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“For what?” I asked sleepily.

“For being here with me.”

I wanted to tell him that it hadn’t been my choice, because he’d kidnapped me, but I said nothing.

I was glad he’d kidnapped me, because now I knew what it felt like to be held as if I meant something. As if I were precious.

And I knew what it felt like to hold someone that was becoming precious to me.

His hand stroked down my back, periodically rubbing little circles over my skin, or gliding over my ass and squeezing. They were fucking magic, those hands, draining every last bit of tension I’d ever felt in my entire life. My eyelids were heavy, my muscles relaxed, and I soon fell asleep to the rhythmic beating of his heart beneath mine.

The next morning, there was a calm that had settled over me. Like I’d come to some kind of conclusion or had accepted something. Something big.

When I headed downstairs for some coffee, Court wasn’t in the kitchen, and I tried to tamp down my disappointment. Brooks and Vincent were there, so I mumbled my good mornings and poured myself some coffee. Vincent was pulling something out of the oven when I sat beside Brooks at the table, and the smell was mouth-watering.

“Does no one help Vincent with the cooking?” I asked, glancing at Brooks, who had his laptop in front of him, as usual. When I turned my attention to Vincent, he had a wry smile on his face. “Do you need help?”

He shook his head.

Brooks peeked at me over his laptop. “He doesn’t want our help,” supplied Brooks. “He gets mad if we try, so we stopped offering years ago.”

“Oh.” I’d kind of wanted to offer to help him so I wouldn’t be so bored around here, possibly even learn a thing or two about cooking. “Well⁠—”

A shrill alarm blared from Brooks’ laptop, making me jump. Brooks pressed a key, giving me a sheepish look. “Sorry, I have to set alarms or else I’ll forget. The louder the better.” He closed his laptop, picked it up, and excused himself.

Forget what?

I was left alone with Vincent. While he was incredibly polite, there was also something unnerving about him. The way he watched me.

I sipped my coffee and stared out the window, listening to Vincent as he moved around the kitchen.

“I know you,” Vincent said softly.

My brows furrowed together in confusion as I looked over at him. He was already watching me with the soulless eyes of a cold-blooded creature, both hands braced on the counter.

“Um…okay?” I said, leaning back in my chair. I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

He leaned forward, a smile on his lips. “I mean I know who you are. What you did.”

The hair on my arms stood on end in spite of the fact that I was still confused as fuck. I set my cup down, incredibly unamused. Was this some kind of weird hazing thing? “What are you talking about?”

He picked up a knife and began cutting into what looked like a casserole of some sort, his eyes now on the food as he worked. “Do you know who I am, Whitney?”

This conversation was entering into the bizarre, but something told me to wait it out. That it was actually going somewhere—a place I wouldn’t like one bit. And because I knew he wasn’t asking if I knew his name, I said, “No.”

He nodded. “My father is Lorenzo Bianchi. He’s part of the Bianchi family in New York City. Have you heard of them?”

I shook my head, even though he wasn’t looking at me. When he paused and glanced over at me, I shook my head again.

He wasn’t smiling anymore. “They’re one of the five families in New York. But Lorenzo Bianchi married into the Bianchi family. His original name was Rossi.”

The floor dropped out from under me, the room swaying.

“I’m one of a few bastard children of Lorenzo’s. I haven’t lived in New York City for a very long time, but I do occasionally hear from my half-siblings. Oh, and my cousins. Their father—my uncle, for all intents and purposes—were all in a tizzy about something that happened a while back. Eight years ago, I think?”

Dread coiled around my limbs, seeping through every pore.

“There was some kind of incident in Philadelphia involving Angelo Rossi’s daughter. My cousin. I’m not really sure what happened there, my brother didn’t go into details, just that someone hurt her. But in any case, Angelo wanted the perpetrator tracked down and brought to him. He was in quite the uproar about it, apparently.”