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“What did he do to you, Donna? Did he even try to seduce you at all?”
She’d been so excited about the party and had even called him out by name. She also liked to have sex with much older men, so there had to be at least some willingness on her part. What changed, and when had it happened? Donna liked the whole mafia scene. She thought mobsters were sexy. She liked the power they had, and I had to admit that I could see the appeal now, even if I hadn’t been able to back then.
Nazario had filled me in on some of the things that happened that night, but he never gave me the exact details. I now needed to know at which moment Donna’s arousal turned to fear, and what he’d done to her in front of everyone. What caused her to feel the need to fight for her life? I closed my eyes as my fingers closed down around the metal razor I had in my purse. Stefano loved to fuck me at those parties, and a lot of it was his need to show me off. He liked to let others know he could have any woman he wanted, whether through force or not. I didn’t fight him, but rather begged him for more. I wanted the brutality and the violence because I had been programmed to need them in order to come. And he gave it to me. Hour after hour of nonstop pain, some while I was lucid, and some when I wasn’t. I couldn’t even count the number of times I drifted in and out of consciousness with him still driving into me and kissing me with that evil mouth of his.
I snatched the razor and pulled it fully out of my purse. I had taken what my friend hadn’t, yet I still paid for it each and every day after. Something worse than death happened to me. “Nazario,” I breathed, then brought the blade to my wrist.
I knew exactly where to cut in order to end my life, and where to cut to simply release some of the pain. On that last night with my most current lover, I hadn’t meant to do it at all, but when I picked up the broken glass, I didn’t see the woman I had become in my reflection, but the one I started off as. I was the girl who thought she had nothing else to live for… the one who was destined to live in the dark, crushed by the heavy weight of all I’d lost... I also saw a woman who would use those scars as motivation. As I had done the first time I started cutting, and as I had done that night in the kitchen, I pricked my skin.
“Donna,” I cried out, but before I could actually slice my skin, a noise startled me and I dropped the razor.
I turned and scrambled to my feet as a familiar shadow approached me. I bent down to pick back up the blade, but a single word had me freezing in place. “Stop!”
I looked up at him as he closed the distance between us. He gripped me by the shoulders, then hauled me against him. My earlier tears increased, and soon they were spilling from my eyes and rolling down my cheeks as he held me against him.
NAZARIO
I’d just gotten into New York City straight from Palermo. The last few days had been spent stalking, then killing my prey. I had to make sure the Catalanos were gone so Viviana would be safe. I then took the private jet to America and had been following behind her for over two hours now. I’d been in the car behind the bus using the sight of her on the back row to remind me why I was here. I came to get my girl, and I wouldn’t leave without her. My plane was already being fueled and prepped at the airport because we would be heading back to Napoli tonight.
Ever since following Viviana, there was something different about her than before. She was so withdrawn and while she had stopped when she heard me behind her once or twice, she was pretty oblivious to everything else going on around her. When she reached that fateful alley and knelt down in front of nothing, her words all but confirmed that she indeed didn’t give a damn whether she lived or die.
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters. Nothing ever has.”
I had wanted to growl, but I stayed back to see what else she would say or do. I hoped she would get up and go into the hotel. I would go to her room, retrieve her, then fly her back home with me where she belonged. Viviana didn’t, though. She never did anything to make things easy. I moved slowly toward her and stopped when I heard my name ripped from her. She was in such pain, and it wasn’t the kind I liked to deliver to her. I balled my hands into fists and softly approached her. Donna’s name was said next, and when I looked down to see what she was doing, I had to react.
Viviana did, too. She dropped the razor onto the ground. She scrambled to her feet, and although she appeared ready to stand nose to nose with me, I didn’t see any of her earlier fight. In fact, when she went to bend down to retrieve the weapon she intended to use on herself, I sprang into action. I yelled for her to stop, and uncharacteristically, she did. I didn’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I quickly pulled her against me.
She cried for several seconds as I held her against me. Once or twice, she’d try to wriggle free, but she couldn’t overpower me. Finally, she let out a heavy sigh and loosened up completely in my arms. “Viviana. I—”
She then either laughed or sobbed, the noise causing me to freeze. “I’d ask how you knew where to find me, but you had to have had men following me.”
“I did,” I admitted, not even trying to keep that from her.
“There’s no baby,” she told me, then looked up at me. “There never was.”
“I know,” I also admitted, then clarified, “I made it to the hospital right after you’d left. I’m not here because of it, though.”
“Then, why?”
“I came here for you.”
She pushed my chest at those words, and I let her free. Turning, she dropped her head but just stood there. I could see the slight shaking in her frame, and I knew she was crying. I wanted to draw her back into my arms and kiss away every tear, but there was so much unsaid between us already. If we’d both been fully honest with one another, a lot of the past couple of weeks could’ve been avoided.
I continued to watch her, forcing myself not to react. I knew the moment whatever thoughts going through her head changed because she straightened up to full height, then swiftly turned. Her hand flew toward me so quickly I didn’t have time to react. She slapped me, the blow stinging my cheek. My father would’ve restrained her, then likely strangled her for the infraction, but not me. I’d hurt her so much with my words already, so it wasn’t a surprise that my presence would just add on to it.
“You can’t let me have anything, can you?”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t fucking play stupid with me. You know what I’m talking about.”
She yanked the scrunchie from her head, then ran her hands haphazardly through her hair before glaring at me. “You took my vengeance for Donna from me... our baby from—”
“There was never a baby,” I interjected, and her expression turned even more murderous.
“Of course not, but had there been one. You were going to rip it from my womb. You’re an even bigger monster than your fath—”
I growled, and it silenced her. “I’m not my father,” I told her, although I had recently seen more similarities between the two of us than I liked. “And there are things you don’t understand about me. I can’t father a child due to heredity.”
