“If you’re going to be in the business of whoring yourself out for your grandfather, Siena, you seriously need to get someone to give you a few lessons in fucking. How could a woman possibly get to be your age and not even learn to suck cock?” The contempt in his voice lashed at her already raw emotions. “You’re laughable. I had far better back in high school. Hell. Grammar school. I would never have bothered fucking you if I hadn’t wanted to see how far you’d take it. Get the hell out of my sight and hope to hell I never see you again.”

He propelled her out the door, threw her jeans at her, then slammed and locked the door. She knew he locked it because she heard the bolt. Siena stood on shaking legs, blood and seed trickling down her thighs, her body in shock. Her brain in shock. Leaning against the door, she tried to put her jeans on, an automatic gesture, but she was trembling so hard she couldn’t lift her leg up without falling down. She took several deep breaths, her movements slow, but she managed to make her way to her car and climb in, the jeans still crumpled in her hand.

The terrible things he’d said reverberated through her head. The worst he’d ever had. She’d been so caught up in their sexual encounter she had built entire fantasies about him. She’d loved him. Was making love to him. Worshiping him. She was so stupid. So naïve. The worst he’d ever had.

Elijah had been her dream man, literally. She dreamt of him almost every night. She fantasized about him. She searched for pictures of him in magazines and articles about him in the newspaper. She knew when he left the country for South America. She knew when he returned. Better in high school. Hell. Grammar school. He’d called her a whore.

Whoring herself out? Distracting him for her grandfather? She knew that man, the one who lay dead in a pool of blood in Elijah’s foyer. She knew Marco Capello. She’d known him her entire life. Elijah thought she’d gone to others, went down on them, old men. Old friends, because the only men she’d ever taken her grandfather’s reserve to were men she had known all of her life. Elijah thought she would get on her knees and suck their cocks to allow a hit man to kill them. Elijah thought that of her.

She clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Tears ran down her face until she couldn’t see. She wiped at them, knowing she had to do something. Wanting to run. Knowing she had nowhere to go because what happened, the things Elijah said to her, would go with her. This evening would be forever with her.