It could be that the next time she saw him would be when he came to extract the price of their deal.
Mattia was still to surface. For all Siena knew, he was plotting to rescue their mother from wherever she was being held. If any of her brothers were going to do it, it was Mattia. Of her brothers, he’d always been the closest to their mother, and he had no wife to think of. If it were a contest between his mother and his sister, he would choose their mother every time. As Elio himself had put it, when you’ve nothing left to lose, you have no fear, and Mattia had nothing left to lose. Siena was as expendable to him as she was to their mother and to Elio.
Funny how it was her expendability to Elio that cut the deepest and not the woman who’d birthed her or the man who shared her blood. Just the bastard who’d made her marry him because he considered her deserving of extra punishment for daring to fight for her place in the world she’d been born into.
She picked out the least black piece of pancetta and chewed it with distaste before spitting it into her napkin. Even if she could swallow it, she’d never be able to stomach it.
Anger had been biting at her with increasing intensity for days. While hiding it in front of Francesca, who kept dropping in to check on her, in private she’d come to embrace it. Better to be angry than pine for that bastard. Now, though, staring atthe mess that was her dinner, Siena realised it was nothing but a physical imagery of the mess that was her life.
Those blackened pieces of pancetta were Elio’s heart, the uncooked mess of spaghetti and globs of scrambled eggsherravaged heart.
He’ddone that to her. He hadn’t been satisfied with taking everything from her; he’d needed to breakher, just her, and her fingers grabbed hold of her pasta bowl before her brain knew what they were doing, and with a scream of rage, she hurled it like a frisbee across the kitchen. Seconds later, her glass of water followed suit.
It was like she’d been caught in a sulphur cloud of toxic fury. The burnt pans she’d cooked with were next to be thrown, then the ceramic salt pot and the fruit bowl. Not even close to being purged, she yanked open the crockery cupboard and began launching the dinner plates, barely taking in the explosions they were making as they connected to walls or floor before the next one was sent flying.
Next went the pasta bowls, and then the dessert bowls. She had a vague awareness of floorboards within the apartment creaking, but couldn’t stop. Didn’t dare stop. Every smash, every explosive cloud of crockery detonated with a portion of the pain, anger and grief she’d been carrying so tightly inside her.
She’d just thrown the last of the dessert bowls and grabbed a side plate when the kitchen door crashed open.
In a split second, she registered Elio standing there. A split second later, she’d let loose the plate in her hand, aiming it straight at his face.
If his reflexes hadn’t been so good, he would never have swerved his head away from it in time. It exploded inches from his ear.
She grabbed another plate.
“Siena, stop!” he roared.
“You,” she spat. And then threw the plate as hard as she could.
Ducking out of its way, he strode to her before she could snatch at another plate and lifted her straight over his shoulder.
If Elio thought Siena had fought like a wildcat the night he took her virginity, it was nothing on how she was fighting him now. Carrying her over the kitchen floor covered in shattered crockery was like carrying a wriggling, bucking eel that had developed hands that punched and feet that kicked and vocal cords that were screaming hell at him.
Tightening his hold around her thighs, he swept her into the living room and deposited her smartly on the nearest sofa. Fully aware of what she was capable of doing in the state she was in, he backed away sharply before she could headbutt him, but didn’t pay enough attention to her hands because he didn’t see the fist aiming for his face until it connected with his jaw.
“For God’s sake, Siena, will you calm the hell down!” he shouted as he staggered back. “I’m not here to hurt you!”
But his blonde bombshell was back on her feet and charging at him. For someone well over a foot smaller than him and half his weight, she was immensely strong, a factor compounded by the rage she was in, and when her palms slammed into his chest it was with enough force to send him back two steps.
They were steps she breached in a blink.
“All you’vedoneis hurt me!” she screamed, now pounding at his chest.
With a sharp breath, he snatched hold of her flailing wrists and pinned them together. She kicked him.
Keeping a tight hold of her wrists, he spun her around and wrapped an arm around her waist before frogmarching her to an armchair. Instead of sitting her on it, he sat himself downand hoisted her onto his lap, pinning her arms and thighs like a parent would a tantrumming toddler in danger of hurting themselves.
The heel of her foot connected with the side of his thigh. “Let me go!”
“I will let you go when you’ve calmed down,” he said grimly, and tightened his hold around her and gripped her ankle to stop her foot from making another kick. “I’m twice your size and every bit as stubborn as you are, and if I have to sit like this all night waiting for you to get a grip of yourself, then I will. Now, are you going to tell me what’s brought this rage on?”
Her body still a tight ball of tension, she didn’t answer. But she stopped bucking against him.
Closing his eyes, he allowed himself one small inhalation of her hair and considered himself fortunate she didn’t whip her head up and break his nose for his troubles.
It would have been worth it for a dose of her marshmallow scent.
They sat there for a time that seemed to stretch forever, and as that time stretched, Siena seemed to tighten even further into herself, almost like a hedgehog curling itself into a ball.
