The truth lies there. It has to.
“Then I must insist on speaking to her on the phone,” I say, my feet echoing across the house as the soles strike the marble floor. “Two weeks is the bare minimum I want to wait.”
“Pussy trained already?” Don Accetta teases, rolling his eyes. “You didn’t disappear for nearly long enough to deflower my daughter.”
Ew.Why did he have to say it like that? I’ve never had sex with a woman before, much less “deflowered” them. My gag reflex threatens to act up before I swallow hard.
I can think about sex mechanically as far as having children, but anything else is too much to ask of me.
“Nothing untoward happened,” I say stiffly. “May I call Rosa before the wedding?”
We’re speaking about her as if she’s not here, but she’s the one who responds to me.
“I don’t have a phone.” At my surprised glance, she shrugs. “I am around everyone who would ever need to call me.”
I’m not certain if that’s true or not, but it doesn’t matter. This gives me my in.
“Any wife of mine needs a phone for the social life I expect her to have. I’ll send one to the house as an early birthday present. I refuse to take no as an answer.”
I’ve tried very hard not to make any demands up until now. With the exception of moving up the wedding date to Rosa’s birthday, I’m done dancing to Don Accetta’s tune.
“My daughter will be pleased with her gift. Good night, Nico.”
I nod sharply as I walk toward the open front door, and say my goodbyes. Now, to hope Rosa survives long enough to say her vows.
Chapter Four
ROSALIA
Glaringat the phone laying on the low table beside me as I soak in the tub, I ignore the missed calls currently on it. The stupid thing arrived as my “gift” from my betrothed this morning, and my father had me dragged down to the basement to spar with his best men as his response to it.
He doesn’t care how hurt I am, he did it anyway.
These are alphas and betas who are twice and three times my size, wearing tactical clothing and combat boots and were paid to beat the fuck out of me. I was stripped of my gun and knife, forced to spar in leggings and a sports bra. I feel like the shit underneath their shoes now, and my body looks it too.
I have several sets of tread marks from the bottom of boots on my side and back, a black eye, and bruises on my bruises. Papa told me once I was half passed out on the ground that two weeks would be plenty of time for me to heal before my birthday and wedding.
Anything I can’t heal, I’ll be able to fix with makeup. Ugh. What’s the fucking point of living through this hell?
Closing my eyes as a bubble pops in the steaming bath, I think about how much I hate my life. It’s difficult to think how lucky I was that I wasn’t raped this time, or to remind myself I promised Vero I would stay alive.
I haven’t seen her in a day and a half and I miss her desperately, even though I’m glad she hasn’t returned.
“Rosa.”
Peeling my eyes open because I’m absolutely exhausted, I find Uncle Elio standing in the doorway of my bathroom. This morning, while I was getting the hell kicked out of me, I also lost the privacy doors in my bedroom, closet, and bathroom.
They’ve all been removed, and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep tonight knowing anyone can come in while I’m vulnerable.
“Yes, Elio?”
I drop the “uncle” part because I’m too tired to keep up appearances. There’s no one to witness it in my bathroom, and though his lips press together in annoyance, he doesn’t react otherwise.
“You’re not eating. Your father wants you to drink this smoothie. It has the vitamins he has you take every morning. It’s very important you drink this to keep your strength up.”
I can taste the lie, and it sits acrid and gross on my tongue as I nod. I don’t want to fight. I want to fall asleep in the bath and quietly drown. It would be for the best, so I hold out my hand for the glass he's carrying.
If he says it’s important, then my father sent him up to get me to drink this by any means necessary.
