Page 13 of The Red Queen

Desi was at first surprised the housekeeper was brave enough to enter the room alone, especially after the kitchen incident. Then she’d realized the woman wasn’t alone. There were two burly guards at her back, waiting just outside the door leading into Desi’s dungeon. For good measure, the woman also had a gun, which she kept trained on Desi.

Desi glared at the food, though her stomach rumbled at the mouth-watering smell of fresh baked bread with butter, and a plate piled high with meat, olives, vegetables, and fruit. There was way more than she could possibly eat.

“You won’t leave until this food is gone?” Desi demanded.

“Correct,” the other woman said coldly.

“Fine.”

Desi picked up the tray and threw it as hard as she could, satisfied when the woman ducked and wrapped her arms protectively around her head. The guards were in the room in an instant, but there was nothing for them to do. The carnage had already happened, and Desi wasn’t doing anything other than leaning back against the pillows on her bed.

The woman straightened and flicked bits of food from her hair. “Signore Savino will hear about this.”

Desi shot her a feral grin. “Signore Savino can go fuck himself. And you for all I care. In fact,” she turned her glare on the guards, who were helping to throw the now ruined food back onto the platter, “you can all go fuck each other.”

The other woman looked scandalized. “You have a foul mouth.”

Desi ignored her, waiting until the three had left the room, locking the door behind them before she pulled out the apple she’d grabbed before hurling the tray. Biting into the crisp fruit, she directed her mind to the problem of her captivity.

She wasn’t a stupid woman, or at least, she rarely acted as stupidly as she had done since Nico’s death. It was time for her to think clearly again. Nico had trained her into a soldier with skills that could outmatch most men in her line of work. She wasn’t surprised that Giovanni was a good match in combat. One didn’t reach his placement within a prominent underworld organization without learning a few tricks.

As the boss, his life would have been preyed upon many times over the years. He would be an excellent marksman as well as skilled in hand-to-hand combat. His grasp of strategy was likely to be phenomenal as well. The question was, could he out-strategize Desi?

In her current mood, absolutely. If she cleared her head and worked on the problem, maybe not.

So how did she put her anger and fear aside and use her brain?

She pulled her legs into a cross-legged position, ignoring the pull of butterfly stitches in her thigh, and kept her eyes on the door as she thought. Word would have reached Giovanni of her behaviour. Throwing the platter hadn’t been a calculated move. Rather, she’d done it for the satisfaction of rattling his horrible little housekeeper. The woman annoyed her.

But the act could work to her advantage. Giovanni would think that she couldn’t control herself. That she was acting on pure emotion, which she had been up to now. If she switched tactics and put more thought into her actions, she might be able to trick or confuse him.

She was in a safe place for now. She didn’t think Giovanni planned on hurting her. She didn’t understand his motives in taking her, but she didn’t think he wanted her maimed or dead. He wouldn’t have gotten her a doctor if the plan was to make her suffer.

Until she figured out what his motives were, her short-term plan would be to find weaknesses in his house and security. If she could get the hell out of there, then she would go as far as she could, as fast as she could, and figure out the rest later. Unfortunately, she suspected leaving would be difficult. Which meant she needed a second, more long-term plan.

She would grudgingly accept Giovanni’s offer of forced accommodation. It was warm, comfortable, clean, and there was food. She would heal, she would watch, and she would learn. If given the opportunity, she would use any knowledge she gained against Giovanni. She would work to destabilize everything he’d built for himself. Then she would kill him and walk away with whatever assets she could get her hands on.

After that, she didn’t know. Perhaps she would return to the Garza cartel, kill the usurpers, and take the top position. Or maybe she would leave. Go where no one knew who she was and start over. Truth be told, she was tired. She’d been shaped into a soldier from her early teens and treated as a weapon. Had she not earned a break?

Before she could continue her thoughts, the door opened, and Giovanni stepped through. She was midway through eating her apple and when his eye caught her, he gave her a grim smile.

“I see I don’t need to worry that you’ll starve yourself.”

She shrugged and continued to eat, chewing belligerently.

He watched her shrewdly before saying, “Your programming is a palpable part of your personality. Shame, really.”

“What does that mean?” she demanded, offended, tossing her apple core toward a wastebin. It hit the edge, then dropped inside. If she was going to be forced to live in Giovanni’s dungeon, then she’d have to stop throwing food around. She didn’t want to share her space with mice.

“Your former master did a number on you, didn’t he?”

“He wasn’t my master,” she charged furiously, though a voice deep down inside the dark recesses of her brain laughed at her denial.

Giovanni only raised an eyebrow.

“What makes you think he had any control over me?”

Giovanni looked at her with pity in his gaze and Desi wished she had a gun so she could shoot him dead. She hated pity more than any other emotion. She’d rather die than accept the pity of a man like Giovanni Savino, a man who was strength and power personified.

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