Chapter 4
Luca
Of course the bastard had prison cells in his basement. I had dank spaces beneath my own home where I could detain my enemies before I tortured them. I wasn’t surprised that Dante’s fortress was no different.
Only, he had that awful room where he’d debased me in the most depraved way. Despite the clothes that’d been provided for me—gray sweats and a basic white t-shirt—I shivered as though I was still stripped naked.
I gritted my teeth and shoved the dark memories away. It could’ve been worse. Surely, having my skin slowly peeled off would be more agonizing. It would be more difficult to recover from that kind of torment. It would be harder to find a way to free myself and Nora.
The wound Dante had carved into my pride could be ignored. I swallowed against the acid tang on my tongue and buried the humiliation down deep.
I rubbed at the abrasions on my wrists, focusing on the physical pain to distract me from my cyclical thoughts.
In the darkness of my underground cell, I had no concept of time.
Somehow, I’d managed to drift into a semblance of shallow sleep for a while on the stiff cot in the corner of the cramped cell.
Otherwise, the silence tormented me. I’d never been isolated before, utterly alone with my thoughts.
And my shame.
For the thousandth time, I wondered where Nora was, what he was doing to her. My fragile wife.
Dante might hate me as his rival, but Nora had done nothing to deserve the horrors he’d put her through. She was completely innocent, drawn into this feud against her will.
A different flavor of shame burned my veins.
I’d kidnapped her and forced her to marry me. I’d made her a prize for Dante to steal, bait for him to use to lure me into a trap.
I tried to save her from him, I reasoned, but the twist at the pit of my stomach didn’t ease.
Yes, I’d tried to keep her from marrying the sadistic bastard in the first place, but that’d been for my own ends, not her benefit.
On the day of our sham wedding reception, she’d told me that she hated me for what I’d done to her.
I’d pulled her into this conflict. Dante would’ve had no reason to involve her in my torment if I’d never married her. If I hadn’t become attached to her, obsessed with possessing my pretty wife and making her happy.
Had any of that even been for her? No, it’d been for my own selfish ends. I hadn’t wanted to spend my life in a bitter marriage, so I’d resolved to make her happy.
The memory of how she’d clung to me and wept after Dante had used us both for his own sick amusement clawed through my mind.
My fault. Her suffering was all my fault.
I threaded my fingers through my hair, maddened by my dark thoughts. My self-loathing.
I pressed against the tender spot where Dante had hit me with his gun, and the flare of pain through my skull sent a wave of dizziness washing over me. The moment of lightheadedness wasn’t nearly reprieve enough.
The creak of a door opening and scuff of footsteps at the top of the stone stairs grated down my spine, sending my body on high alert after the interminable silence. Light flared, searing my eyes. I blinked rapidly to clear my vision, intent on assessing the approaching threat.
The footsteps quickened down the stairs.
“Luca.” She gasped my name, and a fresh wash of shame swept through me in a searing wave.
The last time she’d called out for me, Dante had held a gun to her head. I’d been armed, but again, I’d failed to save her.
Unworthiness crushed my chest as she rushed to the bars that kept me caged. Her lovely hazel eyes were wide and a touch wild, roving over my body and catching on my cheek and wrists. I knew she must be taking in the dried blood that caked my skin, and a grimace twisted my mouth.
So weak. Having her see me like this made my insides writhe with humiliation.
Dante wasn’t even present, and he managed to bring me lower than I could’ve imagined before storming his estate and stumbling into the trap he’d set for me.
Nora’s delicate features were pinched with concern. For me.
The shame of it was almost too much to bear.
Still, when she reached her hand through the bars, seeking mine, I grasped her tightly. The tender connection after the silent darkness was a soothing balm to my soul.
“Nora.” I rasped her name. “I’m so sorry.”
Her brow furrowed. “You’re hurt.”
She ignored my apology and focused on my wounds, the marks of my failure and weakness. My insides squirmed.
“I’m fine,” I gritted out. She wasn’t confined like I was. She might have a chance at escaping. “You’re the one I’m worried about. Leave me and get out of here if you can.”
Her spine straightened, and she met me squarely in the eye. “I won’t leave you. And there’s no way out for me, anyway. There are guards at the doors and at the perimeter.” A shiver raced over her skin. “I’ve tried to run from him before. I won’t give him an excuse to toy with me like that again.”
“I’ll get you out,” I vowed. “I swear, I’ll find a way to get us both out of here. Dante is a dead man.”
She nodded in grim agreement. “I’ll kill him myself if I can. But he’s so much stronger than I am. I have to be sure I’ll succeed. Or he’ll…” She shuddered again. “He’ll do something terrible to punish me. Us.”
Her hand closed around mine like a vise, as though I was her lifeline. “Let me treat your wounds.”
I noted the first aid kit in her free hand for the first time. I’d been so focused on her face that I hadn’t noticed what she was carrying.
I tried to pull away, but her grip tightened.
“You can’t do that,” I reasoned. “He’ll know you helped me.”
“You have to be fit if we’re going to fight back,” she said firmly.
“He told me I could go anywhere I want inside the house. I knew you were hurt, and I decided to come and help you. I found this under the bathroom sink,” she hefted the first aid kit, “but then it took me hours to find you. This basement is within the mansion. I’m not defying his orders. ”
I fixed her with a forbidding frown. “You know he didn’t mean for you to come down here.
And if he did, it’s another one of his sick games, an excuse for him to hurt you.
You saw how he lost control when I talked about taking you away from him.
He’s a possessive, jealous bastard. He won’t want you to help me. He won’t want you to touch me.”
Despite the truth of my declaration, I didn’t let go of her hand. I couldn’t.
Maybe she was the one who was my lifeline. I’d never felt more alone, more powerless. My whole life, I’d commanded the people around me. Dante was treating me like I was less than nothing.
You’re not a man. Not anymore. You’re mine. I recalled the stomach-churning words he’d uttered when he’d captured me.
He’d ripped my pride away and thoroughly emasculated me when he’d coerced Nora into forcing me to feel pleasure against my will.
My cheeks burned, and Nora’s expression tightened as though she was remembering the awful scene too.
I drew in a deep breath. I had to hold myself together for her sake. Now wasn’t the time to allow my self-loathing to claim me. Not when she needed me to be strong and promise her that I would find a way to save her.
“Let me see your wrists,” she commanded gently, releasing my hand so that she could open the first aid kit. I followed her retreating touch, my fingers sliding along hers as she pulled away.
To cover my moment of weakness, I thrust both of my hands through the gaps in the bars, my fists clenched.
“I can do it myself,” I said, my voice a touch sharp from my frustration at my own helplessness.
She shot me a level look and then returned to the kit. “Will you know what you’re doing?” she challenged breezily. “Because I do.”
I gritted my teeth. No, I didn’t know how to properly treat my own wounds. When I’d been hurt in the past, I’d always had a private physician on hand to see to my injuries.
Nora gently touched a damp cloth to the ring of raw skin around my right wrist, and I hissed at the sting.
I ignored the pain as she efficiently cleaned the wounds, resolving to be stoic around her.
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t been hurt before.
Just last year, Gabriele had shoved me down in a firefight, saving my life.
I’d gotten out with a bloody gash in my side, but I’d survived, thanks to my friend.
My chest tightened. Gabriele’s life was in my hands now. If I defied Dante, he would be killed, or at the very least, tortured.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not when I owed him my life. Not when he and Lorenzo had stood by my side since we were kids.
The bars of the cage seemed to press closer, the confining space becoming even smaller.
“How do you know how to do this?” I asked Nora to distract myself from the suffocating sensation.
She peeked up at me, then dropped her focus back to my wrists. She shrugged as she wrapped them in gauze.
“I had to tend to Giana and myself over the years, especially after my mom died. Without her to remind him, Father forgot to make sure our injuries were treated after we received a beating.”
Rage licked at my insides in a fiery burst, a familiar burn that I felt whenever I thought of her father. Only this time, it seared my heart. All my loathing for Giuseppe had been magnified.
He was the reason I was Dante’s prisoner; I’d been captured when I’d run straight into his trap. Giuseppe was the one who’d ensured my suffering when he’d betrayed me and given Nora to the monster.
His own daughter. He’d condemned her to a lifetime with a sadist. Twice.
“I should’ve killed Giuseppe the moment I found out about his plans to marry you off to Dante,” I growled, muscles flexing with unspent violence.