Page 30 of Kept

“Where are we going?” I ask.

“Home.”

“We weren’t at your house?” I ask, confused.

“I have more than one. We’re going to the family home.”

“The what?”

“My father’s house. The house that I inherited when he died, along with everything else.”

“Oh.” I don’t know what to say anymore. There is a magnet on the car under the steering wheel and a gun stuck to it. I’m staring at it, until my vision blurs because I forgot to blink.

He murmurs something in Italian. I feel his big, warm hand stroking my hair. It’s… nice. Soothing. My eyes are getting heavy. I’m so tired all of a sudden, like a giant vacuum just sucked the life out of me.

I don’t remember falling asleep.

I wake up with Vincent pulling me into his arms. I must jump a little because he shushes me. “It’s just me, kitten.”

I’m a seriously crumbled cookie that being scooped up by him is comforting. The rational part of my brain is screaming that he’s the mafia, I’ve been kidnapped, and I need to knee him in the shin and run as fast as I can.

That part is overruled by the rest of me, which thinks he smells fucking amazing and that this is the first time I’ve felt warm since, well, since the last time he had me in his arms. I was very warm then. This is pre-gunshots-and-mad-dash-through-the-house-before-sneaking-out-of-the-city-incognito.

“I can walk,” I tell him.

“I know.”

“Are you going to put me down?” I ask.

The corner of his mouth quirks up. “No.”

His shoes crunch gently over the finely crushed gravel of the driveway. I lift my head and peek around.

“Holy shit,” I gasp. I feel like I’ve been transported to another dimension. I feel his low, satisfied chuckle.

His “house” is a mansion. An actual, literal mansion.

We’re standing in the circular driveway that leads to the main entrance. The house has at least three floors, and the exterior is some sort of cream stone. Behind us is an honest-to-God fountain with marble statues that look like they were teleported from the Italian renaissance. The perimeter of the drive is edged by low, neatly cropped hedges, and I can see rows of tall, thin cypress trees in the back. The doors and windows are arched. If Leonardo da Vinci walked out of the front door, straight to the fountain, and began chipping away at the statue, it would seem completely normal.

The door opens as we approach. It’s the other man from the alley, from the car. I shiver a bit.

Vincent laughs. “Don’t worry, he’s all bark.”

“Hey!” Marco says, overacting his level of offense, “my bite is just fine, thank you so very much.” Then, as if he notices that Vincent is holding a fully grown woman in his arms, he looks from me to him and back a few times before quirking up an eyebrow at his brother. “Well, this is new.”

“Marco?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.” Vincent walks deeper into the house, and I can hear his brother laughing. He hits a set of stairs and takes them to the third floor, down a few more hallways, and into a plush bedroom. He walks towards the windows, with a padded reading nook nestled underneath, and sets me down.

“Now what?” I ask.

He almost smirks. “Nothing has changed.” He leans down to whisper against my hair, “I meant what I said.”

My face must show my utter confusion. He elaborates, “You’re mine, kitten.” His voice is low, and his eyes are dark and burning.

Somewhere inside my abdomen, I think I just felt my ovaries give each other a high five. My heart speeds up, and I can feel it pounding in my chest.

---