cook. My sister had never made a meal in her life.

I stared at the piece of shit who had killed my sister. Bitch or not, she was still mine. My family. My twin. My eyes dropped to the gun holstered under his arm, and my fingers twitched. I wanted to feel the cold metal in my palm. Wanted to feel it kick as I shot a bullet into his head.

Mario narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. “Nicole. Go shower.”

His tone was sharp. My eyes flew up to his face, then around at the others. I blinked, and the image of Mario bleeding out on the floor of his office dissipated. They all stared at me, waiting silently. “Um, okay. That’d be great. I feel super icky.” Parroting one of my sister’s favorite phrases, I could barely keep from rolling my eyes at myself. My body felt stiff and sore as I set the pillow aside and rose from the couch. My back ached from the tension I constantly carried around. With a small smile, I made my way down the hall, peeking back over my shoulder once.

Mario and his goons had closed the office door and were no longer watching me. As quickly as I could, I started opening doors, searching for Mario’s room. The place we were in—although definitely high end—wasn’t as large as Nicole’s apartment, but it was big enough that it wasn’t obvious where everything was. I found his room down another hall toward the back. It was the only door at this end of the apartment. When I opened it up, I knew right away it was his room. No one else here thought so much of themselves. I half expected to find King Henry VIII lounging on the plush red comforter of the raised bed. The area rug was red, too. The headboard and giant chest of drawers were black. Gold accents completed the look— an expensive vase, a box I assumed was for his watch or money clip or whatever, and a few other odds and ends. It was too gaudy, and I hated it. Nothing like the understated elegance of Luca’s lake house.

I found the closet easily—almost as large as the guest room I was in—and stood staring around. A few things, my ass. Half the closet was filled with my sister’s clothes and shoes, which, to be fair, was less than a quarter of her wardrobe. The other half contained Mario’s suits, a few pairs of jeans folded over a hanger, and a shoe collection that rivaled my sister’s.

He still had all of her things here. Why? Why not get rid of them? He’d killed her. He’d admitted it himself the night he took me from Luca. So… what? Was this some sick kind of mourning? Was he still hanging onto everything out of sentimental value?

Too tired to think more about it, I walked over to a chest of drawers on Nicole’s side and opened the top drawer. Digging around, I found some scraps of silk and lace that were supposed to be underwear. The drawer beside it contained bras that matched. I grabbed the set that was made from the most material and closed the drawers.

Unfortunately, the rest of the selection wasn’t much better. It was obvious that Nicole kept her comfy leggings and oversized T-shirts at her place. Her clothes here could best be described as “stripper wear”—everything tight and uncomfortable and not made to actually be worn for long. And being that I outweighed my sister by at least ten or fifteen pounds, this could prove to be an issue. I dug around and finally found a pair of black, stretchy pants with rhinestones down the side and a long-sleeved crop top with a low-cut neckline that matched the pants and looked like it would cover my boobs. It would have to do.

With clean clothes clutched in my hands, I left the closet. Halfway to the door, I stopped. Did Mario expect me to shower here, in his room? Frantically, I thought back to what he’d said, but there was nothing in my memory that told me anything one way or the other. Shit.

I took two steps toward the door and stopped, my heart pounding. The bathroom I was using was a shared room in the hallway. What was to stop any one of them from barging in there on me while I was naked with shampoo in my eyes? Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

But I really wanted to be clean. I felt like I’d been rolled around in that jar of used grease that my grandmother always saved and left sitting by the side of the stove, and I probably didn’t smell much better. My eyes slowly crept across the room and landed on the open door to Mario’s private bathroom. He’d been with his goons all afternoon. If I was quick, I could be in and out and dressed again, such as it was, before they finished their business.

Mind made up, I hurried across the room. The bathroom was done in all black and white and was just as obscenely large and overdone as the bedroom, but it was clean and it had a shower. A very large walk-in shower. But at least there was a wall surrounding it and not glass, so I had some semblance of privacy.

Moving fast now, I stripped off the dress I’d worn for Luca on our last night together. It seemed a lifetime ago now. My underthings came next. Putting a towel and my sister’s clean clothes close to the shower, I walked in and turned on the water, letting it run until it was almost too hot to stand in. I wanted to soak in my demon water until I felt clean—not only of dirt, but of the fucked up things these men were putting me through.

There was a built-in shelf in the corner, and I removed the contacts and carefully set them in the back corner. Honestly, the thought of putting those things back in my eyes made me want to cry. Maybe if I had some proper lense cleaner, or had even the slightest idea what I could use in place of it, they wouldn’t be so bad. But as it was, I just didn’t see how I could continue to wear them without risking my eyesight.

Maybe it was stupid of me to even try, anyway. As I tilted my head back to wet my hair, I wondered why I even bothered. How could Mario not know I wasn’t my sister? He was engaged to her, a woman he should know inside and out by now.

But if he didn’t, wouldn’t he have called me out right away? Why play with me this way?

Except I thought I knew why. It was fun for him. Just like it was fun for Luca to kidnap me and keep me a prisoner in his house just so he could fuck with his brother and have his revenge, with no concern about me or my life. A surge of temper heated my blood to match the water as I dumped some shampoo on my head and began to work it through my long hair with jerky movements. I was fucking tired of being a pawn, and I wasn’t going to do it anymore.

Before I could change my mind, I grabbed the contacts and squished them between my fingertips, then let the water wash them from my hand and down the large drain. There was a moment’s panic when they didn’t make it through the grate right away, but they disappeared before I could act on it.

And then they were gone.

The sound of my breath was loud over the soft spray of the water, my heart like thunder in my ears, and for a moment I couldn’t move. But it was done. It was done. There was no turning back now. Shit. Mario would ask about my eyes. Or maybe he wouldn’t. No, he would. And what the hell was I going to say?

Well, I’d just have to figure that out when I got there. For right now, I just wanted to get clean and get dressed before he finished his meeting and came looking for me. I found the body wash and wet the washcloth I’d brought into the shower with me, then covered it with soap and started scrubbing at my body. I’d just finished my face and arms and was working my way down my torso when I heard a click, like the sound of a door closing.

“Mind if I join you, baby?”