Chapter Twelve
ART
Ileft Luca’s condo with tears in my eyes and the sorest ass ever.
While walking away, I felt like somewhere a TV audience was yelling my name through the screen to make me stop and turn around.
I didn’t. Even though it felt all kinds of wrong to go, so much so that I even thought about hurting my ankle. I didn’t do that either.
Nevertheless, Luca and I are over. Did we ever start, though? I don’t even have the right to feel a fraction of despair when thinking of a life without him. Still, I do, so fucking much. He’s going to hate me—not that I think he ever stopped.
My interlocked fingers tighten over my lap as I wait sitting outside my father’s office. I hate to come to this slaughterhouse. It smells like dead meat and even more dead dreams.
I left Nacho at a pet hotel. My father hates animals. I’ll pick him up as soon as I’m done here. Did Luca already find out I left? Did he get my note? Is he angry at me? Of course he is. He always is, especially when he hate-fucks me. I’d be under him right now, filled with him, if I had stayed.
There’s no one here to notice how my breath catches as I shift on the chair, or how my knuckles linger over my thigh where he left his finger marks under my jeans.
I’m reliving the pleasure, the ache. The utter bliss and deep misery.
I can still see his clenched jaw, piercing green eyes, his muscular, hairy torso, and those strong hands.
My blood warms as I recall how he smashed his mouth to mine and forced his tongue inside just a few hours ago.
The dominance he poured down on me, insulting me, humiliating me, using my body for his own pleasure.
Each mark he left on my skin is proof of that.
The bonus of him hating me. Whether he was fucking me to death or glaring at me, I’ve never felt more alive than when I was with him.
Without him, it’s as if a massive hole has been punched straight through my heart.
My palm starts stroking my chest, trying to alleviate the hollowness there.
My thumb brushes over the pendant under the fabric.
On my way here, I stopped in a jewelry shop, and they fixed Luca’s necklace right away.
I couldn’t resist putting it on. I will give it back to him, but not yet. Not yet.
Wishing for impossible things is an exercise in futility; the cynical voice in my head makes me squeeze my eyes.
But it’s too late for that. I thought Luca Nero was a lesser evil, but it turned out he is the most diabolical man I’ve ever encountered.
He succeeded where no other man has before.
He tamed me and conquered me and I hate him for that more than ever.
Now, somehow, my heart took over my head, and it’s doing whatever the fuck it wants.
After all that, I still find myself alone in the world.
Because love was never meant for me, my shitty life will always get in the way.
I marched in here so confidently but every time I see my old man, I feel like the same small kid who was terrified of him and his backhand. The door to the office suddenly opens, and one of his minions—they never last long—signals me to get inside. I take a big breath and force my legs to work.
Jack Enzino is sitting behind a metal desk.
He has a casual grip near the top rim of his glass of rum—that’s all he drinks.
His round belly and red cheeks are testaments to that.
His hairline is receded on the sides, he has large bags under his eyes, and his teeth have turned yellow from all the cigarettes he smokes.
Time hasn’t been generous with him, or maybe his rotten soul is slowly coming out.
His gaze, though, never changes. Unsettling, unblinking, a stare that invades personal boundaries and looks through me rather than at me.
The lack of empathy gleams in those light blue pools.
Without moving his head, his threatening eyes track me as I walk into the room until I stop in front of the desk.
His man leaves us, closing the door. I peer back at the heartless bastard whom I call father.
I barely manage to stop my upper lip from lifting in a snarl.
A ball of hate and fear almost chokes me.
He studies the bruises still visible on my face with an emotionless expression. “Strong do what they will, weak do what they must.”
It’s always been like this with him. His words are bullets aimed at his favorite target—me. He never drops that gun, keeps shooting right at my head and my chest. My self-worth. My freedom.
Mario’s torturing cracked my spirit, but Jack Enzino is the one who gave me the final stab.
“You’re not strong enough to withstand this storm.” He wipes an invisible lint of dust from his three-thousand-dollar tailored suit as he rounds the desk to come near me. “You are weak. And your weakness has always been a nuisance.” He growls the last words. “Spineless, little piece of shit.”
The room falls into the worst self-loathing silence as he takes a sip from his glass.
It sickens me. All my life, I had this inner voice telling me to protect myself, however in the short time I stayed with Luca, it sort of became muted.
Ironic since he was my kidnapper and we hated each other’s guts.
Now the voice is back full force. Yelling bloody murder.
“So, you’ve been with the Leones. I was wondering whose dick you’ve been sucking.”
He doesn’t mean it literally. Jack Enzino is the biggest homophobe on the planet.
When he found me kissing a schoolmate in high school, he sent me to a conversion camp, and I never saw that guy again or any members of his family.
That’s what my father does, he wipes away any problem standing in his way.
“This was his doing, wasn’t it?” He smirks at the bruises near my eye and cheek. His breath stinks of rum.
“I’d appreciate some context.” I can’t seem to hold back the bold words, since the bruises were made by his man and Coretti’s.
A hard, backhanded slap hits me out of the blue. It strikes over the injuries, making the pain double.
“Don’t you dare use that cocky attitude with me, little prick. Tell me why you were with Leone. Did they kidnap you?” he demands.
Normally, a Mafia prince’s kidnapping could easily be cause for retaliation, even a war between families.
But my father doesn’t give a shit about me; he doesn’t see me as his son.
He ignores my existence unless I’m useful to him.
He is a self-centered, despicable, vile man known for his merciless attitude.
Having a son who gets kidnapped easily cannot happen.
A psycho, serial killer offspring is fine, but a wimp is unacceptable, bad for his reputation.
His scrutinizing slits are focused on me as he waits for my reply. I prepared the answer beforehand, not wanting to divulge more than necessary. I don’t want the Leones—or me—in more trouble.
“I was having my fun before the wedding. Sowing my wild oats and all that when someone invited me to this place. Some of Leone’s men were there and asked me questions, thinking I knew something about a dead body they found on their turf.”
He knows I’m lying about the invitation. The bruises on my face are telling him a whole other story, but he is pretending to go along to save his disgusting reputation.
“What body?”
“They think someone from Enzino or Coretti put it there to frame them. They even interrogated a couple of Coretti men in front of me.” I give him a fake shiver. “I told them nothing, but it was Mario.” I look down, using my pathetic and weak persona on him, when I’m boiling with hate inside.
“What?” he hisses.
“They found a pendant horn near the body with a cross engraved on it, and the body was covered in knife scars. You know his…hobby.” Calling it that makes bile crawl up my throat. But that’s how Jack Enzino refers to his son’s murdering entertainment.
He lets out a long curse before throwing the glass at the wall. I turn my face away as it shatters, sending pieces of glass and rum everywhere. Funny how he deluded himself into thinking he could control Mario. Nobody can control such a revolting psycho.
“Fucking imbecile! I told him to stop that shit this month. Thirty fucking days. I’m surrounded by morons!
” He turns his fury on me and grabs me by the hair, pulling my head back.
“You are not going to ruin my plans! You’ll marry that old fucker’s daughter.
It’s the only way to get rid of…” His enraged words land on my face with his spit.
“Yes, Father.” My compliance mask is on.
What I’d really like to say is that I’m fucking gay and that I’d never in a million years want to marry a woman. But I don’t. I need to placate him and leave here as soon as possible.
“The marriage is going to be next week,” I state, more to myself than him.
“The day after tomorrow,” he enunciates each word before letting me go.
I nod, even though I know that every move I’m making, every word I’m voicing is destroying me.
I still dive headfirst into the flames, because I know it’s the right thing to do to survive and to protect the people I care about.
I don’t want a war to start because of me; casualties are a typical occurrence in these kinds of situations.
No, I need to use what I have to crush my father and the whole family from the inside, or at least cripple it so that Don Sebastiano can give it the final blow.