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I know all this, yet I stay.
I know all this, yet I still crawl naked into this bed every night.
I know all this, yet I crave the wickedness in Hollis’s eyes when I strip down, obeying his commands, making my payment for what he’s providing.
It’s deprecating and shameful. My skin comes to life at the prospect of doing it for him.
That’s where the insanity diagnosis comes in. With everything I’ve been through, the horrific things I’ve seen, I should run as fast and as far away as I can manage, but I don’t. I wake beside a man most would consider a monster, hoping the game changes just a little from what it was the day before.
I crave his commands, looking forward to what he’s going to come up with next.
It makes me just as sick and twisted as the Severino brothers, my longing to be used how he sees fit.
I stiffen when he stirs and starts to roll over, that shame I only felt a little of when I first woke doubling. There’s a lot in my life that doesn’t make sense. There’s a lot I’ve been through that has no real answers. Asking why was futile and punishable. I know now after years of mistreatment that there never really was an answer. They hurt me because they can, and it explains everything without really explaining anything at all.
Maybe that’s the mindset I need to be okay with what’s happening.
Because.
It seems good enough. Digging for an answer in my psyche won’t get me any further anyway.
I can tell from the sound of his breathing that he’s no longer asleep, so it makes no sense for him to be pretending to be that way. Maybe this is how he deals with what he’s done. It seems we’re both just pretenders, wanting things to go a certain way but being unable to ask for it.
Or maybe he’s exactly like Alessio and Marcello because they didn’t show their evil side right out of the gate when I arrived to live with them. It took less time than what has passed since Hollis brought me here. I knew better than to trust the way they were acting because what happened with Maya happened long before my dad’s contract with Lucian.
I don’t pull away from Hollis when he rolls into me, pressing his hot, thick erection into my bare thigh. The thing could literally be considered a weapon. I have no doubt the man would know how to use it as such, although he has yet to threaten me with it.
I bite my lower lip when his hand trails down my shoulder and over the tip of my breast, both hating and loving the zing that runs through my entire body. I tremble as it travels lower.
My thoughts and fears are all jumbled together, one in contrast with the next. I know I’d rather die than be returned to the Severinos, but at the same time, I’m terrified of what could happen if I do so in an impure state. I can’t give away nor have that piece of me taken. I have no idea why Alessio has waited, why he hasn’t insisted on me giving him that part of me prior to our wedding night. He’s had so many opportunities, and I know he isn’t waiting for my sake. It’s just another tool, another way to instill fear, keeping me wondering when he’ll do it and how he’ll take it.
Tears burn my eyes because it makes me think of the promise my father made. The man was supposed to love and protect me, yet he hand fed me to the brute in the Severino family. His weakness, his inability to get his comeuppance for stealing from Lucian, will mean my death. He knows how they are, and yet he doesn’t care. My mother would be appalled at how he’s behaved, but her telling me since I was a young child who I was going to marry really isn’t any better.
She never recanted, never told me I’d have the right to choose who I spend the rest of my life with. Not even after learning of how the boys were. Her vow to end the family feud was also her downfall. Her commitment put Elio in the Severino path, and in turn killed her heir. Grace and forgiveness means nothing when both sides haven’t agreed to discard the past.
I want nothing more than the right to choose. Although I’m fighting the urge to arch my back into Hollis’s touch, it doesn’t necessarily mean I’d choose this. I wouldn’t choose Hollis, and I definitely wouldn’t choose a Severino.
I want loyalty, a man willing to die protecting me, not a coward who hands me over to the devil, or a man who drove off a cliff in order to avoid the monsters they were leaving me at the mercy of.
