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“You can beg all you want, Peyton.” He reached between us, grabbing the waistband of my leggings. “But you know how much I like that.” He pushed his hips forward, showing me exactly how much he liked it.
Vomit gurgled up, threatening to let loose at his words and actions. I’d been so furious over the last few days that I hadn’t taken stock of everything. It was the calm before the storm, and now…now I was smack-dab in the middle of a tornado, its intensity sure to break me into a million pieces.
I opened my mouth, about to plead again, but his palm connecting with the side of my face and lip soon shut me up. He’d been trying to get me to talk for days, and now he didn’t want to hear a thing. I couldn’t win with him—I never had been able to.
My hands grasped his biceps, trying with all my might to keep him at bay, but it was no use because within seconds he was ripping the material of my leggings, batting away my hands, then shoving his own pants down.
He was going to rape me. It wasn’t the first time, and with clarity, I knew it wouldn’t be the last.
I’d had hope before all of this, a secret plan to run away and escape from the life I’d wound up in. But now…now I didn’t have an option. They’d effectively kidnapped my sons and were using them to get me to behave, as if I was a sullen teenager who had broken curfew.
So when he lined himself up and pummeled his erection into my dry hole, I knew this was my destiny, I just had to accept it. The more I fought, the worse it would be. I closed my eyes, imagining anything but what was happening in that moment.
I’d take all the hits. I’d take all of the punishment. I’d take the rapes. If it meant seeing my kids and being their mom, I would take it all until my last dying breath.
Travis thought he could break me, but he had no idea what a mother would do for their kids.
CHAPTER 13
RAFAEL
“What the hell were you thinking?” I winced at Lorenzo’s booming voice, the temptation to put my hands over my ears almost too strong to resist. “You made a scene in front of Luca’s, not only that, but the fuckin’ police were called.”
The boss paced behind his desk, smoke more or less coming out of his ears. He wasn’t just mad, he wasbig mad. Fuck.
“The guy could press charges, then you’d be in jail.” He paused, staring daggers right at me. “What use would you be to me behind bars?”
My nostrils flared at his words, reality sinking in. If I was behind bars, then I couldn’t find Peyton, and right then, that was all that mattered. I needed to bide my time in this office, take what Lorenzo had to give, then do what I needed to. Any other time, being called into this office to be put in my place would have made me feel like utter shit. But not this time. This time I was just counting down the seconds until he was done.
I swallowed, my attention turning to Dante who was in front of the desk and Mateo who stood like a silent warrior near the door. My attention was zooming in and out, my mind wandering elsewhere. Dammit. Stay focused, Raf.
“I fucked up,” I admitted, knowing it was what they wanted to hear. “I just…” I blew out a breath, running my hand through my hair. “There’s no excuse for it. I just fucked up and lost my temper.” It was the best I could do, but also the only thing I knew they would accept. Excuses didn’t fly with the Berettas.
Dante huffed out a laugh. “You are a Pagani…” He trailed off, the implication clear. Paganis were known for their anger, but my father had honed his in, just like Romeo had, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have times where they lost it too, where the tether they kept on it snapped, allowing their rage to run free until they could get it back under control.
I was the same. The only difference was, I didn’t have as much practice at it as they did.
Lorenzo crossed his arms over his chest, staring me down. “Your punishment is to do a shift at Luca’s every week for the next six months.”
I nodded, accepting it. It could have been a lot worse. Most of the soldiers hated working at Luca’s, but I didn’t mind, especially when it was the normal piano bar nights. It was the club nights that I hated with all the rowdy college kids.
There was no doubt in my mind that Lorenzo wanted to dish out more than that, and if I really thought about it, the fact that he’d been so lenient should have alarmed me, but it didn’t. I had other things to worry about.
“You can go now,” Lorenzo said, sitting down behind his desk, his attention no longer on me. “I don’t want to see you in my office again for the foreseeable future.” It was a warning to keep a low profile, one that I knew I wouldn’t be keeping, not if I followed through with my plan, but he didn’t need to know that, no one did.
I left his office without a word, my head down, wanting to get out of the Beretta mansion as quickly as possible. I’d woken up with a completely different energy this morning. It had been three days since Ace had turned up and taken Peyton and the boys. It may not have seemed that long, but it felt like a goddamn lifetime to me.
Maybe it was knowing that I hadn’t stopped them. Or maybe it was the fact that I was trusting my gut, believing everything she’d told me, which meant that she was in more danger than anyone knew.
I ground my teeth together, walking faster, needing to get on with my mission as quickly as possible.
As soon as I was in my car, I sped down the driveway, through the now open ornate metal gates that kept everyone out of the mansion, then got comfortable for the long drive ahead.
My mind was a whirl of thoughts as I drove, trying to piece everything together, trying to make sense of it all. Peyton had turned up out of the blue, but she’d also kept to herself. That was until she’d seen Bailey hurt. That had been the trigger for her.
I gripped the steering wheel harder, my knuckles cracking in the process. There was no way the reaction she had that day that Gio hurt Bailey was anything but genuine. And then there was Kian…fuck, how could I have believed anything but what I’d seen with my own two eyes?
Pulling into the familiar street, I didn’t take a look at any driveway but hers. Her car was still parked there, and I was sure it wouldn’t be the only thing they’d left behind. Maybe there was evidence that I could collect to prove to everyone that we weren’t being played by her. Failing that, maybe I could figure out where she was.
