Chapter 27
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Iadjust the lens of my camera, bringing it into sharper focus and making sure I capture the contrast of the black-and-yellow bee against the bright-purple petals.
Purple is a color favored by bees, which is why I plant of lot of purple blooms. I love to watch them hop from flower to flower in the garden, their tiny bellies full of nectar.
If Enzo were here, he would admonish me for getting too close to them, then probably carry me inside and punish me for my recklessness.
The thought makes heat coil deep in my belly.
Enzo’s punishments are never actually that, and they are always a whole lot of fun.
Sometimes I think he makes up rules for me to break just so he has an excuse to spank me.
Not that I ever object to a spanking. His bee objection isn’t unwarranted though.
I’m deathly allergic, but I’ve only been stung once in my whole life, when I was thirteen, by a hornet. And I have my epi-pen in my pocket.
He also doesn’t get that bees are gentle little creatures, only stinging when they feel under threat.
I much prefer bees to people most of the time.
Except for Enzo, of course, who is by far my favorite person in the entire universe.
I could spend every waking moment with him and still not get enough.
He went to L.A. this morning, and I already miss him.
My cell vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out, hoping it’s him. I see a message from one of his brothers on my screen instead.
Hey Wildcard. Enzo needs you to do him a solid. Ethan Fiorelli is on his way over. He has some vital info on this job we’re on. Let him in and get it from him, yeah?
I type back my reply.
Is Enzo okay? What information?
I dunno yet. That’s why I’m asking you to get it. Enzo is tied up right now. But he’s good. Said he loves you and all that shit (vomit emoji)
I feel a little uneasy about letting Ethan into the house. I’ve only met him a handful of times, and he gives me the creeps. Even his brother Tommy doesn’t like him all that much.
Isn’t Tommy around? Can’t he get this information from Ethan?
Tommy is on a different job. It won’t take long. Just have him tell you what he knows. Enzo says there’s five hundred dollars in the dresser. Give him that.
I swallow down my unease. If Ethan has information that Enzo needs, then the least I can do is get it for him.
Enzo would never put me in danger, and nor would any of his brothers.
Besides, Papa Medici is somewhere around this vast house.
While he and I have never exactly seen eye to eye, it makes me feel safer having him here.
The doorbell rings and I go to answer it.
The Medicis have a housekeeper, Phillipa, but it’s her day off today.
Sure enough, Ethan is standing outside. Looks wise, he and Tommy are so alike they could almost pass for twins.
But that’s where the similarities end. Ethan has the morals of a snake.
He left home at seventeen, taking every cent their mother left them when she died and leaving a fourteen-year-old Tommy to fend for himself.
I know Tommy tolerates him because he’s his brother, but they don’t have a close bond.
Ethan shuffles from one foot to the other, eyes darting left and right. “Can I come in then?” he snaps.
I don’t care how big and mean he looks, he’s not going to push me around. “Do you have some information for Enzo?”
“Yes, but I’m not about to give it to you here on the street,” he snarls.
I wouldn’t exactly call the driveway of a gated mansion on the street, but Rafael did tell me to let him in. I open the door and invite him inside. “I was told I’d be paid for this,” he says, his voice still carrying that dangerous edge. “I want to see the money first.”
Of course he does. “If you wait here, I’ll go get it for you.”
He nods, eyes still wandering, like he’s worried someone is going to leap out of the shadows and jump scare him.
I head to the east wing of the house, where Enzo and I share an annex, and straight to our bedroom, where he keeps some spare cash.
I count out five hundred dollars from the top dresser drawer, but when I spin around I almost shriek with fright.
Ethan is standing in the doorway, filling it with his threatening bulk.
“What are you doing here? I asked you to wait in the entryway.”
He steps fully into the room and closes the door behind him with a soft click.
Such a small sound. So final.
My heart’s no longer beating a steady rhythm in my chest. It stutters instead, sharp and uneven, as my gaze flicks to the door behind him and calculates the distance I’ll never make.
My mouth goes dry. Every instinct screams at me to move, to put space between us, but fear roots my feet to the floor.
He stalks across the bedroom, his long strides quickly eating up the space between us, and with every step he takes, the room seems to get smaller around me.
Instinctively, I shrink back even if I cannot move. “What the hell are you doing, Ethan?”
He’s silent, but his eyes are raking over me greedily, as though he likes what he sees and he’s about to take it.
“I’ll scream,” I warn him. “Giovanni is here.”
He tips his head to the side. “Nobody will hear you back here.” He’s right. Our annex is self contained and private, which we’ve always liked.
Adrenaline is thundering through my body now, and it propels me forward. I charge at him, barreling into him, but he barely budges an inch. Grabbing me by my wrists, he shakes me until the money falls to the floor. “Ethan! W-what are you doing?”
He doesn’t answer, herding me toward the bed.
The one Enzo and I made love in a few hours ago.
I scream, and he puts his hand over my mouth to stop me, squeezing my cheeks so hard that they hurt.
I try to knee him in the balls, but he expertly dodges me, like he’s had that move used on him before. Sick bastard!
He pushes me onto the bed, and I kick out at him, screech at him to get out of here, but he manages to hold my ankles still, pressing down on them with his forearm while he yanks my panties down my legs.
Enzo! Where are you? Please come home and stop this.
Ethan opens my mouth and I struggle, bite down on his fingers when I realize what he’s about to do. Holding me still, he forces my balled-up panties into my mouth, pushing them so deep that I gag. I still scream, the sound so muffled nobody will hear.
I lash out again, kicking and scratching.
“Fucking bitch!” he snarls. “Such a shame I’m not supposed to leave any marks on you.”
Then he pins my wrists again, leans close to my face until his sour breath is all over me, making me retch. “And just so you know, the more you fight, the rougher I’ll fuck you. It makes me hard when you fight back.”
I stare at him, my body trembling from head to toe, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes.
Ethan is twice my size, stronger and faster.
I remember a piece of advice Mama Medici once gave me after a girl at our high school was raped.
“If a man wants to force himself on a woman, la mia ragazza, he will do so. It is okay to lock a part of yourself away until he is done. Then we take our vengeance afterward.”
So I do that. I freeze. Trying to shut off my mind while he uses my body. I still call for Enzo inside my head, praying he will come home soon, or that Giovanni will come searching for me. Neither of those things happen.
I concentrate on the clock on the wall, the hands ticking around torturously slowly, while Ethan rapes me, spewing disgusting filth in my ear and putting his dirty hands all over me.
He takes pictures too. Taps away at his phone, and I pray he’s going to leave.
But he’s not done. He flips me over and I lie helpless like a rag-doll.
When he’s about to finish, he pulls out of me and jerks off all over the sheets.
I watch him, numb, as he collects the twenty-dollar bills from the floor and then leaves.
I haul myself up from the bed, fix my dress with trembling fingers.
My throat is hoarse from screaming behind my makeshift gag.
I pull it out of my mouth, covered in spit and bile.
The persistent ache between my thighs and in my abdomen burns with every movement I make.
I need to find my cell. I need to call Enzo.
I need Enzo here, telling me everything will be okay.
“Rayne!” a familiar voice calls out. But it’s not Enzo, not his brothers or his father either. Before today I would have felt nothing but the relief at the sound of Tommy’s voice, but after what Ethan just did, I’m not so sure.
I’m still trembling when he rushes into the room. Still broken into a million fragments that I’m not sure will ever be put back together again. Tears are burning behind my eyes, but they won’t fall. I feel my body shutting down cell by cell.
“Rayne? I got a message. Ethan…” He swallows. “What the hell did he do to you?”
His eyes dart to the bed and the disgusting stains his brother left behind on the sheets. He takes a few steps toward me. My knees buckle, but Tommy catches me, wrapping me up in his arms.
“I will fucking kill him, Rayne. Fucking kill him.” He strokes my hair, whispers soothing words, and all I can do is cling to him. Speechless. Motionless. Entirely numb. I have no idea how long I stay like that, slowly dying inside.
“You piece of shit!” Enzo’s feral roar pierces the room, jolting me back to life like an electric shock.
Tommy is wrenched from my arms.
“Enzo, no!” I scream.
“Enzo, this isn’t—” Tommy’s words are cut off by Enzo’s fist and the most sickening sound of crunching bone. It all happens in slow motion, but also so fast that it’s a blur. Tommy’s strangled protests. My screams.
Tommy is on the floor, Enzo on top of him, raining down blow after blow. He’s in a rage like I’ve never seen before. I have to stop this. Tommy did nothing wrong. I dive for Enzo, clutching at his arm, but he throws me off with ease, like I’m made up of nothing. Perhaps I am.
“Will you please just listen to me,” I cry, begging him to give me a second.
Or even make eye contact. Then he does, and my heart shatters into pieces at his feet.
The disgust and revulsion on his face is more painful than what Ethan just did.
“I can see what you did, you fucking slut.” He glances to the crumpled bedsheets. “We can all fucking see.”
That’s when I notice his father, Micah, and Rafael are also in the room, also looking at me with hatred and disgust—witnessing my shame with harsh judgment. The tears that wouldn’t fall a moment ago now won’t stop. They rush out like a river bursting its dam.
“Enzo!” I try one last plea, my voice cracking open like my heart. But he’s already gone back to beating Tommy’s unconscious body. He doesn’t care what I have to say, too blinded by his anger to see me. I’m that invisible little girl again, who nobody ever noticed.
But then other arms are around me. Papa Medici. Not in comfort, but in threat. “Quiet, you little whore. Let him do what needs to be done, or I will slit your throat right here.”
I shiver, knowing he’s not a man of idle threats. I stay quiet and everything else seems to happen in a blur. Angelo arrives what could be seconds or hours later and finally pulls Enzo free from Tommy’s battered and broken body.
Somebody checks that he’s still alive.
They carry him from the room.
Papa Medici lets me go.
And then Enzo, the man I adore, approaches me. I wait for his apology. His comfort. “I’ll deal with you when I get back.”
“Enzo, it wasn’t—” I try one more time.
My words are cut off by his hand around my throat. “You are a lying, cheating whore, and I won’t believe a word that comes out of your mouth ever again.”