She was looking furiously up at him, little blue sparks in her eyes. "What the hell was that for?"
A shock of heat arrowed through him. A heat he hadn't felt for seven years.
Fuck.
Elijah released her, tore her clinging hands from his shirt, and took a couple of steps back, his heart beating strangely fast. Christ, what had gotten into him?
"If I catch you on that bed again," he said roughly, "I'll put a bullet through you."
She frowned, brushing her dreadlocks away from her face. "Okay, okay. What's the big deal? It's just a bed."
"None of your fucking business." He gritted his teeth, forcing away the feelings that should never have been there in the first place. "Get into the living area. You need to eat something."
The crease between her fair eyebrows deepened. "But I-"
"Do as you're told. I'm not in the mood to be screwed with."
Slowly, she lowered her hands from her hair, bracelets chiming against the handcuffs as they slid down her wrist. Her gaze narrowed. "Why? Where did you go?"
Did she not see his don't-fuck-with-me look? "Again, none of your fucking business."
"Yeah? Well, I guess I don't have to eat."
"Suit yourself."
Her mouth tightened. "I thought you wanted me alive."
"Somehow, princess, I can't see you starving yourself to death."
Something steely entered her eyes. "You don't know a thing about me, Eli."
Eli. She'd always called him that the few times she'd addressed him directly, probably in an attempt to piss her mother off, who always insisted on the right form of address for people. Maybe she said it to annoy him too, because if there was one thing he'd seen of Violet, it was that she liked poking at people, liked getting a reaction.
The only person she never poked at though, was her father.
Maybe because some part of her knew who he was?
Well, whatever the hell the reason was, it didn't make him like her any better and he didn't give two fucks what she called him. Elijah wasn't his real name anyway.
"All I need to know is that you're my goddamn prisoner and that you'd better do what I tell you."
She looked him up and down, the delicate curve of her upper lip curling. "Or what? You'll shoot me? Go ahead, I could use something to relieve the boredom."
Did she really have no idea what he was capable of? There was a reason he'd been Fitzgerald's right-hand man for five years and it wasn't because he was good with people.
It was because he'd single-mindedly descended into the darkness right along with his boss.
Because the best way to get to know your prey was to become it.
Elijah put his hands in his pockets, held her furious gaze. Since she knew he wanted her alive, he was going to have to give her something else to be afraid of to keep her biddable. "Did you know I have a basement downstairs?" he said softly. "It's dark, but then you won't need any light because you won't need to see anything."
She paled a little. "I'm not afraid of the dark."
Bravado. He could see the small flash of fear that sparked in her eyes. "I'll keep you down there, Violet. And I'll lock the door." He kept his voice flat and uninflected. "If you don't want to eat, I'm sure you won't mind a couple of days without food."
Her gaze flickered, all the remaining color in her cheeks draining away. Then that steely determination flashed. "Someone's going to come for me," she said suddenly, fiercely. "They'll know you took me. They'll find you."
He gave a short, mirthless laugh. "And how are they going to do that? No one knows this place even exists. I know how to cover my tracks, believe me." He let her see the darkness inside him, gave her a little taste of the fear she should be feeling. "And anyway, who's going to come for you?"
Finally, a look of genuine fear crossed her face. "My mother. She'll-"
With the instinct of a hunter who knew he'd dealt a killing blow, Elijah took a slow step toward her. "Your mother?" he echoed. "Because she cares so much about you? No, princess. No one is coming for you. And that's what you're really afraid of, isn't it?
She backed away from him, her face white, the dark circles beneath her eyes stark against her skin. "I have my friend. I have Honor. She'll know I'm missing soon enough. She cares."
He knew about Honor. Knew the dangerous man she was with too. But neither Honor nor Gabriel Woolf was a threat because they wouldn't find him. No one would.
"But how long will it take before she knows you're missing? Perhaps she's too busy with other things. Perhaps she'll think you've left the country." He kept walking toward her, backing her up until she was against the exposed brick of the bedroom wall. "Perhaps she's too distracted with her new friends to notice that you're no longer around."
A spark of pain flared in Violet's eyes as she flattened herself against the wall and his hunting instincts sharpened. Yes, this was where she was weak, this was her vulnerability. It was a purely logical observation, that weird sensation in his gut entirely gone now, thank Christ.
"There's only one person coming for you, Violet," he went on, coldly, implacably. "And when he gets here, I'm going to give you to him." Elijah didn't come any closer, but then he didn't need to. He'd proved his point, shown her who was boss. "And then I'm going to kill him."
CHAPTER FOUR
Violet hated him. She honest to God hated him. And if she'd had a gun on hand and the chance of a free shot, she'd have put a bullet through that hard, scarred face of his without a second's hesitation.
Unfortunately she did not have either a gun or a free shot.
What she had was a crap night's sleep spent on the couch in a pair of handcuffs, nightmares about being thrown down a dark hole into a cave of tunnels and being forced to run through them with something horrible chasing her, and a clawing sense of panic sitting in her stomach.
On the coffee table in front of her was the breakfast of eggs and bacon and toast he'd cooked for her, that she'd only picked at since her appetite appeared to have vanished utterly, while Elijah himself sat at the glass-topped dining table not far away, all his attention bent on the laptop he had open on it.
He looked like he'd had a great night's sleep, the prick, the shadows gone from beneath his eyes, the drawn look from his face. Which made her hate him even more.
He'd scared her the day before, no question, and she hated being scared. But then when you were kidnapped at gunpoint and casually told that not only was your father a murdering sex trafficker and drug dealer, but also that he'd been killed, fear was a pretty natural response.
Still didn't mean she liked it.
He'd made her feel helpless as he'd towered over her, talking about shutting her up in the darkness in his basement, his black eyes cold, merciless. He was a psycho, that was all there was to it. And all because she'd dared to have a nap on his stupid. goddamn bed.
Not forgetting the part where he told you no one was coming for you. Remember that?
Violet stared down at the congealing eggs on the plate, any remaining appetite well and truly gone.
Yeah, not forgetting that part, or ignoring the sneaky doubt that threaded through her. The wondering about her mother and what she'd do now that her father was dead. Sure, she and her mother had had their run-ins, it was true. Like her husband, Hilary Fitzgerald wasn't exactly the world's warmest person-she held everyone at a distance, her children included. But still … she'd want to make sure her daughter was okay, wouldn't she?
A sudden thought struck Violet. Had her mother known what her father was? Had she known what he did? The secret life he'd had?
Oh God. What if she'd even been involved?
Violet shivered, staring around the apartment, a surge of desperation going through her. Jesus, she had to get out of here. Had to get away from Elijah and find out just what the hell was going on with her family. First her brother, then her father. Now her mother might be involved too. It was too much. Way, way too much.
Yeah, sure. Just get up and walk through the front door. That'll work.
She cursed silently and viciously in her head. Okay, so she didn't have a gun and didn't have the physical strength that would enable her to overpower Elijah. But she wasn't stupid. Clearly he wasn't going to hurt her or else he'd have done so already, plus he needed her alive. That gave her a few parameters to work with.
Pity she had no idea what was happening outside the apartment, but since there was no TV and he kept her away from the laptop, that couldn't be helped.
She got up from the couch and paced over to the bookshelf, looking at the books and pretending she was finding one to read.
"Stop." His hard tone came from behind her.
Violet didn't look at him, studying the spines on the books and trying not to shiver again at the rough sound of his voice. "What?"