Total pages in book: 52
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
The decor of this place is ornate and formal with a hint of old Italian charm. It’s very Angelo. Floor to ceiling windows with big, rounded tops look out into manicured gardens. I don’t know what the architectural term for that kind of window is, but they’re impressive and they make me feel diminutive in comparison. The kitchen feels as though it has been installed in a gallery. It is spacious and it is marble, and it is fancy as hell. I suppose this is the informal dining room, given it is in the same space as the kitchen, but there is nothing informal about it — even with Bobby bringing the tone down with bodily noises deployed at inopportune intervals. He’s a fucking animal, and he doesn’t care who knows it.
Water is boiling for pasta while Angelo slices aubergines into cubes. There’s something magnetic about the way his forearms ripple with the motion of his knife work. I watch as he crushes garlic with the flat of the blade of the kitchen knife, then peels the skin off.
These are mundane actions, but everything Angelo does is transcendent. He can’t be average, even if he tries. I think I could watch him watching paint dry and I would be enchanted.
Fuck.
I’m falling for him.
It’s not because I know him, or because he knows me. It’s because he has done the one thing I have never been able to do for myself. He has made the world a different place for me to be. He’s changed me almost instantly by changing my surroundings to ones of intense passion and danger. Working for the agency is professional and clinical. Friends come and go, promotions are viciously pursued, everybody is out for themselves. It is wild that I am standing in a master criminal’s house feeling more at home than I ever did with my peers.
If I survive him, I am going to need some serious help.
As Angelo works on his dish, and the smell of garlic and aubergine and tomatoes begins to fill the air, I find my mouth watering. I’m a little surprised that he is making a vegetarian dish. I usually associate criminals with carnivores for some reason, though nothing Angelo ate or did not would ever make him less of a natural predator.
He dishes up three plates of most delicious looking pasta, sliding one across to Bobby, who eats at the island, and then beckoning at me with a crook of his finger before carrying the other two plates over to a glass table near the windows.
Angelo sits at the head of the table, of course, and puts my plate on his left-hand side, my back to the room so I am looking out the window. I can feel Bobby behind me, his dark energy like a palpable thing.
“Thank you,” I say as he gestures for me to eat. I may be a captive, but I can still use my manners. I know it will be better and easier for me to play along with him. There’s no point resisting Angelo, he takes resistance, and he turns it into shackles and chains. The people who have tried to fight him while in his care have suffered greatly. I, so far, have barely suffered at all.
I take a bite of the pasta, and make an unprompted sound of pleasure as a perfectly seasoned mouthful of what tastes like fresh homemade pasta and vegetables enters the room.
“Spaghetti alla Norma,” Angelo replies, pleased at my reaction.
“It’s so good.”
He inclines his head slightly in agreement, as if such a thing obviously goes without saying.
This is the best food I have eaten in a long time, and not just because I’ve been hungry since Angelo captured me. I’ve been living a lifestyle that isn’t exactly conducive to home cooking or creature comforts. I’ve been staying in cheap motels for what feels like a lifetime, eating greasy fast food and convenience stuff that comes in plastic packets and tastes more plastic than those packets.
Angelo Vitali’s hospitality is a trap. There can be no doubting that. But for the moment it is a very pleasant trap. I am well fed, I am comfortable, and I am oddly safe.
I know that relaxing would be the worst and ultimately most dangerous thing I could do, but Angelo gets up, goes to the kitchen to pour some wine, and returns to the table with a glass for each of us.
Of course, the white wine he has chosen perfectly complements the meal. Angelo has a way of seeking perfection and finding it. I notice that I feel somewhat flattered by being chosen as his captive. I know that he typically regards people as little more than ambulatory meat. He kills without hesitation, fear, or regret.
I know intellectually, he’s using me as a tool, but emotionally I am beginning to soften already toward this monster of a man who is serving me a nicer meal than any boyfriend or date ever has.