AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
When I get to the dining room, Eva is unlocking the door through to the kitchen. “Your guest on the way down?” she asks me.
I scowl at her. “She refuses to get changed. A few days without food ought to make her rethink her stubbornness.”
Eva nods. “Very good.”
“What?” I snap, pulling back my chair and sitting down with a thump. “You’ve got something to say? Say it.”
She stops halfway into the kitchen. “What happened to treating her nicely?”
“I won’t have her walking all over me. She needs to know that I’m in charge of this house. She gets to eat when she does as she’s told. Tell Alessandro to come in. He can have her meal.”
“Very good, sir.” She dips her knee into a curtsey and then heads into the kitchen. I sit with my arms folded, waiting for my food to be brought out.
She needs to understand that she doesn’t have a say in this. It’s happening because I say it is. She’s too stubborn for her own good. She should realize how dangerous I am. She should be more scared of me. Instead, she keeps fighting me, acting like she has a say in what’s going to happen to her.
I feel like walking up to her room right now, throwing her on the bed, climbing on top of her, demanding she give her body to me.
I won’t do it that way. Sooner or later, she will give in. No matter how long it takes, she will give me a child. She will say her vows. I will have my revenge.
Eva walks in from the kitchen with a bottle of wine. Behind her, two serving girls are carrying trays. They place things on the table in silence. Alessandro appears in time to pick up a full glass of Merlot. He holds it up in the air. “Your health,” he says to me before taking a sip. “Glad you let it breathe for a while. Last time I was here, it was positive chilled.”
“Anyone ever told you how pretentious you are?”
“Only you. Everyone else appreciates my candor.”
I pick up my knife, sawing through the edge of my steak. “You’re going to tell me to be nice to her,” I say as I feel his eyes still on me.
I look up and sure enough, he’s watching me. “That’s not for me to say,” he says after he’s finished chewing his mouthful.
“Say it anyway.”
“You’re doubting yourself,” he says, pointing his knife at me. “Wondering if you should have taken Piper’s deal instead? Maybe you should have listened to me.”
I shake my head. “Let him traffic women and children so they can be slaves for the rest of their lives? I’m not doubting myself, Alessandro. I made the right call.”
“He killed your family. Nothing more important than family in this world. They’d be alive if you’d done the deal. It was only business, why bring morals into it?”
“Last time I checked, I was running this operation, not you.”
He smiles. “Then you know what I’m going to say.”
“Be nice to her.”
“She’s not part of our world, Marco. This a lot for her to handle. She’s in shock right now.”
“You been talking to Eva? She said the same thing.”
“She told me how you’ve handled the girl since she got here.”
“I’ll handle her how I want.”
“Then you’ll be fighting her the whole way. Wouldn’t it be better to have her onside? Maybe even make her agree to this. She hates her father, too. Maybe if you told her the plan…”
“You forget, I’m not just getting her pregnant. I’m sending her back to him once she’s a fallen woman. She won’t go if she knows that’s my plan.”
“I guess not.”
