Then he pulls a cell phone from his pocket and snaps a picture of me.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“Proof of life for your asshole brother.” He smirks as his fingers fly on the screen. “Might as well get it before you die of starvation.”
My stomach growls again, and I’m beginning to feel light-headed and sick at the same time. I know this feeling. I need to eat.
He stands back up and starts to leave me here, hands tied behind my back, half a sandwich and cooling soup on the tray before me. I’ll have to eat it like a dog, and I’ll never be able to get the water to my mouth without his help. My mouth is so dry. I need that water. I need that food.
Fuck me. I need Andriani’s help.
A rusty steak knife will be too good for him. I will poison him myself. A slow and painful death.
“Wait,” I bite out.
He stills and turns back to me. “Manners, kitty cat.”
I want to shout at him to stop calling me kitty cat. But that would just give him more leverage against me and another excuse to leave me here alone, thirsty and starving.
“Please,” I grit out.
“Please, what?”
He’s really enjoying this. I see a glimmer of something in those blue eyes, a quirk to the corners of his lips. Ethylene glycol in his protein shake, I think to myself. He’ll never taste it or know what hit him.
“Please help me,” I force out.
“I’m not sure if I like your tone.”
I take a deep breath. He’s toying with me. Dragging this out.
“Please help me,” I repeat, forcing a fake smile while plotting his demise.
“Mmm.” He strokes his jaw, looking thoughtful. “And I think I’m going to need an apology for the sandwich you threw at my back like an angry toddler who didn’t get her way.”
“Half a sandwich,” I mutter, casting a longing look at the other half, taunting me from the tray I can’t touch.
“What was that, kitty cat?”
His voice forces my gaze back to him. He’s watching me, still arrogant and smug and hot as fuck, one dark eyebrow raised. Poison is too easy and quiet. I’ll run him over with a car instead.
I smile harder. “I said I’m sorry.”
“You don’t sound sincere, but I have shit to do.” He sinks down on his haunches by me, those long, tatted fingers picking up the sandwich first.
He has nice hands. The hands of a Mafia psycho. I wonder how many people he’s used those hands to kill. More than Misha or less?
Andriani brings the corner of the grilled cheese to my lips. “Open.”
There’s nothing sexual about what’s going on. I’m sitting in a hovel with my hands tied behind my back and a chain on my ankle because the beautiful bastard in front of me kidnapped me and brought me here against my will. But there’s something about the way he saysopenin that low, melodic voice. For a second, I think about him offering me his cock. Telling me to open before he slides it deep into my mouth. He would be long and thick and big.
Heat skitters through me, my clit pulsing, and now I know for sure that I’m on the verge of passing out from low blood sugar because I’m fucking delusional.
I open my mouth, and he stuffs the sandwich in. The bite I’m forced to take is too large, but I don’t complain. I take my time, chewing. It’s cooling off, but the cheese is still melted. Sharp cheddar and mozzarella along with crusty, fresh bread.
Nirvana on my tongue.
This bread isn’t store-bought. I know the grinning sadist who’s hand-feeding me didn’t make it by hand, which means someone else did. Who? Is there a woman in his life? I swallow hard, choking the sandwich down. Not that I care.