Chapter 6 Rosalia
ROSALIA
PLAYLIST: LOSE CONTROL – AG, MINDY JONES
Over the years, I've seen many women come and go from my house. Many were either abused children or vicious murderers—oftentimes both, like Adria and Kat. The woman now walking up the stairs in that floral dress, carrying the entire fruit bowl, is neither, yet she has managed to impress me.
The woman I send to deliver Giuseppe must be capable of handling men like him, which means situations that involve guns, abusive men, power-hungry fools, and manipulative behaviours.
Normal people can’t handle that, and Kat was right about that girl.
She might be the perfect thing to get what we always aimed for.
Overall, things have turned out better than any of us could have anticipated.
Whatever happens, I hold the upper hand. Best case, she gets me Guiseppe, worst, he kills her. Middle ground, she is a liar and betrays me, and I kill her myself so I can finally check the open debt from my list.
“I am calling the cleaners,” I say to Kat, pointing at the dead man Adria has brought with her. “Talk to that girl and instruct her.”
“I think you'd better do that yourself,” says Kat.
“I do not wish to see her face,” I say.
“She’ll be gone fast. I have been away so long, Rose. While I keep a tap on them all, I am not that deep into family business anymore.”
I scoff.
“Also, the missing persons report on her has been sent to Interpol,” says Kat.
“They won’t know for long where she went,” I say, thinking. “It also might play in our cards. She could have escaped and now searches for shelter with him.”
“She shows traces of what we did,” says Kat. “Therefore, none of it is a lie. You go plan with her, I’ll clean up here. No need for cleaners.”
“You might also need to clean her up afterwards," I say as I pour myself another drink. Dealing with Antonio’s daughter is certainly not among my preferred activities.
Kat cocks an eyebrow.
“Do not come for me after all those years you searched for revenge with that Sutton. You would have been pissed if it was snatched right under your nose.”
“You forget that it did happen to me, too. But I found other creative ways. I could track down her mother now that we have her; I will find that John and his wife. You’ll get your vengeance.”
I growl and get upstairs to one of the rooms on the left, the first one closest to the stairs. I enter without knocking.
The girl is sitting in the middle of the bed, legs crossed, and has already eaten half the fruit bowl. The rest of the apples, banana peels, and peach kernels are next to her on a towel. She looks at me with eyes as slits.
“You believe it is a great idea to eat that much when you have an order to fulfil?” I ask as I walk in and sit down on the armchair.
“Oh, I am not doing anything until I have your reassurance that Luisa and anyone else I know stays unharmed if I do what you say. Including my own life.”
“You are quite daring for a girl with no leverage,” I say with a scoff.
“First, I am not a girl,” she says, peeling another banana. “I am a woman. And apparently, you have been waiting for me for a very long time. Whatever Giuseppe did or had on you, it must be very valuable, something you couldn’t get to until I came. In other words, you want something from me.”
I chuckle darkly. Kat was most certainly right about her.
“You seem awfully confident and unbothered for a woman we just abducted,” I say, watching her bite and chew a banana. The chewing noises enrage me, and anger boils in me.
“I am very bothered,” she says. “But I studied psychology and criminology.”
“And what does that tell me?”
“You tell me,” she says.
“Well,” I say, and get up and walk over to her. “I think you know nothing and just try to play games with me. But I am not someone you play games with, you should know that by now.”
“And I think you have a big mouth and a lot of ego,” she says.
I am so fast that she cannot react. I kneel with one leg on the bed and grasp her by the throat.
Her hand snaps to mine, but I push her down, backwards onto the bed.
She opens her legs because I took her balance, and I pull my other leg with me and land with my knee on her pubic—exactly where I intended it to be, because it’s painful.
She gasps out, and her red lips part slightly. She is a beautiful woman—one who has done abhorrent things.
I push my entire weight on her throat. I might look like I have no force, but I do. Especially because I know the right points to push.
Her face turns red and swells slightly. I know exactly where to press to suffocate someone with one hand alone. My lips purse dangerously.
Kat might need to clean upstairs after all.
“You were saying?” I ask her as she begins to struggle, slapping my arms and trying to scratch me as I choke her. I push extra weight on my knee. She mumbles a scream of pain that dies in her choked throat.
“Listen to me very closely,” I say with pursed lips in a dangerous whisper, and her eyes focus on me, staring me down in disgust. An equal feeling.
“You will do what I say, when I say, and how I say,” I say threateningly. “You better be careful what comes out of your filthy little mouth, because there are things I can do with you and to you that will destroy you in a way that you will beg me on your knees to kill you.”
With it, I let her go and push myself off her by sliding with my knee down over her clit to make it extra painful for her.
She lies on the bed, gasping for air. And I cannot say what it is in her eyes, but there is a flicker in them. Probably from the pain.
“Make yourself ready to escape,” I say before I leave.
“What do you mean by that?” she calls after me, pushing herself into a sitting position. Interestingly enough, her voice is quite unbothered, and I cannot help the growing suspicion that she might be a very good actress after all.
I stop, turn, and say, “You will escape here, you will run to Giuseppe, beg him for help, and then we’ll see what happens.”
“So fast?” she asks.
“Of course, so fast, you look exactly like what he needs to believe you. Oh, and if you try to game me, please be good. Because I will be coming after you, and I won’t stop until you take your very last breath.”
With that, I am gone. In me, the dire need to either murder or spank the life out of someone with a geared flogger until they bleed.
When I come back downstairs, Kat is gone, and so is the body. It would be my chance to vanish the girl without a trace, but I would never break Kat’s trust.
I open a bottle of Primitivo and sit on one of the leather sofas with my glass, reconciling what happened.
Suddenly, there is a loud banging noise upstairs, followed by several thuds, as if a shelf were thrown over.
I roll my eyes, get up, draw my gun, and walk upstairs, gun first. I open the door to her room, but she’s not there, so she wandered.
I check every room, one by one. The first floor is all guest rooms and a study that I almost never use.
I enter, and there is a shelf with books fallen off it and an open window with flying curtains.
“Nice try for a distraction,” I whisper to myself, only to realise I massively underestimated her.
A pole hits me in my legs from behind, and before I can turn, I fall. Pushed. The gun slips from my hand and falls to the ground. She steps on my hand with her shoes and crushes my fingers forcefully with them as she picks the gun up, pointing it at me.
“Too bad I’m not a killer,” she says, before she kicks me in the face. Infinite rage burns through me, but my senses are indistinct.
“Ti scanno,” I whisper as she searches my pocket and takes my phone. “I am going to find you, and when I do, I will slaughter you.”
“But I am merely doing what you told me to do. Really, you should be clearer in your orders,” she says carelessly, and with that, she is gone.
Never, in my entire life, did I meet someone who dared to touch me and get that far, except her, and I know it has all been an act.
An act to get to me. An act to betray me.
An act to find out where I am and what I know.
She is his spy. She is, after all, Antonio’s daughter.
Was. Because I am going to murder her now.