I pace up and down, checking my watch every thirty seconds. “How much longer?” I snap after five minutes of waiting.
“You’re welcome to wait in my office—” King begins.
“Call them and tell them to bring him down. Now.”
I catch the sigh from King as he turns to pick up the discreet phone beside the elevator. He speaks in low tones, then turns back to me. “Very soon now, Mr. Orsini.”
Another five minutes of pacing, each passing moment feeding the dark anticipation building inside me. I’ve been patient for twenty-one years, but these last few minutes are excruciating.
At last, the elevator chimes softly, and the doors slide open. Jesse Foster emerges first, holding a delicate golden chain in his fist that goes taut as he moves forward.
“Come on,” he hisses over his shoulder.
Caligula Clemenza steps out of the elevator. I inhale slowly as I look him over. His face is still painted up with all that makeup, eyes rimmed in black and gold, cheekbones dusted with shimmer. He wears a gold satin cloak draped over his shoulders,but it falls open in front, leaving his body on display. The gold dust has been cleaned from his skin, revealing tan perfection beneath. He’s a little on the skinny side, but that’s how I like my men.
He’snotmy man. I incinerate that thought as soon as it enters my brain.
He’s myproperty. And that’s signified by the golden cage he still wears between his legs. But from the end of it, a thin gold chain spans from it into Foster’s hand, as though he has any claims here.
“Give that to me,” I snarl.
Foster gives a deferential bow. “Here you are, sir,” he says cheerfully, handing over the end of the golden leash.
I take it, wrapping the cold chain around my knuckles. The Clemenza is watching me with guarded eyes.
“One more thing, sir.” Foster reaches into his jacket and withdraws a small ornate box of black lacquer with subtle gold inlay of an obelisk. He presents it to me with both hands, like an offering. “The key.”
I grab the box impatiently and shove it into my pocket, then open the back door of the car and gesture at my new property to get in.
The Clemenza doesn’t move. He’s staring straight ahead now, his posture rigid, chin lifted in a futile attempt at dignity. As though if he doesn’t acknowledge me, none of this is happening.
And I want him to feel every second of his new reality.
I give a tug on the chain and he gasps. His hands fly instinctively to his groin, but he catches himself, forcing them back to his sides.
“In,” I tell him, pointing to the vehicle. “There.” I indicate the backward-facing seat, wanting him positioned where I can watch him, study him, enjoy his fear.
He steps forward quickly. Guess he learned his lesson. He climbs awkwardly into the back of the car, trying to pull the cloak around himself as he takes the seat I directed him to.
I toss the chain onto the floor of the car, where it lands with a melodic tinkle. It’s a symbol, a fragile thing that could be severed easily enough. But over the next year, the chains I’ll put him in will be unbreakable.
“Be seeing you,” I tell King, who gives a clipped nod and doesn’t offer his hand. Foster follows him back to the elevator.
“No permanent physical harm or disfigurement,” King reminds me. “You return him alive in one year.”
I wait for the doors to close on him before I snort softly, then get into the car. The Clemenza has pressed himself against the far door, as far from me as the confines of the car allow. His head is down, gaze fixed on the floor, hands clutching the cloak around his body like it can protect him somehow.
I say nothing at first. I just watch him, drinking him in.
The car glides forward. Only when we’ve emerged onto street level, the city flowing past the dark windows, do I allow myself to fully relax.
It’s real. He’s here.
He’smine.
I study him in the shifting shadows, watch the streetlights illuminate him in flashes—the curve of a cheekbone, the full lower lip, the bronze-gold hair.
“Look at me,” I say.