9. Chapter Nine—Carlotta #2
Cassiel cocks his head to one side, unflinching. “I don’t actually. But if you’d like to share with the class…”
“Ugh!” I scoff at his blatant inuendo. “I’m being fucking serious here! I’m—”
I choke back the sob building in the back of my throat. My eyes burning with the sudden spring of tears.
How the fuck did I get here? Alone and untethered to anyone in the whole wide world; everyone I’ve ever loved or cared for is dead, buried six feet under.
How have I found myself in a space where I’m so afraid I can barely hold myself upright, where everyone knows who I am, but I know no one, where I feel so stuck and ensnared that it feels like I can’t breathe properly.
All I’ve ever wanted is to be able to choose a life for myself and now…
Now, that choice has been ripped away from me by this man in front of me.
Join him or be killed; that’s all this comes down to.
“I want the truth and I want it now. How long have you known who I am?”
Rome shakes his head slowly, the tip of his tongue peeking out to wet his lips. My traitorous eyes track every movement. “I can’t tell you that, Carlotta. But you need to know I am not the enemy here.”
“Really? I scoff. “Because right now you’re looking—”
“You want to know what happened to Cristiano, right? That’s the whole reason you’re here in the first place.”
I shake my head, scrubbing at my running nose. “I need to know.”
“There you go, then. I—we—can help you with that.”
“How?”
Rome simply stares at me, waiting for the penny to drop.
“You can’t tell me until I say yes to joining The Thirteen.”
“She’s learning fast.” Cassiel smiles.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? That you’ll really help me?”
I watch Rome stand, rounding his desk until his thighs graze the edge of my chair.
“Whose going first?” I hear Cassiel ask, placing a small silver blade into Rome’s awaiting palm, beneath my nose.
“Carlotta can choose.”
“Choose what?” I breathe, balling my hands into fists to stop the shaking.
“Who you would like to swear to you first.”
Sinking onto his knees and staring up into my face, Rome presents the knife to me. I turn to see Cassiel doing the same thing, shuffling until he kneels at Rome’s side, inches away from my feet.
“What are you—”
“Cut my thumb, Carlotta. Slice it until I bleed.”
My words die in my throat as I take the blade in my grasp.
It feels heavy and awkward against my flesh, almost too ice cool to the touch, but I curve my palm around it, nonetheless.
Reaching forward, I wrap my left fingertips around Rome’s four thick fingers, smooth flesh sliding against calloused flesh, noticing how small my hand looks in his.
“I don’t understand.” My voice comes out in a whisper. My gaze swinging back and forth from Rome and Cassiel, waiting for one of them to explain why they’re both on their knees before me.
I would enjoy the sight a lot more if my heart didn’t feel like it was beating out of my chest, my tongue so thick and swollen in my mouth I can hardly form words, and my back lathered with a thin layer of sweat.
“Have you ever cut anyone before?”
I shake my head silently at Cassiel’s question, watching the two men exchange a wordless glance.
“Hold the blade steady, Carlotta.” Rome presses his palm further into mine, the warmth of his hand seeping into my cold one. “Press the edge of it into the fleshiest part of my thumb.”
I try to do as he says, but my fingers tremor too much; tiny little quakes causing the knife’s blade to quiver up and down against Rome’s skin.
“I can’t.”
Licking my dry lips, I pull the knife away, staring at the unbroken indent staining Rome’s thumb.
“Yes, you can,” Cassiel utters, voice low, but thick with conviction. He curls my fingers back around the knife with more gentleness than I thought him capable, circling my wrist until both of our hands are raising the blade and pressing it to Rome’s awaiting flesh.
“It takes a little bit more force than you think,” he continues to talk, words slow and steady as if talking to a scared rabbit.
“Too much force and the blood will spurt everywhere. Not enough and well, a paper cut could do more damage. You have to get it just right. You’ll know when. You’ll feel it.”
I blink sluggishly at him, his gruff tone kissing my ears, slowing my heartrate down with each word.
“On the count of three, ready?”
Switching my gaze to Rome, I find him already watching me, brown eyes soft, chin dipping slightly as he nods.
“One…two…” I feel the bite of the flesh beneath the blade—a foreign feeling that cascades across the back of my hand and settles into the bones of my wrist. “Three.”
Cassiel’s palm presses against mine, adding a second weight, to help me make the first cut.
I hardly feel him dropping his hand away, allowing me to take the reins as my hind brain takes over, the sharp silver edge of the knife gliding back to create a straight cut no bigger than the length of my manicured fingernail.
There’s something so primal about watching the ruby red blood welt against the cut; something that has my own blood running poker hot in my veins.
I inhale raggedly, the small office room thick with the almost sweet, copper-like tang of blood, dropping the knife into my lap with a dull thump.
Cassiel is there to pick it back up, the blade fitting oh so perfectly in his hand, balancing it between his blunt fingertips as he grins at Rome.
“Told you she could do it.”
Rome doesn’t reply, instead leaning forward, his non bleeding hand batting away the open collar of my starched white work blouse to reveal the smooth flesh of my chest.
I glance down at the swell of my upper breast he’s exposed, the cups of my bra covering everything important. Although, I guess that hardly matters to a man that has already seen me topless more times than I can count.
Gooseflesh dances across my flesh at the ghost-like kiss of cool air blowing from the old-looking air conditioning unit sitting above Rome’s desk.
“What are you—”
My breathing hitches in the back of my throat when Rome places his thumb, still flowing steadily with a ruby red bead, to the space above my heart and smears his lifeblood across my skin.
“I, Rome Alexander Folonari swear I will protect you, Carlotta Louisa Bellucci, until my last dying breath. Shall I break your trust, then the exact blade that has cut my skin shall be wielded by you to pierce my flesh and cut out my heart. Do you take my word as promise?”
I nod before my brain can catch up with the words spilling from Rome’s plush lips.
“Good girl.” The sliced pad of his thumb passes across my heart space once more before he pulls back and turns to Cassiel. “Your turn.”
At least time, when Cassiel presses the knife back into my palm, I have an idea of what’s about to happen.
I press the sharp slide of the blade to his thumb just as I did before, wrapping my thin fingertips around his thick wrist. I swallow back the inuendo crawling across the back of my tongue when I realize my fingers are inches away from meeting. God, everything about him is big.
Cassiel winks at me as if knowing exactly what I’m thinking about, his words only serving to fuel the fire building in the pit of my stomach and the apex of my thighs. “Come on, Princess. Make it sting a little bit, won’t you? I don’t mind a little bit of pain with my pleasure.”
Parting my lips on a soft exhale, I slide my gaze to Rome. He’s watching me again; his warm brown eyes burning into the place Cassiel and are joined.
“Will you help me?”
His brows furrow in surprise, the first emotion other than cold aloof and arousal I’ve seen all evening. “It’s only fair, don’t you think? Cassiel helped me cut you. Don’t you want to—”
The rest of my words die in my throat as Rome settles his large hand over mine, urging me to press the knife into his bodyguard’s thumb, the silver blade biting easily into the calloused flesh.
A little more than a droplet of blood beads on Cassiel’s thumb, a large portion of it beginning to stream down his thick digit, settling into his Venus’ mound, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
Quite the opposite, actually.
I watch Cassiel reach down with his non-cut hand to rearrange his dick straining against the confines of his dark denim, his blood-dripping thumb gliding on top of the smear left behind from Rome, until my flesh is stained with two red strokes.