The Price (House of Sin #5) - Elisabeth Naughton Page 0,2
do to him.
A knock echoed against the steel door. I jumped and twisted toward the sound. Seconds later, Luc’s mother called, “Natalie? Are you dressed?”
“I...” Heart pounding, I pushed to my feet, wobbling because I was light-headed from the drugs. “J-just a minute.”
Every instinct I had said not to cooperate with whatever these people had planned for me, but I needed to find Luc. I needed to make sure he was okay. And I wouldn’t give them any more reason to punish him.
I turned toward the foot of the bed, only for my stomach to revolt all over again.
The garment she’d brought me was a lightweight, short, white cotton dress. One that was barely more than see-through. One I’d witnessed other women wearing once before.
On a cold night in the woods in Tuscany, when I’d followed Luc and stumbled upon that depraved ritual among the trees and discovered the sick things his House was involved in.
I didn’t want to put that thing on, but I knew if I refused, someone would probably just come in and do it for me.
Hands shaking, I tugged off my tank and pajama bottoms and pulled the dress over my head. It hit high on my thighs and felt like tissue paper, and I was sure if someone shone a light behind me, they could see every part of my body. But then that was the purpose, wasn’t it? To put me on display, to take away my dignity. They wanted to humiliate me and show me just where they thought I belonged.
I straightened my spine, determined not to let them win. No matter what they had planned for me, I wouldn’t show fear. I would not give them what they wanted.
Tugging the dress down as far as I could, I said, “I-I’m ready.”
The heavy door pushed open with a squeak of old hinges, then Luc’s mother stepped into the dank room again, looking completely out of place with her expensive pink suit, high heels, and perfectly made-up face.
In her mid-fifties, she was cultured and refined, nothing like me, and as she stared at me with those cold, condescending eyes, I sensed she saw me as nothing more than a bug she couldn’t wait to grind into the dust.
“Well, now. It’s a little snug around the hips, isn’t it? Sadly, there’s nothing to be done for that, I’m afraid. Saddlebags on a woman are a sign of poor breeding. I supposed it will have to do.”
She clucked her tongue, then turned away from me, her perfectly styled dark bob swaying with the movement. “Come now. Luciano is waiting.”
All that fear inside me was replaced with a primal urge to shove my foot straight into the woman’s spine, to send her sailing face first into the wall. To hear her nose crack as she hit. No wonder Luc had been so cold and distant when we’d first met. I couldn’t imagine having this for a mother.
I checked the urge only because I knew it wouldn’t help me find my husband, and followed her out into the hall.
A chill radiated up through the cold cement and into my bare feet. I shivered, wishing they’d brought me shoes, but knew it was useless to wish for anything from these people.
The hall was nothing more than cement walls and bare bulbs illuminating the dark corridor every ten feet. A figure in a black cape wearing the same frightening white bauta mask stared at me as I exited the cell, the icy eyes behind the mask sending a shiver down my spine that brought all that fear rushing back.
Luc’s mother spoke to the figure in Italian, then he turned and headed down the long hall into the darkness, his cape swooshing ominously around him. With a muttered “Keep up” to me, Luc’s mother followed, the click of her heels like doomed drumbeats in my ears.
My stomach pitched, but I followed silently, scanning each door we passed, searching for any sign of Luc. The hallway was as silent as my room had been, though, and there was nothing that made me think Luc was anywhere close. When we reached an old arched iron door at the end of the long corridor, I held my breath and waited, praying that whatever I saw on the other side of that door wouldn’t terrorize me for life.
Instead of some twisted sex dungeon—as I half expected to be led into—the door opened to a fancy sitting room.
Plush leather furnishings filled the space. A thick red