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“I will do whatever it takes to keep him safe,” I spit with a vicious glare in his direction. “You’re not hurting my son that easily.”
“Don’t you worry; I have my sights set on a much bigger Egorov than the little runt in your arms.”
“Is that meant to be reassuring?”
“I can understand that you’re angry, tesoro, but it’s no use being angry at me. Dmitri’s the one you should blame. It was careless of him to leave you out in the open for anyone to just… take. Plucked like a ripe strawberry right off the vine.”
“I’m not some object to be taken as and when you please.”
He chuckles again, a harsh, grating sound like hot oil poured over broken glass. “And yet here you are.”
I bite my tongue. Hard as it is, I swallow my insults and focus again on trying to get Mischa to settle down. But no matter how much I murmur and rock and hum, his cries only get louder.
Eventually, I give into the one thing I know will calm him, as much as I don’t want to partially undress in front of Bee’s sick fuck of a father. I do my best to twist away as I ease Mischa into nursing position at my breast.
The whole time, I can feel Vittorio’s eyes locked on us. He doesn’t even pretend to look away.
“Do you mind?” I snap.
“Don’t be shy. Your son needs to be fed. Do as nature intended.”
Fucking pervert. I ignore him as Mischa latches. Instantly, he quiets down and I stroke his cheek gently, hoping to God that Bee saw what happened and that she has eyes on us.
“I can see why he chose you,” Vittorio remarks as his lips curl up into more of that same unsettling smile. “A nice, normal woman without any unnatural proclivities.”
“If you’re talking about your daughter?—”
“Shut your fucking mouth!” My lips seal immediately and he nods in violent approval. “See? A true woman knows when to be silent. A real woman knows how to obey.”
I’m speechless with disgust, but Vittorio is off in his own world now. He strokes his chin as he continues musing. “She could have been useful. But she decided to be different. An aberration against nature and good taste. Naturally, I had to do something about it. I wasn’t going to be made a laughingstock. I wasn’t about to have her abnormalities splashed around for the underworld to mock. And clearly, your husband wasn’t interested in reining her in. He had you to play with. What did he care if Beatrice chose to spend her nights sinning like a repulsive beast?”
Goosebumps race over my body. “You’re disgusting.”
He slaps the steering wheel and his face skews into a hideous grimace. “She was the disgusting one! Which is why, once I figured out the little ruse the two of them were planning on foisting on me, I had to act. She had to die.”
My jaw drops. “You? I thought it was?—”
“The Irish?” he interrupts with a tsk. “Ha! You really think that fucking lightweight, Cian, would have killed Beatrice so openly? No. He’s nothing like his brother. At least Cathal had some spirit, some ambition, some balls. Cian is nothing more than a castrated pup trying not to get stepped on.”
“How could you do that?” I whisper. “She may not have been who you wanted her to be, but she was your own daughter. Your flesh and blood.”
He shrugs, utterly nonchalant. “I tell this to any young man who has potential: don’t waste time forming emotional connections to anyone. Not even your own children. It blinds you. Limits you. It prevents you from doing what’s necessary in order to preserve your legacy.”
“Your children are your legacy.”
“Not when they’re a fucking disappointment.”
I cringe back at the venom in his tone. How could a parent hate a life they helped make? I glance down at the babe in my arms and I’m baffled at the thought of ever doing anything but loving him with every fiber of my heart.
“She was a lot more than that,” I say quietly. “She was a wonderful, kind, caring person. She was talented and funny and?—”
“Ultimately useless,” he spits. He turns his gaze towards the window and clears his throat. “I don’t deny, she had positive traits. Traits that made me believe there was hope for her. Whenever I took the whip to her back, she took her lashes better than some of my own men.”
I shake my head. “I saw what you did to her… I saw her back. I saw—” I stop short, my eyes going wide as something strikes me. A snippet of a conversation I had with Dmitri months ago.
I found Elena’s body four days later… There were small cigarette burns all over her body. Whip lashes across her back that had cut her skin open…
“What is it, little lamb? Have I frightened you?”
