I Sat Taped To A Chair While Enzo Asked How Tough I Really Was...

He didn't move back after he said it.

"I want to see how tough Mary River's really is."

He said it again like he wanted me to actually hear the words this time. Slower. His face was still too close and I could smell the faint citrus of his cologne over the dust in the warehouse. The single bulb over us swayed a little whenever the air shifted, and it threw his shadow across my chest and the rope that held me there.

I hadn't answered the first time. I'd just cried and said his name and asked what he wanted. That was what he'd wanted me to do.

"Tough how?" I asked.

My voice scraped. My mouth was dry from the tape, and my cheeks were still wet. I could feel the thick tan rope biting into the blazer sleeves of my light blue suit. It looped three times around my torso and pinned my arms to the wooden chair. The knot was somewhere behind me where I couldn't see it.

Enzo tilted his head. The snake tattoo on the right side of his neck caught the warm light when he moved.

"You tell me," he said. "You're Mary River. That's what they put on the invitations. That's what they put on the foundation website. Tough. Smart. Untouchable." He let his hand rest lightly on the top loop of rope, not pulling, just there. "So, where's all that confidence now? That's the question, right?"

He was quoting himself. He wanted me to remember that he'd asked it while the tape was still coming off my mouth.

I breathed in through my nose and made myself not look away. My eyes were stinging and my bob was stuck to my cheek where tears had dried.

"That confidence got me here," I said.

It was a choice to say that instead of begging again. Please hadn't worked. Please had made him smile.

He raised his eyebrows a fraction. That was the first real change in his controlled expression since he'd peeled the tape off and held it bunched in his left hand.

"Explain," he said.

I swallowed. "You think tough means not crying when someone tapes your mouth shut and ties you to a chair. I think tough means I walked into a room full of men who wanted me to be quiet and I didn't."

That was true. Last spring I'd taken the mic at the county fundraiser. The Meridian Foundation gala. Two hundred people in a ballroom at the hotel downtown, men in tuxes who'd known my dad, and I'd told them the scholarship fund wasn't covering what they claimed it covered. I'd shown the numbers on the screen behind me. I'd worn this same light blue suit.

I saw something flicker in his eyes when I said it. He knew that night. Of course he knew that night.

"Sure," he said quietly. "You gave a speech. You wore the suit. Everyone clapped." He leaned in a little, his voice dropping. "Then you went to the private dressing suite after and you cried for twenty minutes before you could do photos. You told Maya you wanted to throw up. You told your driver to take the long way home because you didn't want anyone to see you shaking."

My chest tightened under the rope. I hadn't told anyone that except Maya. And Maya wouldn't have told him. Which meant he'd been there, or he'd had someone there.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Because tough isn't the speech," he said. "Tough is what you do when no one's clapping. And right now there's no audience, Mary. There's a warehouse, a chair, and me asking you a simple question. What do you want from me, you asked. I told you. I want to see it. Not the blazer. Not the foundation name. You."

The bulb buzzed faintly overhead. Somewhere beyond the crates, a car passed on a road outside and the cool blue light from the high window shifted.

I understood then what the test was. He wasn't going to hit me. Not yet. He wanted me to talk myself into a corner or to beg until I proved his point that the Mary River on the website was a performance.

I made the second choice. I didn't beg.

"If you want to see tough, then ask me something real," I said. My voice didn't shake as much this time. "Don't ask me to perform it. Let me show you I can sit here and not give you what you want just because you're scaring me."

His mouth twitched. Not a smirk this time. Something tighter, like I'd surprised him and he didn't like being surprised.

"Careful," he said. "That's new too."

He stepped back half a step for the first time since he'd pulled the tape off. He looked down at the rope, at the chair, at my hands where they were bound at my sides. He wasn't releasing me. He was measuring.

"Okay," he said. "New rule. You don't say please again. You answer. You want to prove you're tough? You answer every question I ask without lying. You do that, we see how long you last. You lie, I tighten the rope. Deal?"

I stared at him. The tears were still on my face but I wasn't wiping them. I couldn't. The rope held.

"And if I don't make a deal?" I asked.

"Then you stay taped," he said, lifting the black tape still stuck to his palm. "And we don't talk at all."

I nodded once. The wood of the chair creaked under me as I shifted my weight.

"Ask," I said.

Enzo's expression settled back into that controlled, intense mask. But his breathing was a little faster than before. I could see it in the open collar of his black shirt.