Page 54 of Romeo Pagani

“Don’t say that.”

“Why?” I raised a brow, goading him. I was done being the person who did as she was told, who stayed cooped up in here all day. His head may have been between my legs last night, but that didn’t give him the right to do what he’d just done. “You embarrassed me,” I gritted out between clenched teeth, my temper finally letting loose. All of the resentment and rage I’d felt since I’d been ripped off the streets was coming to the forefront, and Romeo was the target. “Do you realize that is the first person I’ve spoken to outside of your criminal shit since before I was taken?”

“Bailey.” He held his hands up, slowly moving toward me, but I refused to acknowledge what he was doing or saying. He was always too good at worming his way around my thoughts, weaving a web that I never saw coming. But not today, not now, not while I was embracing my outrage.

“You have no idea!” I shouted, wrapping my hand at the base of my neck. I hadn’t done that for a couple of days, but now it was the first thing I went to. “You have no idea what he did to me in there. Yet you think you have some kind of right to tell me what to do.” I paused, heaving a breath, feeling like my heart was trying to jump out of my chest. “You don’t own me, Romeo. You don’t own any piece of me!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he growled, meeting me in the middle of the room. We were a couple of feet away from each other, neither of us backing down. “I own you just as much as you’ve owned me since that first night I laid eyes on you.” He stood deathly still, his eyes not wavering off of me. “Whether you like it or not, we’re in each other’s lives for a reason. If that’s for a short amount of time or not, it doesn’t matter.” He took one more step toward me, closing the distance between us. “I’m protecting you, angel. Can’t you understand that?”

“Protecting me?” I whispered, my emotions shattering. “Where was that protection when Mr. Pozzi held me down?” He blinked, taking in my words as I fell apart right in front of him. “Where was that protection when he tied me to the bed and raped me?”

His shoulders widened, his eyes narrowing. “The fuck did you just say?” He was mad—big mad. Good. I needed him to know. I needed him to know what I’d been through. I neededsomeoneto know. And he…he was the only one who would understand.

I stepped back, yanking at the T-shirt I was wearing—one of his again—and showcased my skin to him. “Where were you when his fists were smashing against my ribs?” I signaled to the bruising that covered my skin. There was no way that he hadn’t seen that last night, but now I was pointing it out to him. Now I wasmakinghim look at the week-old bruises. “Where the hell were you, Romeo?”

His nostrils flared, his attention flicking between my face and my ribs. “What else?” His voice was so rough, I was sure it must have hurt for him to get those words out.

Furrowing my brow, I asked, “What do you mean, ‘what else?’”

“I mean…” He shuffled closer to me, careful not to come too close. If I was on edge, then he was damn near leaping over the side of a mountain, about to free-fall hundreds of feet. “What else did he do to you, Bailey?” His jaw was locked, his muscles so tense they looked like stone beneath his skin.

“He chose me,” I whispered, caught off guard. If I was going to confess it, then I’d tell him everything. I wouldn’t leave anything out, I wouldn’t hide from the trauma I held deep down inside my soul. “I was in a cage for weeks until he walked by and chose me.” I wrapped my arms around my stomach, not because I was exposed to Romeo, but because of the memories making their way to the forefront of my mind. “And as his initiation, he tied me to the bed and raped me in front of two of his guards.”

I wanted so badly to close my eyes, but Iknewif I did, then all I would see was his face.

“But…you were a virgin…” Romeo trailed off, his eyes filling with an emotion I couldn’t quite place. And in that moment, I didn’t have the brain space to comprehend what he was feeling, all I could process was what he’d said.

“He…he raped me somewhere else.” I squeezed my eyes closed, knowing Ihadto get the words out. Once they were spoken, maybe I could gain more freedom, or maybe it would break me even more. There was only one way to find out… “He raped me in—”

“You don’t need to say it,” he interrupted, his voice raw. “I can read between the lines.” I opened my eyes, staring at his expression. “I should have made him suffer more than I already did,” Romeo gritted out, his attention still on me. He was deathly still, as was I, both of us too scared to move.

What had started as me being mad for him pulling me inside when I was just saying hello to the woman next door, had turned into this confession. A confession I’d never intended to have.

“I can’t do this,” I whispered, tears pricking at my eyes, then immediately falling. I shouldn’t have said a word to him. I should have kept my mouth shut and the memories locked away where no one but me could ever access them. “I can’t tell you all of this stuff.”

Twisting, I spun on the spot, intending to escape, but his hand capturing my arm stopped me. I didn’t turn around to face him though; I couldn’t bear to look at him in that moment.

“You can tell me anything, Bailey.” His breath was hot on my neck as his arms wrapped around me from behind, capturing my hands and holding them tight. He cocooned me, just like he had the day his boss had come here. “If you tell me, it’s not just you and your head keeping the secrets then.” I let my back lean against his front, closing my eyes and breathing him in.

Safety. Warmth. Security. Tranquility. He made me feel all of that. But most of all, he made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore. Growing up as an only child, both with my parents and Uncle Caden, meant that loneliness was par for the course. And I hadn’t realized how much I disliked it until this very moment. Until Romeo made me feel like I finally had someone I could confide in.

“He took things from me,” I murmured, closing my eyes and concentrating on taking one breath at a time. “He used my body like it was nothing.” I felt his arms hold me a little tighter, his face burrowing into my neck. “But it was nothing compared to the last night I saw you.”

The atmosphere was a mixture of tense and relief. An odd combination but it felt right for the moment. I was confessing things to him that I’d promised myself I’d keep buried deep down inside, but there was something freeing about confiding all of this in Romeo.

“He tied me to a huge metal X in the middle of the club.” His lips pressed against my pulse point, reassuring me. And it was all I needed to go on. “He let all the men do whatever they wanted to me.” I hiccupped a sob, trying to keep it inside, but it was impossible when all I could sense were their hands on me, their…liquid on me.

“I’ll kill every last one of them,” Romeo murmured in my ear, following it up with another kiss to my neck. “I’ll torture them and bleed them dry, just for you, angel.” His words were soft, but the conviction in them told me that he meant every last word.

“Promise?” I asked, slowly turning in his arms. I didn’t want to tell him every sordid detail—I didn’t need to, he got the gist of what had happened, of what they’d all done to me.

“Promise.” He lifted his hand, stroking some hair out of my face and pushing it behind my ear. “I’ll never break a promise to you as long as I live.”

I pressed my palm to his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my hand and smiled sadly. “I know you won’t.” I stared up at him, looking into his impossibly dark eyes framed by long lashes. His tan skin spoke of his Italian heritage along with his ink-black hair. “I forgive you.”

The words hadn’t meant to come out. But…they had. And I meant them.

His eyes widened. “You forgive me?”

Source: www.allfreenovel.com