Chapter 9
Sienna Luciano
Agony lances through my temples with every shift of the world.
Wait, the world doesn’t shift. My hips hurt from the bar stretched across my midsection, only the bar is warm. And uneven. And moving.
I groan as my senses rush to full alertness.
Romeo carries me over his shoulder like a caveman. My handcuffed wrists bop against his ass with every step he takes. His addicting scent fills my nostrils. Numbness tingles up my legs and arms. Even the rush of adrenaline doesn’t rid my head of the painful pounding. If anything, it makes it worse.
The world upends. Pain streaks up my backside as I land on a hard chair. Romeo squats and closes a metal cuff around my right ankle. He rises.
I lean over and dry heave. It hurts. My stomach is empty. There’s nothing to purge, but my abdominals insist I try harder.
Powerful hands gather my hair and pull me upright. Despite my brain and instincts demanding I escape, I sag against the back of the wooden chair and close my eyes against the bright lights.
“You won’t trick me into pitying you, Sienna,” Romeo warns.
All I can manage is a lame nod. I need water, food, and a week of sleep but know those aren’t available to me.
In some twist of fate, I leapt from the pot—my stepmother’s oppression—into the flames—Romeo’s control—and have no way off the stove.
Part of me even wonders why I should fight anymore. I saw Valentina and Zio Mario.
Their indifference hurt worse than I could’ve ever imagined. A knife to the back would be less painful. At least that would be an answer. At least I’d know where I stand in their lives.
As of right now, I’m not sure I mean anything to them. Did they invite me to their wedding so they could prove they don’t give a shit about me? That they’ve overcome the shit my father put them through but don’t need or want me back in their lives?
A sob builds in my chest, but I don’t have the energy to expel it.
My thoughts fragment as the bathroom scene replays in my head.
Romeo attacked me. He hurt and humiliated me. My shoulder aches all the way to the bones and pain pulses from the top of my head down to my fingertips from his bites. My arousal cools on my thighs. Grimacing takes too much effort, so I force my attention away from my body’s betrayal.
He stole my first kiss. What should have been a sweet, mutual experience was instead a hot, hard, overwhelming act of violence and control. Even as sadness and disgust worm through my chest, my core throbs and nipples pebble.
Romeo presses a glass against my palms and wraps my fingers around it. Every cell in my body feels brittle. I want to gulp down the crystal-clear liquid as fast as possible, but my stomach tightens.
He engulfs my hands with his and lifts the glass to my lips. My shaking worsens. Dread coils through me. I force my lips to the rim. Romeo tips the glass. My mouth fills. Even though I know it’s most likely just tap water, my body refuses to listen to reason. Panic grips me.
I can’t force myself to swallow. I can’t spit it out.
I choke.
Water spews everywhere. Romeo curses, pulls the glass out of my grip, yanks my head back, and pours the entire glass onto my face. Liquid fills my mouth and stings the inside of my nostrils.
I retch. He snarls more expletives and stomps away. I brace my forearms on my thighs and suffer another round of dry heaving. My head spins and pulse pounds. I wipe my mouth on the fabric of my skirt and flop backward so I don’t fall out of the chair.
Despite his massive frame, Romeo stalks back on nearly silent feet.
Too exhausted to lift my head, I peer up at him through my lashes.
“I’m sorry. I want to drink, but I can’t,” I croak past my sore throat.
“I know, bambolina. Drink this,” he demands.
With impatient hands, he presses a plastic bottle into my hands. I use my sense of touch to check the seal, but I’m too weak to twist it open.
Powerful hands close around mine and apply the power. I wince at the pain but mutter a quiet thanks before pulling off the cap.
After a few messy sips, life flows back into my body, so I regulate my breathing and finish the entire bottle in measured gulps.
The pounding in my head lessens but doesn’t fully go away.
I flinch as Romeo tosses something at me. A granola bar lands in my lap. I tear it open despite my stiff fingers and eat it with methodical bites. My captor replaces the empty juice bottle with a water bottle. I muster the strength to open it without his help.
My wrists throb from the cuffs. They aren’t tight but harsh; unforgiving metal and delicate, sensitive skin are a bad mix. My ankle stings a bit from inadvertently tugging it while throwing up, but the discomfort is nothing compared to the agony in my shoulder.
I drink half the water bottle before deciding any more might cause me to lose it all, so I twist the cap back on and wedge it between my thighs on the seat.
No longer on the verge of death, I take in my surroundings. Confusion tightens my brow.
Romeo clearly kidnapped me. By all expectations, he should have dragged me to a dark and damp, windowless basement or a big rusty metal building in an industrial park or, at the very least, some shady roach motel, but we’re back in my posh hotel room.
My clothes still sit folded and stacked on the dresser.
The chair I’m sitting in wasn’t here before and the rug full of abstract black-and-white shapes is gone.
Romeo lifts the heavy desk chair with one hand and sets it in front of me. When he sits, his knees almost brush mine. He leans forward and braces his elbow on his thighs, invading my space and bringing his face down, level with mine.
He dangles a bag of chips from his fingertips, but I’d have to reach between his legs to take it, so I don’t dare. I uncap my water and take another sip. He watches with eyes that see everything. My stomach lurches.
“Why can’t you eat prepared food or drink opened beverages, Sienna?”
His calm, understanding voice almost lulls me into taking the path of truth, but the horror is too much. My shaking worsens so a lot of water sloshes onto my hand.
Wasting such a precious resource snaps something inside me.
“I don’t owe you an explanation. Not after what you just did to me,” I snarl.
He hums, rises, and tosses the bag of chips onto my lap before throwing a warning over his shoulder as he leaves the room.
“Drink every drop and eat every crumb, Sienna. You’ll need every last bit to survive what I plan to do to you.”
The door to the hall shuts behind him. I strain my ears for signs of other occupants in the hotel room, but hear nothing except the hum of the air conditioning. Regret sneaks into my chest.
He left just like everyone else. I should have asked him so many questions before giving him attitude. Yes, he hurt, scared, and humiliated me, but he also saved, helped, and protected me.
As of right now, he’s the only one on the planet who even cares that I exist.
It doesn’t excuse his behavior, but I’ll never be able to forgive myself if I don’t figure out why he did everything he did.
I open the bag of chips and nibble my way to the bottom. After pouring the crumbs into my mouth, I fold the plastic and tuck the end into itself so it’s a tiny square and place it on the floor beside back leg of my chair.
The chair doesn’t budge. I wriggle. When it still doesn’t move, I grip the front edge of the seat and brace my feet on the floor, nearly rolling my ankle in the high heels from the odd angle, but I fix my stance and try picking it up.
The legs must be bolted into the floor. The chair doesn’t even creak when I yank. I finish the water before standing and pivoting around as much as my cuffed ankle allows. After pushing and pulling on the back of the chair, I confirm I will not be escaping by scooting across the floor.
In a moment of madness, I grab the desk chair and plop into it instead of the hard, wooden monstrosity. I grimace at the mess between my legs but lean back to await my miserable fate.
Between one breath and the next, exhaustion pulls me into a doze. Even with Romeo’s threat ringing in my ears, I can’t conjure up the energy to try escaping.
Where would I go anyway? He’d no doubt cancel his card. I only have forty dollars and my ID. No one wants me. Valentina and Zio Mario have moved on without me. My father doesn’t give a shit about me, and my stepmother wants to sell me to the lowest bidder.
The door opens. I jerk awake. I rub my face with my bound hands and wince as the cuffs knock against my chin.
Romeo lifts the desk chair like it weighs nothing—with me still in it—and sets it so the side with my bound ankle rests against the front of the wooden chair. He leans down and braces his palms on the armrests.
“Are you ready, bambolina?”
“No,” I grumble.
He lifts a mocking brow.
“Aw, I was hoping you’d say yes,” he teases.
“Of course you were,” I huff.
He pauses to study my face and shoulder.
“Well, what would it take?” he asks.
“What would it take for what?”
“To get you ready.”
I scoff in disbelief at his playful, flirty tone.
“Fine. Tell me why,” I demand.
Fully aware I’m playing with the devil, I curl my hands into fists and press them against my thighs, preparing for the inevitable switch. I doubt he’ll stay pleasant for long.
“Why what?” he asks.
I struggle to find the words.
“Any of it? Why approach me? Why help me? Why kidnap me?”
He skims a roughened finger along my jawline.
“Revenge.”
His low, rumbly voice tumbles down my spine and furrows into my core. I scoff and turn my head before he shifts his caress to my lips.
“If you wanted revenge against my father, you chose the wrong target. He’s given up on trying to marry me off.”
He pauses, pinches my chin, and forces my face to his.
“Marry you? No, Sienna. I don’t want to marry you. I want to humiliate you. Break you. Make you my little toy.”
The intensity of his gaze adds an unexplainable sensuality to his horrifying words, and I fight against the urge to rub my thighs together. I force my response despite the hunger in my bones.
“Why? What did he do this time? I know my father is a piece of shit, but—”
“It’s not your father I’m after. It’s your uncle. He stole my bride at the altar, so I’ll make his niece my little plaything.”
I blink as my mind flings from one thought to the next so fast I wonder if I can create whiplash without external forces. My mouth runs away from me.
“Valentina was going to marry you? Let me guess, it was an arrangement between you and her shitty, power-hungry father.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Insulting my captor is the stupidest play in the book. Icy fury shines from Romeo’s eyes.
I found it. The switch. He’s no longer the man I knew on the plane or in the boutique. Now he’s the monster who attacked me in the bathroom.
“The arrangement failed. Her father is dead,” he growls.
Even though I held no fondness for Valentina’s father, sadness rips through me. She lost her last family member without me by her side.
I swallow the bitterness coating my tongue and stare into Romeo’s eyes. The whirlwind of emotions clamps my jaw shut, preventing me from speaking, but I wouldn’t know what to say even if I could.
My mystery mafia man is no longer my protector. He’s my worst nightmare.
The one time I didn’t dodge fast enough, Romeo caught me, except it isn’t my father’s shady deal that will ruin me.
It’s my uncle’s.
Misery threatens to swallow me whole.