35. Nyah
NYAH
Dear Diary,
The only man who understands the scars is the one who shares them.
The cold of the concrete floor radiated through my flesh and muscles and settled deep in my bones. The only thing that kept it from completely overpowering my system was the wild anger inside me that burned hot and bright and did its best to keep the chill away.
I didn’t think I’d ever hated anyone or anything as much as I hated Carlos Guerra in that moment.
They’d freed my wrists at some point after I’d passed out, and I wished I could stand up.
But when I’d tried that, the pain in my chest from the brand burn had me seeing black spots and the dark room spinning.
So, I’d sat back down before I’d fallen, not wanting to add to the bruises I’d given myself the first time I’d face-planted.
My lip tasted of blood, and I could feel how fat it was, but it was the least of my concerns.
The cage I was locked in was a different story altogether. “Carlos!” I shouted. “Carlos!”
I refused to be quiet. Refused to be the weak mouse I’d let him think I was. He had no idea the lengths I’d go to make sure this baby survived. It had already been through too much. And so had I. “Fuck you, Carlos!” I screamed. “Let me out, you rat bastard!”
A dark chuckle came from the corner of the room, and I spun, peering into the gloom. “Who’s there?”
The laughter came again.
“Luca?” I could make out the shape of a man but not his features. But of course it was Luca fucking Guerra. He was as big a piece of shit as his father, just in a more attractive package. The flirting we’d done, disguised as hate for each other, clearly meant nothing.
But it was all I had. Screaming obscenities at Carlos for the last however many hours clearly hadn’t gotten me anywhere.
I needed to get out of this cage. I’d had no food or water for the entire day and I had no way of knowing when, or even if, I would be offered something. “Luca, please. I need help.”
“Beg me.”
The shame and humiliation burned worse than the mark on my chest. But I had nothing left.
I’d been in this situation before, locked away, left to die.
I couldn’t do it again. Even if my body survived it, my head wouldn’t.
I could already feel the urge to disassociate creeping in, and I knew if I let it, I could be so easily dragged down into that void of nothingness.
I sucked in a deep breath, trying to keep the ringing in my ears at bay.
With my wrecked, hoarse throat, I whispered, “Please. Please, Luca. I’m on my knees.
I don’t know what else I can do to say I’m sorry.
I took the branding. You own me. I understand.
Please. Just let me out. I’ll never flirt with another man again.
I’ll do anything you want. Just let me out. ”
The man stepped out of the shadows, and the words froze on my lips.
It wasn’t Luca.
Enzo stared down at me with pure malice in his eyes. “Just as I thought. A little Matish slut, lying through her traitor teeth, just like her father.”
There was something about Enzo that terrified me. Carlos was scary in an authoritative way. But Enzo looked at me in a way that made me want to back up slowly, for fear that if I moved too fast, he’d strike.
And something told me that Enzo’s bite might just be fatal.
He glared at me with a hate I’d never felt from either Carlos or Luca. “You say you’ll never flirt with another man, and yet what was that? When you thought I was Luca, you were willing to get down on your knees and beg him. Promise him anything he wanted.”
“You said I had to.”
“What were you promising him, princess? Your virgin pussy? You said you’d give that man in the corner whatever he wanted, and what if that is what I want? You’re already naked, all tits and cunt. Practically beggin’ me.”
A tiny voice in the back of my head whispered that this plan I had, this stupid fucking plan to make Carlos believe this baby was a Guerra, could also work if I slept with Enzo.
He was also of Guerra blood, and maybe it would be enough. I didn’t know what we’d do if he demanded a paternity test, but at least by then, this baby would be born. It would have a chance.
One it wouldn’t have if there was no plausible possibility that this baby was of Carlos’s blood.
But I could never willingly let Enzo touch me. He repulsed me in every way, fear lighting up my body every time I was around him. “No.”
His arm reached through the bars so quick I didn’t even see it. Or maybe it was because my head still spun and my reflexes were slow. His fingers wrapped around my throat and squeezed tight.
“You don’t get to say no to me, slut. You’re in a fucking cage. I own you. My name is right there on your chest.” He pressed a finger to the burn.
His fingers around my throat were the only reason I didn’t scream. It wasn’t for lack of trying. It was because I physically didn’t have the air.
He let go just enough that I managed to jerk myself out of his grip and staggered away from him, so my back pressed to the other side of the cage. I sucked in sharp breaths; sure I looked like a wild animal.
Voices outside the door floated through, and this time, I was sure it was Luca’s. So sure I was shocked I’d even thought for a second that Enzo’s voice was his. And this time, when I screamed Luca’s name, it wasn’t with the anger that I’d screamed his father’s.
It was with the desperation of a woman who suddenly knew the man standing in front of her was evil. “Luca! Help me!”
Better the devil you know.
Raised words came from the other side of the door, a thump and tussle. Enzo just shook his head at me, and then the door slammed open.
Luca’s dark eyes took me in, completely naked, burned, face bleeding and swelling.
And then his uncle standing on the other side of the cage, as if this was just a regular Tuesday.
Luca’s anger exploded. “What the fuck, Enzo!” He shoved past him and grabbed the bars. “Jesus fuck! Nyah, are you okay?” He whirled to glare at him again. “Did you do this to her?”
Enzo just raised one eyebrow.
Luca snorted. “Of course not. Because you wouldn’t have the spine to do anything other than exactly what my father tells you to do, would you?” He sneered at him in disgust and held his hand out. “Give me the fucking key.”
Enzo fingered it, twisting it over and over, the silver glinting like his rings. “You aren’t exactly in a bargaining position, nephew. Remember, I know things—”
Luca lunged for him. “I don’t fucking care, Enzo! Tell my father I fuck men. See if I give a shit. Give me the damn key.”
He snatched it from the man’s grasp and faced off with him, breathing heavily.
Enzo just smiled smugly at his nephew and leaned in.
“You wish I would play that card, nephew, don’t you?
But then I’d have nothing to hold over you.
Now, I have two things.” He glanced at me.
“I do assume your father doesn’t know about the little crush you clearly have on his future wife?
Wouldn’t he be interested to know about the way you stormed in here just now, trying to be her knight in shining armor? ”
But Luca was done listening to it. He shoved the key in the lock, frantically trying to twist it to get it open.
Enzo didn’t wait around to see if it did. He walked out, head held high, stepping over the unconscious body of the guard at the door who Luca must have knocked out in order to get in here.
The padlock clicked open, and Luca quickly threaded it through the bars holding the cage shut. The cage door opened, and we stared at each other through it.
And for all that I wanted to be a warrior, for all that I wanted to scream and fight and curse him and his family to Hades, I recognized something else in the son of the man I was supposed to marry in a matter of weeks.
And I fell into his arms, tears rolling down my cheeks.
He caught me, holding me up, arms wrapping around me so protectively I could pretend he actually cared. My head was so dizzy, my face and chest sore, and my heart so damn broken I couldn’t even function.
He pulled his shirt off with one hand, refusing to let go of me with his other. He fit the shirt down over my head to give me some privacy, then swept me up into his arms. Stepping over the man unconscious on the floor, he carried me up the stairs and into my bedroom.
He laid me out on the bed, and I didn’t fight him. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling, wanting to be anywhere other than this fucking house, surrounded by these men who saw me as nothing but their property.
I wanted Dax. To be back in his arms before any of this had happened.
“Nyah,” Luca said softly, standing at the side of my bed, staring down at me.
I didn’t answer him.
What was there to say? Thank you? Thank you for rescuing me from the cages your father used to hold and torture women?
I wasn’t going to thank him for that.
But he didn’t seem to be waiting for a thank you. “We should get some cold water on that burn.”
“What does it matter?” I whispered to him. “I’m going to have your name on me for the rest of my life either way.”
Anger burned in his eyes, but it all felt fake and pointless.
It clearly wasn’t to Luca. He knelt at my side.
“Not my name. My father’s name.” He picked up my hand and put it to his chest. He had a smattering of hair across his pecs that trailed down in a line to his belly button and then lower, disappearing into his pants.
His skin was warm, so much warmer than mine after lying on the concrete floor for hours.
His chest was hard, all muscle, but he rubbed my fingertips over his heart, and I looked up at him in surprise.
His skin wasn’t smooth. There were raised scars, old and faded enough to not be super noticeable in amongst the hair that grew around them. But I could feel them.
I stared up at him. “He did this to you too.”
He nodded. “I was thirteen.”
I swallowed thickly. “How could he do that to his own child?”