the kitchen, Lorenzo was unpacking breakfast, little round foil packages that smelled like eggs.
Breakfast sandwiches, I guessed.
My stomach churned, but I didn't reach for one.
"Eat," he demanded, waving a hand to the assortment of bagels.
When I didn't immediately fall into line and reach for a bagel, his gaze cut to me for a moment, making my chin raise, defiant. It was a pathetic stance to take, but it was all I had in the moment.
His hand grabbed a bagel, moving around the island. "It takes thirty days to starve yourself to death, hellcat. I don't think you have that kind of discipline. Eat the fucking sandwich," he demanded, slamming it down in front of me. "Or do you want me to shove it in your mouth?" he asked, innuendo clear in his voice, in the glint in his eye.
"Try it," I dared him, head dipping to the side a bit, a challenge. "I'll bite it off," I told him, watching as his lips twitched.
"Thought we covered this, Gigi," he said, head dipping a little to get more in my face. "You'll get it when you beg for it."
"That's never going to happen."
"Pretty sure you thought that last time too."
"Yes, well, that was before I realized what an evil bastard you are," I told him.
"Oh, you knew exactly what kind of evil bastard I was all along, babe. You just don't want to admit to yourself that you're turned on by that. But you'll come around," he said, giving me an infuriatingly smug smirk as he moved off into his bedroom.
I took the sandwich that Lorenzo had put in front of me, taking a few bites as I made myself a cup of coffee. My gaze went to the unmanned elevator. Hinting at freedom it wouldn't give me now that a guard was stationed full-time at the bottom.
At least he was out of this space. At least no one else was around to witness these interactions between Lorenzo and me.
I heard the shower turn on in Lorenzo's room, and it took actual effort not to imagine his naked body climbing in there.
I don't know how long I stood there, some strange thought niggling me at the back of my mind, something that wanted to be acknowledged, brought forward.
But it escaped me for a long time before I finally remembered.
I had broken out of the building.
And I had looked upward when I turned down the side street.
All the way up.
To Lorenzo's apartment.
Where there had been a fire escape.
A fire escape that I hadn't seen outside any of the windows in the apartment.
It had to have been in Lorenzo's room, though, based on the placement. Not the bathroom. That one had a solid obscured glass window. Not the large windows over his bed, either.
What did that leave?
"Oh my God," I hissed, placing my mug on the counter, trying to gauge how long I had before he would get out of the bathroom.
Maybe long enough.
For me to sneak into his closet, find the window, open it, and climb out.
A patient, rational voice told me to wait, to see if he left, to try it then, when maybe I wouldn't be seen.
But I had no idea if I was going to be given the same freedom as before, if I was going to be locked in my room when he left.
If he locked me up at night, despite the guard at the bottom of the elevator, chances were I wasn't going to be allowed to walk around the apartment anymore.
It was now or never.
On that idea, I ran through the apartment, going into the closet, cringing as I carefully clicked the door closed, as though he would hear it over the water slapping against the tile in his shower.
The closet was as big as my bedroom at my apartment, built-in wooden units lining both sides, suits and shirts and slacks hanging, gleaming leather shoes lined up on the lower shelf, expensive watches in a tray at eye-level alongside an impressive assortment of cuffs-links. There was no way windows were on those sides, with the one wall butting up to the bathroom, and the other lining the hallway.
So it was the small wall directly forward.
With another built-in there.
And an assortment of random items.
My hands went frantically for each of them, pulling, then putting them back into place, knowing one of them had to be false, had to be a lever to unlock the false back, to expose the window.
Desperation was a snake coiling in my belly