She moved toward the clothes on the bed. I met her there and uncuffed her wrists, taking the restraints. She pulled the hoodie over her head. I watched it fall almost to her knees.

“Because you’re going to help me. I don’t like Victor Scava, and I think he’s playing games.” I left out the part about the games being played against my family. I did that for two reasons. First, I didn’t want her to know who I was, and second, I couldn’t figure out why I still considered the Benedetti family as my own.

Gia put the pants on and pulled them up. She had to bunch them up and hold them in place so they wouldn’t slide off. She then stood there, looking at me, waiting.

“These will be too big, but it’s just until we get to the truck.”

She slid into the pair of boots I set on the floor. She looked a little ridiculous, but I liked her in my clothes.

I stepped aside and gestured for her to follow.

She moved, uncertainly at first, then more assuredly, in a hurry to get out of the room. Just as she passed me, I grabbed her arm and made her stop.

“Just one thing. You do as you’re told or else. You need me to survive right now. I’m the only person who can keep you safe from Scava. Don’t fuck with me. We clear?”

“I don’t like you, Dominic, and I trust you even less, but I do know you hold the key to my freedom, so I promise not to fuck with you, okay?” she said, trying to free herself.

I tugged harder and leaned in close, close enough that the scruff on my jaw brushed against her soft cheek as I inhaled, then cupped her face so we stood nose to nose. “You’ve got a smart mouth, but I like it better put to other uses.”

She jerked her face from my hand.

“Don’t mistake me for a pussy, Gia,” I said, shaking her once. “I’m doing this for me, not for you.”

I grabbed the duffel bag with my clothes and computer, and we walked out of the cabin.

10

Gia

Dominic drove the SUV with its black-tinted windows through a narrow opening out of the woods, leaving the cabin behind us. I looked back at it as we bounced along, shuddering at the feeling it gave me, like a decrepit, abandoned, haunted place. Maybe it was haunted. Maybe the ghosts of the girls who’d gone before me lingered in that terrible cabin.

I physically shook. Dominic glanced at me, his expression looking as if he were deep in thought, so deep my involuntary movement seemed to surprise him.

“The heating will kick in soon,” he said, returning his attention to the dirt road.