UNCLE DANTE SMILED, BUT IT didn’t reach his eyes. “Ludeviene.” He didn’t even glance at my captor or where he’d hit me.

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and the split second of relief I’d had at seeing him sank faster than I could blink. My breath came shorter and my skin chilled beyond the too-cool forced air of the air conditioner. “What’s going on?”

Keeping his gaze on me, Uncle Dante barely nodded at the overly muscled dark-haired man standing to his right who had guns in holsters on either side of his chest. “Addis, relieve Gerald.”

Addis stepped forward.

The asshole, Gerald, let go of me. “I fucking get it. But for the record, you said to—”

“Addis,” Uncle Dante snapped, his expression flashing to fury before he carefully controlled it.

Addis unholstered one of his guns.

My blood ran cold.

Gerald threw his hands up. “Fine. Fuck, I get it. I get it.” Glaring at Addis, he stepped around him, muttering, “Fucking bitch ain’t worth shit.” He stormed toward the slider, and the man in sunglasses who’d been on the deck but who’d followed us inside opened the glass door.

Gerald strode out.

Uncle Dante looked over my shoulder at the man in sunglasses. “Tavish, take care of that.”

“Boss,” Tavish clipped before walking out the door and closing it behind him.

Uncle Dante’s gaze cut back to me, and a smile that made my skin crawl spread across his face. “Ludeviene.” He held his arms out. “Where were we?”

Addis stared me down, but the other bodyguard who was on Uncle Dante’s left leered at me as Uncle Dante approached. I stood rooted in place as a thick stew of panic and disgust churned my stomach. Forcing my voice to stay even, I glared at the man I’d been raised to call uncle. “You were about to tell me what’s going on.”

“Ever curious, I still see.” Grasping my shoulders, Uncle Dante kissed each of my cheeks as if I hadn’t been hit on both sides of my face.

Refraining from flinching at the slight contact with my sore flesh, I kept my arms at my sides. “Why did you have that man take me?” I refused to say his name.

Uncle Dante laughed. “Is that what Gerald told you?”

“He hit me,” I ground out.

His expression sobered. “He will be dealt with.”

This man no longer deserved to be called my uncle. He probably never did. As a little girl, I’d found his smile charming and his attention flattering. But now I was looking at a man in his fifties whose evil was showing through the polished exterior. No normal person needed three bodyguards, let alone the men I’d glimpsed keeping to the shadows around the grounds as the asshole Gerald dragged me up here.

“He should’ve been dealt with before he hit me.” Angry, I bit the words out without thought of consequence.

Dante cocked his head and gave me a look that I was sure was supposed to make me think he was being pensive. “You are not the same young lady I last saw at her high school graduation.” He rubbed a hand over his chin, scratching the slight stubble that was more for effect than the result of a man who’d gone a day without a shave.

“That was a long time ago.” And if this was the type of thing Dante had been up to, I understood why my father had not mentioned him nor brought him home for dinners recently, not that he brought many people around, business associates or friends, since my mother’s stroke.

“Ah.” He smiled wide. “Not so long that you don’t remember how to be a lady.”

I wanted to hit him. “Call my father. Take me home.”

Dante kept going as if I hadn’t said anything. “Where are my manners? Are you thirsty? Hungry?” He gestured toward the kitchen behind him without sparing it a glance. “I’m sure Addis or Santos can get you something.” He nodded at the third bodyguard, who had crazy eyes and looked like a serial killer on steroids. “Santos, please get our guest something cold to drink.”

With an evil smile, Santos strode toward the kitchen.

I fought for patience. “I don’t need a drink. I need to go home.” My mother would be beside herself, and stress was the last thing she needed.

Smiling again, Dante put his arm around my shoulders. “Come, sit.” Gently, but with enough pressure to know I didn’t have a choice, he urged me toward the couch.

My dress a mess, blood on the back of my arm, my feet filthy, I pivoted out of his grasp and opened my mouth to tell him I needed to clean up before I sat on a white couch, but I never got the words out.

The second I turned out of Dante’s hold, Addis drew his gun on me.

Dante chuckled as if this were an everyday occurrence. “Addis, please. You’re going to frighten our guest.”

A cell phone quietly rang.

Addis glared at me as he holstered his gun.

Dante gestured toward the couch. “Sit, Ludeviene.”

The cell phone rang again.

Addis’s jaw ticked.

Dante snapped at Addis, “Answer your phone.”

His glare on me, Addis pulled his cell out and held it to his ear. “What?” He listened a moment, then turned and walked a few paces away.

Dante grasped my injured arm with no amount of gentleness and forced me down to the couch. “Let’s talk.”

The back of my bare legs hit the cool leather, and I fought a shiver.

Walking back toward us, Addis still had his phone to his ear. “Hold on.” His gaze drifted a moment as he listened to whoever was on the other end, then he looked at Dante. “Boss,” he clipped. “Situation.”

“Not now,” Dante replied.

“If you want to maintain head count, we need to—”

“I said not now,” Dante interrupted, sitting down next to me. “Handle it.”

Santos came back with a glass of water and silently held it out to me.

I ignored him.

His smile, sinister and off, tipped half his mouth. “I can make you drink it if you prefer.”

Glaring at him, I took the glass as Dante sat next to me not making a single comment about his bodyguard’s threat.

Smirking, Santos moved behind Dante, and Addis walked out of the room with the phone still to his ear.

I was thirstier than I’d ever been, but I set the water on the coffee table without touching it. You couldn’t pay me to drink anything one of these men handed me. Getting kidnapped before dawn, then waking up on a boat with the midday sun high overhead and no recollection of how I got there, I knew that asshole Gerald had done more than hit me. He’d drugged me, and I wasn’t about to risk letting that happen again.

Instead, I clasped my hands, crossed my ankles, and sat perfectly straight like my mother had taught me.

Then I looked Dante in the eye. “What do you want from my father?”