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Tonight, he’s pouring sex and alcohol down Mario Zaccaria’s throat and throwing his money around, but it’s just a smokescreen. No rival organisation has stepped up to claim responsibility for the explosions yet, and it’s making him look weak. He’d wipe out his enemies in a heartbeat, but even the great and terrible Cian O’Sullivan can’t kill shadows.
Running my finger up and down the stem of my cocktail glass, I debate all the reasons why I’ve been summoned again. Is it another chance to intimidate me? To berate me? To keep an eye on me? To parade me as bait in the hope that Frankie bites?All I know is that six hours ago Adrik turned up at my dance studio with this stupid silver mesh minidress dress I’m wearing and told me to get changed. When I protested, he held up his phone and threatened to ring Kirill, then smirked when I quietly acquiesced.
I’m not here to support my husband, that’s for sure. He’s currently getting sucked off by a teenager in a cheap red corset a couple of booths to my right. His face is tipped back, eyes closed in ecstasy, his right hand fisting her blonde hair as he forces himself deeper and deeper into her mouth until she’s spitting up and gagging all over him, which only makes him smile more.
I look away, sick to my stomach. There’s a new fire simmering inside me. Every time I think about what they’ve done, another log gets tossed on the flames. I’m too angry to be meek and deferential anymore. Too impatient to sit still as they aim their cruelty at me.
Six days to go.
Six days to go.
Six days to go.
I think about Frankie and Alex again. This morning, when I wrote their names in the condensation on the mirror, I imagined the man I love standing in front of a window with a gun in his hand, waiting for a signal. I saw my son staring at his phone and willing for it to ring.
I think about last night, and how it felt like I was being reborn again as I was falling apart beneath him.How he said he’d find a way to keep me safe between now and next Friday if he could…
Loud laughter from O’Sullivan’s booth draws my attention. He and his lieutenants have forced some girl onto the table and they’re holding her legs open and snorting lines off her naked pussy. She can’t be more than seventeen, the same age I was when I met Frankie. Even from over here, I can see how much she’s shaking with fear.
Bastards.
“You don’t approve?”
Mario Zaccaria has stopped in front of my booth. Despite O’Sullivan’s best efforts, he doesn’t look drunk in the slightest, just malevolent—his dark eyes glinting in the club’s lights. His tailored suit is almost sinister in its precision, skimming off his broad shoulders and tapered waist like sheets of black ice.
“It’s not my place to say,” I mutter, staring straight ahead.
I know who murdered your father, Mr. Zaccaria. He has the same face as your own executioner.
“Everyone is entitled to an opinion,signora.” To my horror, he slides into my booth, opening his jacket to make himself more comfortable, and me considerably less so. “It is just that no one listens to a woman’s.”
I keep my eyes fixed on the girl gyrating on stage as he inches closer, enveloping me in some expensive cologne that smells earthy and cruel, as I envisage stabbing him in the neck with the stem of my cocktail glass.
“You are not sodispleasingto look at tonight,” he croons, his gaze roving over my body and hovering on my stupidly low neckline, his thick accent clinging to my skin like unwanted perspiration. “Did I offend you with my comments the other day?”
I flinch when I feel a cold hand on my knee. They’re not so swollen and painful anymore, but they’re still sensitive when touched by a disgusting creep. “I don’t recall what you said, Mr. Zaccaria.”
“I mocked your beauty, your scars…” I flinch again as he starts to slowly run his fingers up the inside of my thigh. “Don’t move and keep your eyes on your husband being sucked off by a whore,” he hisses, as I try to push him away. “When I penetrate this trouble-making pussy, I want him and O’Sullivan to watch.”
I freeze, my cheeks flushing with humiliation.
“This is what real power looks like,signora,” he taunts. “Not drugs, clubs, or tricks, just violating the daughter and wife of your business partners. Knowing they cannot do a fucking thing about it because they need my connections too badly.”
Just then, Kirill looks over and sees Mario next to me. I watch his face go still, and then he’s pushing the blonde away from him and rising to his feet. As she tumbles to the floor with a shocked cry, he steps over her like she’s nothing more than roadkill.
Now, he’s talking to O’Sullivan, and they’re both looking over in our direction, which has Mario smirking in amusement. Kirill is hiding his anger behind a wall of indifference, but that tell-tale red flush of rage is creeping up O’Sullivan’s neck.
Mario’s crossing a line.
Neither man gives a damn about me, but to them I’m property, and property needs their permission to be entered and defiled.
“Do you think they can see what I’m doing to you under the table yet?” Mario chuckles darkly as his nails dig painful crescents into my upper thigh. “Take your panties off and give them a real show.”
“No,” I whisper.
“Spread your legs, bitch.”
“Fuck you!”
