I never did pass out, not during, not after, not once until Victor slapped me again.

“I’ll see you on your knees, Gia. God help me.”

The mad grin on his face was the last thing I saw, his words a mystery as I processed pain like I’d never felt before, welcoming the blackness the back of Victor’s hand across my cheek finally, thankfully, delivered.

I’d been sure Victor would kill me. Why hadn’t he? Did I still have Angus Scava’s protection? Angus Scava was the boss of the Scava family. I’d been engaged to his son. I may not have been his first choice for a daughter-in-law, but he’d accepted me, been kind to me even, for his son.

But would he have had me branded and sent me here? To this psychopath? To do what? What had he said? That he would train me. Train me for the slave auction.

Slave auction.

No. Angus Scava would not have ordered this. This was Victor acting alone.

I blinked, trying to turn onto my back but unable to. It was like I was too heavy to move. The pills must have been some sort of muscle relaxer and the dosage too high. I guessed that was his intention, though. To incapacitate me. It would be easier to control me if I couldn’t fight back.

I thought of my captor, the man in the mask. That horrible mask. I couldn’t even see his eyes apart from a hint of them, a glint of color. Blue or gray. I couldn’t tell for sure. I hadn’t needed to see them to know the wickedness there, the cruelty. But there was more. When he’d raised his hand to slap me and then had stopped—that was when I’d felt it. Then, and when he’d seen the mark on my hip. A momentary reprieve, a pause in the middle of madness.

I mentally shook my head at myself. I was grasping at straws, needing to hope. The man who had me, he was no better than Victor or any of his soldiers. He was readying me to be sold as a fucking slave. I had no doubt what that entailed.

I’d been afraid he’d rape me. When he’d pulled my panties off, I’d thought that was it. He was going to do it. Victor hadn’t. He hadn’t let his men do it either. Why? Why not let them? Wasn’t that what he wanted? To break me? To—what had he said—“see me on my knees?”

Maybe it was his deal with Mateo before he’d killed him that saved me from the horror of rape.