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He glared. “I think from the two of us, you have more reason to worry. She’s yours, not mine. Wait till she tries to boil your dick.”
“I can control Serafina. Don’t worry.” I took a mop and a bucket out of the closet before I returned into the kitchen. Serafina stood at exactly the same spot, frowning down at the floor.
She kept surprising me. The photos I’d seen of her on the internet and the accompanying articles had suggested she was an ice princess. Cold, prideful, fragile. As easy to crush as fresh snow, but Serafina was like eternal ice. Breaking her with force was difficult, not impossible, because I knew how to break, but that would have been the wrong approach. Even eternal ice yielded to heat.
I handed her the bucket and the mop, which she both took without protest. She avoided my eyes as she set out to fill the bucket with water and put it down on the ground. It became apparent pretty quickly that Serafina had never wielded a mop in her life. She used too much water, flooding the floor.
Leaning against the counter, I watched her in silence. She should have taken a rag, gotten down on her knees, and cleaned the floor properly, but I knew her pride would stop her from kneeling in my presence. Proud and strong and painstakingly beautiful, even sweaty and covered with soup.
The floor was still smeared with soup when she finally gave up. “The mop’s not working properly.”
“It’s not the mop’s fault. Trust me.”
“I wasn’t raised to clean floors,” she snapped, wayward strands of hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead.
“No, you were raised to warm a man’s bed and spread your legs for him.”
Her eyes widened, anger twisting her perfect features. “I was raised to take care of a family, to be a good mother and wife.”
“You can’t cook, can’t clean, and probably have never changed a diaper in your life. Being a good mother doesn’t seem to be in your future.”
She shoved the mop away so it clattered to the floor and moved closer then jerked to a halt halfway. “What do you know about being a good mother? Or a decent human being?”
My chest constricted briefly, but I pushed through it. “I know how to change a diaper for one, and I provided my brothers with protection when they needed it. That’s more than you can say for yourself.”
She frowned. “When did you change a diaper?”
“When Adamo was an infant, I was already ten,” I said. It was more than I had wanted to reveal in the first place. My past wasn’t Serafina’s business. “Now come. I doubt you can do better than this. The cleaning staff is coming in the morning anyway.”
“You let me clean this even though you have people for it?”
“Your pride will be your downfall,” I said.
“And your fury will be yours.”
“Then we’ll fall together. Isn’t that the beginning of every tragic love story?” My mouth twisted at the word. What a waste of energy. Our mother had loved our father. She’d hated him too, but her love had stopped her from doing what was necessary. She’d let our father beat and rape her, had let him beat us because it meant he wouldn’t lay a hand on her. She never stood up to him. She cowered and worse … turned his anger toward us to protect herself. Her one act of fucking defiance was to punish our father by killing his sons. She tried to pay him back by killing her own flesh and blood because she was too fucking weak to retaliate in any other way. In a house full of weapons, she couldn’t find the courage to ram a blade into our father’s back like she should have done the first time he laid a hand on her. She chose the easy way.
“We won’t have a love story. Not a tragic one, not a sad one, and definitely not a happy one. You can have my hatred,” Serafina said fiercely.
“I’ll take it,” I murmured. “Hatred is so much stronger than love.”
Nino joined me on the terrace in the evening. “Savio told me what happened.”
“She’s strong-willed.”
“She’s trouble,” he corrected. “Keeping her under this roof poses a considerable risk.”
I gave him a wry smile. “Don’t tell me you are scared of a girl.”
Nino’s expression didn’t change. “Fortunately, fear isn’t among the emotions I’ve unlocked.”
“Then keep it that way,” I said. Fear was as useless as love—and even more crippling.
“I’m concerned about Adamo. His initiation is in two days. Keeping Serafina as a captive in the mansion might increase his reluctance to take the oath.”
I turned to him. “You think he’ll refuse the tattoo?”
Nino sighed. “I don’t know. He’s slipping away. I can’t get him to talk to me anymore. Kiara is the only one he spends time with.”
