Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
SLOANE
W incing, I let Hannah heft me off the bed. As she always does, she waits for me to gain my footing before stepping back.
“Got it?” she asks.
I nod, breathing through gritted teeth.
He hadn’t gone easy on me last night. I know more ribs are bruised. But not as bruised as my ego was.
“I don’t know why you bait him, Ms. Sloane. Just give him what he wants, and it’ll all cease. All the beatings, all the…”
“Rape? Go on, say it—the rape. And don’t forget you’re a part of it, Hannah. You dress me up like a doll to be mishandled and fucked every night. Only to patch me back together the next morning.”
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” she says, casting her eyes down as I sit at the vanity.
My face isn’t swollen anymore, but there are still bruises from last week when I spoke out of turn at a business dinner and caught Matteo’s backhand across my cheek.
I swore my nose was broken, but luckily it wasn’t.
I sigh, looking at the trembling hands of my maid. “I’m sorry. I know you’re just like me. You wouldn’t be here if you could get out, but it’s hard to handle all this, you know?”
She nods fervently, wiping away a tear as she looks up.
Her hands lift and shift my hair as I inspect the bags under my eyes and the swelling of my collarbone.
“How old were you when he bought you?” I ask her.
Her hands stop moving in my hair as she meets my eyes in the mirror. “Ten.”
I turn around on the plush vanity seat, gasping at the pain in my ribcage from the action. “Excuse me?”
She swallows, shame swelling in her eyes. “I was ten. My parents were gone and gave me up. I don’t remember all the details, if I’m honest. But I was in foster care. One night, I got it into my head to run away, and I was grabbed off the street. At first, I thought this place was a haven. He treated me well enough; he never touched me, and I was fed and clothed. But it wasn’t long until reality came crashing down when I was taught how to care for other women, ones he abused until they submitted. Until they couldn’t go on.”
I turn back around, looking down at a makeup brush absently. “What happened to them? The others?”
I know it’s wrong to ask, to make her relive those moments in her life when she saw things she shouldn’t have, but I need to know.
I need to prepare myself.
“They’re all dead, Ms. Sloane.” Her voice is timid and shaky.
“He killed them?” I close my eyes and await the eventual answer.
“He killed some. He didn’t like it when they broke too quickly. He’d say they were faking it to get on his good side. He also didn’t like the ones who wouldn’t break when he wanted them to. Sometimes, he’d come home in a rage and need someone to take it out on, and they were there. A handful of times, the girls died in their sleep.”
A tear falls, and I let it.
I’ve tried to be so strong this entire time. To know in the back of my head that the Ricci family is coming.
Matteo has power with the three families behind him, and I know that’s why it’s taking so long.
But I’m so close to giving up.
Close to becoming his perfect little fuck doll so that the beatings will cease.
“You’re the strongest one I’ve ever met,” she breathes, her hands moving through my hair and causing a tingle in my scalp. “He’s seen nothing like you, either. I’ve heard him say as much when he thinks he’s alone.”
I don’t like that. It means he’ll only grow more obsessed with breaking or keeping me. Either won’t go well for me.
“I don’t know how much longer I can be strong, Hannah,” I admit to the girl, not knowing if she’ll run back and tell her pseudo-father.
“Everyone has a limit,” she murmurs, grabbing the brush and working through the tangles in my hair.
Matteo likes it in a tight bun, so when I’m alone, I wear it down and wild to give my scalp a break.
“So, you’re here to push me along? To help him?” I can’t suss out if she’s more his victim or his lackey at this point.
“I only do as I’m told; you must understand that. I’m here to care for you and respond to your needs, but it’s true that I am also expected to guide you in furthering his cause.”
Of course, I knew it, but hearing it from her lips felt like a slap in the face. In the first few days of being out of the hospital bed, Hannah was the only thing I had that kept me alive. She wiped me when I couldn’t in the bathroom, showered me, and fed me, all while I was devoid of life.
I somehow pulled myself from the depths with thoughts of the life awaiting me when Luca came for me, but I don’t know how long I can stay afloat. Even now, each time I move against the gnawing pain, I feel as though I’m teetering on the fragile edge of a cavern without end. An emotional abyss.
Part of me wants to jump into the darkness and let it swallow me whole.
“Let’s get you ready, shall we? There’s a dinner tonight downstairs that Matteo wants you present for. We’ll need to cover those bags. And that bruise,” she adds, pointing to where Matteo had bitten me days ago. Though it’s fading, it’s still visible on my neck.
I nod. “Do what you must.”
I shrink inside myself, thinking of the same thing I always do.
Luca. Bursting through the door and taking me into his safe, warm arms.
Sometimes, I wonder if dreaming up these scenarios is helping me stay sane or worsens the longing.
Even so, I continue.
Luca moves inside my body, and I arch off the bed.
“Fuck, God, yes!” I moan, biting my bottom lip and looking into his dark eyes as he rolls his hips, grinding against my clit as his length sinks deep.
“Like that, do you, little dove?”
“More,” I beg, “Harder.”
Wrapping my legs around him, I try to quicken his pace, but he maintains it. Damn him.
“Ah, ah, ah, I’m in control, pretty girl. I want to take my time with this perfect cunt.”
His words. His filthy fucking words.
His mouth sears mine with a fervent kiss, his tongue slipping past my lips’ defenses like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
The more he presses into my kiss, the more urgent his thrusts get, so I swirl my tongue around the tip of his, teasing him.
He groans, and I swallow it, relishing when he fucks me harder.
Yes!
“I want you to come for me, little dove. Not God. No one else. Me.”
His demand is moot because I’m already about to combust around him, and I know it’ll make him come, too.
I can’t fucking wait.
“Luca!” I whimper, shattering around his cock as he roars through his release.
“Good girl, Hermosa,” he says, and I look up at him in confusion. “Now that’s more like how I’d love for you to behave…”
The room spins, and the world feels ablaze as panic tightens around my heart like a wrench.
My eyes fly open, confusion battling through my brain as I tug from the dream.
Matteo is over me, still writhing inside my body.
“You continue to behave like that, and I’ll have to move you into my room. I knew you had a good girl somewhere; I just had to beat her into submission.”
When he pulls out of me, nausea roils my stomach.
I came for him. I came for a rapist while dreaming of my lover.
The idea of it makes me sick.
I rush to the adjoining ensuite bathroom, barely reaching the toilet before heaving into it.
A dark chuckle comes from the doorway. “Pardon me for taking advantage of whatever dream you were having, but your moans were too sweet to pass up. Though I think I enjoy fucking you more willingly than I enjoy forcing you.”
“Fuck you!” I spew, my snot running from my nose, and vomit on my chin. “Fuck you to fucking hell!”
Matteo is on me before I can stand, clutching my hair in hand as he shoves my face into the toilet bowl filled with my vomit.
I scream, and bubbles make wake around the bowl.
He’s speaking beyond the toilet, but I can hear nothing.
I can’t breathe.
And if this is the end, I’ll go willingly.
What I’d just endured was worse than rape. He took something far more important than just a few stolen strokes in my body. He took away my peace. My escape. He turned my dreams on me.
He pulls my head back just as I’ve given over to the burn in my lungs.
“You spiteful little bitch. You’re going to heel whether or not you like it. If it takes months, years, decades to get you to scream my fucking name like you just screamed his when you came, I will wait. You belong to me, and the sooner you get used to the idea, the more fun we can have.”
“Why? So you can murder me when you decide that you’re bored?”
“Because I paid a small fucking fortune for you, that’s why.”
“Well, I don’t belong to you. I didn’t belong to Giani Adamo. I belong to no one but myself.”
He lets me go, and I scramble to the side of the tub. The scent of vomit permeates the air and has my stomach coils all over again, but I tuck into myself as he crouches before me.
He pries my legs open, shoving his fingers inside me and crooking them to gather up some of the cum he left behind.
He pulls them out, holding them in front of my face so close I can smell the heady scent of his release on his glistening fingers. “Do you see this? This means you belong to me now. Forget your past. No one’s coming to save you.”
Tears burn to be released, but I hold them at bay.
“Suck!” he commands, and for once, and I don’t know why, I don’t fight him.
I lean forward and gag on the taste of his cum before sitting back, the chilly edge of the tub reminding me this isn’t a dream.
When I hear him click the bedroom door closed, I lose it.
Sobs wrack my body, and I tuck into myself tightly; I know there’ll be bruises in the morning.
“Fucking hell, Sloane,” Hannah says.
He always sends her after he’s made a mess. At first, I thought it was because he felt terrible for what he’d done. Now, I think it’s because he doesn’t want blood or vomit setting into the tile.
“Let’s get you up. Come on, let’s get you washed.”
I allow Hannah to heft me into the shower and listen to her cleaning the vomit-laden mess outside the tub. She doesn’t say a thing to me. Thank God.
It’s the smallest mercy I’m granted tonight.
I robotically let her dress me after I’m washed, and when I crawl into bed, letting her cover me and tuck me in, I look into her eyes and watch something flare in hers.
Contentment.
She sighs, softly rubbing my face. “I’m so sorry that he’s broken you, Ms. Sloane, but it will be easier for you from here on out.”
Her words settle as she leaves the room, but no emotion follows them.
Numbness seems to trickle through me like running water as I stare at the ceiling over my bed, humanity seeming to slip away by the second.
Giving up is easier.
Giving up gives me peace.
I shut my eyes and drift off. But not to dreamland. I’ll never go there again.