Chapter 5 – Marcella
MARCELLA
The earring is going to be a problem. Aside from the fact that the diamonds were real, they belonged to my stepmother, Signoria Batorini. That’s going to be a bitch to explain. I shudder at the thought of what I’m about to face with her, my back tingling at the memory of Antonia’s cane.
Antonia always does her dirty work. She’s Signoria’s niece from a much older sister, but they’re more like best friends. Partners in crime and evil. Signoria doesn’t like to get her hands dirty unless she has to, but Antonia loves it.
The drive back from the Messalinian Alps down to the southeast part of the country is long.
I didn’t dare leave before dawn, which meant I had to camp out in the woods again.
I end up stopping twice. Once to use the restroom and another to force some food into me.
I’m not hungry, but I also haven’t eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, and I can feel my body getting shaky.
I have all the windows down, even though it’s barely fifteen degrees Celsius, and music is blasting.
Anything to drown out thoughts about last night.
About him. About how my body is sore in the most perfect and unexpected way.
But mostly so I won’t think about how the conversation will go when I get home.
Or the fact that I’m going on zero sleep.
The exit for Bellezza in Riva al Mare is up ahead, and I speed up in anticipation of the hairpin curve, challenging the cornering Ferrari Purosangue. She handles like a dream, and I hope I can find a way to take her out again.
The drive into town winds along the cliffs high above the Mediterranean Sea.
Quaint shops and restaurants are on one side, and on the other is the sprawling, sparkling blue-green water, dotted with sharply rising islands in the distance and boats of various sizes.
The smell of salt and herbs fills the air, and if I weren’t trapped here, locked like an eternal prisoner, I’d think this was the most special piece of earth on the planet.
People strolling the street notice me as I pass through, some offering timid smiles, others wincing. Very few know my name or, frankly, much about me other than as one of the servants to the Batorini family. A name that once garnered respect and even love. They were revered.
Then Samil had to go and fuck it up by attempting to kill the king and queen, and now the Batorini family, what’s left of it, has a perpetual scarlet letter on their chests.
Not that I’m part of the family. Not technically.
At least not in a way anyone knows about.
Being the bastard child of an affair, Signoria always hated me.
I was a reminder of her husband’s infidelity, and though I lived in their house since my mother was dead, I was never treated as part of the family.
Samil was my older brother, Signoria, and my father’s only child together.
He was my best friend. My lifeline. Years later, shortly before he died, my father had a second child with a mistress, and now it’s Jaqueline and me, stuck in this house with no option of escape.
I plow through town, picking up speed as I hit the countryside once again, and five minutes later, I’m rolling into the grounds of the Batorini estate.
The massive Spanish-style palazzo appears like a mirage once you pass the olive groves and towering cypress trees.
I drive to the back of the building and straight into one of the garage bays.
The car shuts off, and I’m locked in suffocating silence.
The kind that hits your pulse and prickles your skin in the worst of ways.
I’m not even out of the car when Antonia steps out. Fuck. Here we go.
“You’re late,” she says to me in Italian, since that’s the only language spoken in this house other than during language and dialect lessons.
I shake my head as I pull my bags from the trunk. “I’m early. I promised three if I couldn’t get out of the woods without being spotted, and I couldn’t with how tight security was. It’s not even two.”
“Marcella, did you get what we needed?”
I pause. “I lost an earring.”
Her jaw pops. “You know you’ll be punished severely for that.”
I hold in my wince. “Yes, ma’am. I know.”
“It might not be as bad if you have information we can use.”
I see we’re not wasting time or mincing words, and the urgency in her voice and even her expression raise the hairs at the back of my neck. So much was riding on this wedding, and all of it was disappointing. Well, at least in terms of intel.
I sling my duffel over my shoulder and carry the other large tote bag in my hand as I walk toward Antonia and the back entrance of the estate.
“They’re in love. It’s real.”
She hisses out a curse, her dark curls sprinkled with grays all over the place. “That’s unacceptable.”
I nearly snort a laugh, but the last time I made a mocking sound at her, I received five lashes.
“Regardless, I can’t change that.”
She steps back, and we enter the back foyer that divides into two wings, one toward the kitchen and servants’ areas and the other toward the family section of the palazzo.
Instead of going toward any of that, we veer a sharp right and head to the back before taking the dark, narrow flight of stairs to Jaqueline’s and my quarters, which abut the wine cellar and two storage rooms.
And yes, it’s in the basement. Complete with no windows, spiders, and other critters.
I chuck my bags onto the floor, noting the worry in her eyes. She should be worried. Signora Batorini will be pissed. I wish Antonia had gone, but it was impossible. The only two who wouldn’t have been discovered by their facial recognition were either Jaqueline or me, and Jaqueline is a teenager.
“It’s real. It was all over them. Bellamy Wright loves King Sebastian and his children.
There was no act. The gossip was useless.
Same tragic bullshit story about Samil and useless trash about the new queen.
It was catty and based on jealousy instead of facts.
We’ll have to find another way. The queen won’t betray her king. ”
“Are you sure?” a voice comes from behind me, and my insides chill over.
Antonia is a fucking monster. Make no mistake about it.
I am too, if we’re being honest, because I learned from the masters.
But Signoria Batorini, my stepmother, is a special brand of evil, and it makes me miss her son even more.
I turn and place my eyes at chest level with her Chanel blouse before I curtsy. “Yes. I’m certain. On a positive note, I was able to bypass their security and get in without any issue, so now we know it’s possible. All in all, I’d say this was a successful mission.”
Her expensive heels click lightly against the travertine as she makes her way over to me.
Ice-cold, bone-thin fingers lift my chin until I meet her dark brown eyes.
Then her other hand flies and smacks my face with brutal precision.
I don’t wince. I hardly exhale a breath.
But fuck, does it sting. She’s wearing her eternity bands loaded with large diamonds and made sure that was the hand she struck me with.
The diamonds and metal tear a straight path up my cheek and cut me open. A warm trickle of blood runs down my face to my chin before it drips onto my shirt and the floor.
“Successful?” she sneers. “How dare you use that word to cover your failure. That information is useless to me.” She seethes, her eyes narrowing into slits as her red lips that match the soles of her shoes continue to lash out at me.
Another slap, this one harder than the first, and my vision pops with stars.
“We sent you to the royal wedding, and all you return with is that their affections are real?” She’s incredulous, her voice rising an octave, but it’s feigned.
It’s all part of her warfare. “I should have had Antonia kill you like the useless trash you are when your father died.”
But you didn’t, bitch.
“If it weren’t for my son and how he adored you, I would have.”
If it weren’t for your son and how I adored him, I likely would have done it myself when I learned the truth all those years ago.
“Must I remind you that you don’t exist?” she continues, her tone shrill. “That you have no last name. No birth certificate. No national identification number. As far as the world is concerned, you are nothing. I could throw you off the cliff straight into the sea, and no one would care.”
Another slap that makes my vision grow fuzzy. I try not to flinch, and for the most part, I succeed.
I’ve stood at that cliff edge many times, contemplating the very thing she just said. Samil saved me. Loved me. Doted on me. Made me believe that I wasn’t nothing. He taught me so many things. He spent time with me. To him, I was someone. I mattered.
My life wasn’t exactly singing with the birds and chirping out songs all day long, but it was bearable.
It was okay. I lived in the shadows and followed their instructions to the letter.
If I didn’t, I was tortured. So I adapted.
I studied and learned how they wanted me to.
I did their bidding and followed their orders, even when I often felt sick from them.
Then Samil died.
I could point out how she’s used me and the fact that I don’t exist to make an untold fortune from murder, corruption, and blackmail.
The amount of fucked-up shit that goes down in the world of the stupidly rich is obscene and would turn any normal person’s blood cold.
But since she and the rest of her world are already cold-blooded, to them it’s simply another day at the office.