Chapter 4
Emma
I had just enough slack in the chains to walk from my bed toward the window without reaching them. My bathroom remained out of reach. So did the door. Of course, he wouldn’t let me have access to any means of escape.
When I ran away, at seven, he found me and kept me chained for two weeks. He had the maids bring me food and water. And every four hours, he’d have the guards unlock me so I could go to the bathroom. I was given an hour each night to bathe.
All while chained.
As soon as I was alone, loathing my father and my situation, I stared at the thick metal shackles on my wrist and ankle. If telepathic forces were real, I would’ve burned through the thick bands, melting the hard steel by the sheer heat of my fury. Since that couldn’t work, I had to keep it trapped in. Bottling it in and letting it fester until I could stomach the gnawing, churning anxiety that pulled on my soul.
How long will he keep me captive this time?
What is he going to do?
Will he try to unleash his rage on me again?
I gently rubbed the soreness on my scalp. No blood showed. I checked once the door was slammed shut on me. Red, swollen flesh remained raised, angry and disturbed, but he hadn’t actually yanked out my hair. Rubbing my upper thigh didn’t ease the pain there, from his kick, and I didn’t dwell on how painfully my cheek throbbed from where he hit me.
This wasn’t my first time. Over the years, especially before I ran away only to be caught, he beat me. Never a full-on thrashing. Just a hit or slap. A kick or two. Here and there, he’d use his power and strength on me to smack me into submission.
To stop complaining about not having a mother.
To shut up me from asking why I couldn’t have friends.
To prevent me from admitting that I didn’t like him.
After he chained me for two weeks, I got the lesson that no child should have—the one that drilled in how loveless my life had to be. It was the crux of my suffering that honed me into the quiet, placid child who wouldn’t speak up or protest. His actions had culminated into reforming me to keep all that crap inside. To fume silently. To loathe him in my mind.
Once the death sentence of my arranged marriage was announced, when I was thirteen, I sank even further into myself. Projecting an icy personality, devoid of smiles and happiness, was the easiest way for me to live. Like that, I was confident he could assume he had control over me.
Over time, I got more freedom. I proved that I was a docile shell of a person, and I was allowed the liberty to travel as I pleased, usually with Krista and guards behind us. Krista got it. She knew how shitty life was. I’d earned her friendship when I helped her get out of a punishment of a beating. Her father, a capo, told the cook to whip her for “overeating” and getting fat. She wasn’t. He was delusional, just like my father. From that day on, though, when I bribed the cook to pretend he was whipping something, I had an ally in Krista.
Hours passed and in the isolation, I worried about what had happened to her. She was so sick after being drugged at the Marchese party that I wondered when she’d notice that I was gone. But I didn’t concentrate on her as much as I did Luke.
He knew I was missing. He witnessed my father’s men whisk me away.
I had to know where he was. What he was doing. And if he was in danger. My only solace was in spinning my ring around my finger. This slim band of metal that housed a small but breathtaking gem was my reminder. It was a token of how deeply he’d fallen for me, and how severely I’d caught feelings for him to, to defy what I knew was expected of me. I’d broken so many unspoken rules by telling Luke that I’d marry him.
And now look at me. Look at us. We were separated, and I had no idea of how long my father would try to keep me here.
Luke couldn’t rescue me. Not here. He was the strongest man I knew, the hardiest fighter, but even he couldn’t take on a crew of Giordino men. Guards and soldiers lurked within the mansion, and plenty served as highly trained watchmen on patrol.
It all seemed so hopeless. I felt fucked, locked up with no phone to contact anyone. No weapons for defense. My phone and purse were back at the condo.
I hate you. I stared at the metal and wood crest hung up above my door. The Giordino crest of arms was many generations old, and I loathed every single ancestor who’d paid liege to it. All of them. They’d all collaborated to ensure the Giordino name meant power, but it was a force that trapped me, one of their own.
I hate —
The door opened, and as I lowered my gaze to the person who entered, my hatred morphed and molded into a braided twist of outright malice.
“I see your father wasn’t bluffing about having you back where you belong.”
Antonio entered, like he had all the rights in the world to invade my privacy. He didn’t. Not at all.
“Fuck you.” I was in no mood to play nice. He was a vile man, and I’d treat him as such.
“Oh, such anger,” he taunted. With a flick of his hand, he gestured for the guards to let him enter without backup.
The door closed, and I grew more and more defensive. I was chained to the bed but standing beside it. His stare, though, was another threat, another unbreakable tether I couldn’t escape.
“But you won’t belong here for long,” he added. Walking from side to side in the room. He kept his hands behind his back as he apprised me, like I was livestock to purchase, an item to buy and discard.
“I won’t be with you,” I declared.
I’d never protested to his face. Not like this. It was a joke to think that I could tell him how it was. I had no power. I never had.
“Yes, you will,” he stated, smiling more and more as he studied me. “You will belong with me. You will be where you belong at the Marchese estate. For me to do with as I please.”
Stopping in the middle of the room, he stared at me intensely. It seemed like he’d locked onto the sight of my bruising cheek, where my father had backhanded me.
“It looks like I’ll need to revise your education.” He grinned. “I’ll take great pleasure in beating sense into you. Of fucking your independence out of you.”
“You won’t.” I crossed my arms, needing to feel more defensive. I stood my ground. I wouldn’t cower or back down. My posture seemed weird, though, because folding my arms over my chest wasn’t so easy or natural to do with the weight of the chain weighing my left arm down.
It required a lot of strength, gumption, and bravery to talk back to him like this, but this chain was my protection too. If he approached, if he tried to touch me, I wouldn’t hesitate to wrap it around his neck and squeeze his life out.
I wasn’t violent. I’d been born into a life of violence and mayhem. I was near killers and the tortured. But I hadn’t ever embraced a darkness like that—until now.
After having a taste of bliss and happiness with Luke, though, I was fully prepared to fight for it.
“I will never choose you.”
“You weren’t asked,” he retorted.
“I will never go along with your plans.”
He pursed his lips, then smirked. “Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know,” I replied. The ruby cut into my palm, and I drew on the reminder of Luke’s ring to stay strong.
“You’d rather settle for flirting with some pathetic hotel worker?” He huffed a bitter laugh.
Flirting? I wasn’t sure what he’d heard, but I’d done a lot more than flirt with Luke. I’d made love with him. I’d fallen for him. And I’d accepted his proposal.
“I’ll choose him over you every time.”
He tilted his head to the side, starting up his most annoying quirk.
“Even if it’s the last thing I’d ever do.”
Luke or death. It seemed so Romeo and Juliet of me, but I wasn’t bluffing. Just seeing this despicable man made me realize how dire this was.
“We’ll see about that.” He cocked his head in the other direction as he checked his watch. “But first, you’ll have to forgive me for making this visit so short. I’ve got a fight to watch.”
I didn’t react, but at the mention of a fight, I thought of Luke. He wouldn’t be there, would he? I imagined he had to be going as crazy as I was, separated against our will so soon after we vowed to be together in marriage one day.
“Some new kid on the block,” he said. “A rookie fighter who thinks he can rise up in the ranks.”
My heart beat faster. I held my breath as adrenaline hit me hard.
Luke. He had to be talking about him. He never would speak about fighters or business with me in any other circumstances. His teasing, smug tone suggested he was discussing this specific fight to get a rise out of me.
“We’ll see how he stands up against my man.” Chuckling, he shoved his hands in his pockets, at ease as I felt all the blood drain from my face. “We’ll have to see if he stands at all.”
Turning toward the door, he snickered some more before tossing out the cruelest statement of all. “We’ll have to see if you’ll still choose him—a dead man—over me, Emmali na .”
I cringed at his stupid emphasis on my name. At the slam of the door shutting after him, I flinched and dropped to the ground, struggling anew to get this cuff off my ankle.
Hearing a thinly veiled death threat against the man I loved was all I needed to resist this captivity again.
Please, Luke. Please stay safe until I can come back to you.