Dirty

by Ella Miles

  I feel my phone buzz in my pants pocket, but it can wait. I don’t give a shit who is calling me right now. I just want to get Nina somewhere safe. And she’s no longer safe with me.

  I keep walking until I get to the one door I never thought I would knock on for help. I knock loudly, making it clear that he’d better get his ass to the door as quickly as possible.

  Matteo does. He opens the door seconds later and looks just as confused to see me standing at his door as I am to be standing here. We might all live under the same roof, but the mansion is so big that we basically have our own homes within its walls. We each have half a dozen or more rooms that are our own and are blocked off from everything else, giving us a feeling of having our own house.

  I push past him without saying a word and carry Nina to his bed. I lay her down on the bed as gingerly as I can.

  “What the hell happened? I’ve never seen you beat a woman like this before,” Matteo says.

  “It wasn’t me.”

  Matteo’s eyes widen, but he doesn’t ask any more questions. He knows who caused the scars all over her body.

  “How did you get her out?” he asks.

  “I became a monster, just like him.” I don’t look at him when I say it. I don’t want his judgmental stare.

  I know what I did was wrong. I swore I would never become him, but maybe this is how it starts. It starts by pretending like you are saving someone, and then it’s a slippery slope from there. I liked hurting her when she couldn’t fight back.

  “She needs medical help,” I say.

  “I can handle it.”

  I nod. I know Matteo will heal her wounds. That’s why I brought her here. He’s the best with medical care.

  He goes over to a dresser where he pulls out a syringe and medicine, and then he injects it into her arm. “That should take away most of her pain. At least temporarily,” Matteo says.

  I nod.

  “You’re bleeding. Do you want me to stitch you up? You always suck at it, which is why you keep bleeding.”

  “No. Just take care of her,” I say, not bothering to look down at the scar that has opened up again and is bleeding profusely. It’s nothing compared to what she has gone through.

  My phone buzzes again, and I know it’s the arms dealer I’m supposed to be meeting with. I press Decline, but I can’t actually ignore it.

  “I need to go,” I say for more than one reason.

  “You shouldn’t go. She might not make it through the night. She’s lost a lot of blood.”

  Fuck, and I’ve made it that much worse.

  “I have to go.”

  Matteo frowns. “No, you fucking don’t, man. The deal can wait a couple of days.”

  I stare into Matteo’s eyes, and he knows it isn’t about the deal. I can’t face myself around Nina. Not when I’ve caused her as much pain as my father. Not when I couldn’t save her from my father before he ever laid a hand on her.

  “She’s strong. The strongest. She will survive this and more if she has to.”

  Matteo glares at me. “She shouldn’t fucking have to. That wasn’t the plan.”

  Matteo and I haven’t always gotten along, but I don’t want to fight now.

  “I trust that you will keep her safe.”

  “Of course,” Matteo says.

  Nina stirs, looking at Matteo. He takes her hand in his, comforting her.

  “You saved me,” she croaks out.

  Matteo grins. “Of course I saved you. I shouldn’t have ever let you get hurt in the first place. I’m sorry, beautiful.”

  Nina gives him a faint smile, and then she begins to fade again. She doesn’t look at me. She doesn’t even know that I’m in the same room as her.

  She’s going to hate me.

  Forever.

  I’ve done something unforgivable.

  She’s going to love Matteo.

  She thinks he saved her.

  I made the right choice in bringing her to Matteo. He might actually be strong enough to save her. He can put an end to this madness. He can put an end to it all.

  10

  Matteo

  She thinks I saved her.

  Usually, I would welcome her thinking that. I want her to think of me as her protector. I want her to think I care. I want her to let her guard down.

  That’s when I’ll really be able to control her. When she thinks she can trust me.

  But I don’t like benefiting from my brother’s mistake.

  I look down at the woman in my bed. She’s been sleeping for three days straight.

  I wasn’t sure she would even survive the first night. And, as much as my dumb-ass brother thinks he doesn’t care, he does. I don’t know what he was thinking, leaving her alone with me.

  If she hadn’t survived the night, he never would have forgiven himself.

  Now that she has, I’ll have to beat his ass later.

  I walk over to her and sit on the edge of the bed next to her. I take the bandage in my hand and change the one on her forehead, checking the wound that is the worst.

  The stitches are healing nicely. I check the others on her stomach and arm, along with all the bruises covering her body. Everything is slowly healing, but there is no way to know how bad the damage is inside her body.

  I tuck her hair behind her ear and stroke her cheek. I can’t stand not to touch her. Even in her bruised and beaten state, she’s still as gorgeous as she was the first time I saw her.

  She opens her eyes and smiles up at me like I’m her favorite person in the whole world.

  “How are you feeling?” I ask.

  “You saved me.”

  “That doesn’t matter right now. How do you feel? Do you need more pain medicine? You must be starving. Can I get you something to eat or drink?”

  “You saved me. Why?” she asks, trying to sit up in bed before she realizes how much of a mistake that is. Her arms aren’t strong enough to push herself up, and just the movement of her head makes her sick and dizzy.

  “Whoa. Just lie down, beautiful. You’ve been through a heck of a lot these past few days. You need to relax.”

  She doesn’t argue with me, so I take that as a sign that she agrees with me. When she lies back down, I stroke her cheek again.

  “Now, answer my questions first, and then I’ll answer whatever questions you want me to. How do you feel?”

  “Like I’ve just been hit by a train,” she says, closing her eyes, hating to show any weakness.

  I feel the anger rising in my chest at the thought of her feeling weak after surviving this. She is anything but weak.

  I get up and walk over to the medicine cabinet and pull out a bottle of pills. I walk back and take her hand where I pour four pills.

  “Take these, it will help with the pain.”

  She looks at the pills and then at me before she pops them all into her mouth at once. I hand her a glass of water from my nightstand, and she washes the pills down, not at all hesitating to take them. She didn’t question the amount or if I was drugging her. She just took the pills.

  “Good girl. Now, are you hungry, or do you need anything else right now?”

  She slowly shakes her head.

  I nod. “Now, I need you to tell me what happened.”

  I don’t really. I already know what happened, but I need to know what she remembers. The pain might have completely wiped away her memory.

  She looks away for a second, and when she turns her gaze back, I know that she remembers everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.

  The horror.

  The pain.

  The fight for her life.

  All of it.

  “Your father raped me. He beat me. He had his men tie me up because he was too chickenshit to do it himself. And then he raped me over and over. Trying to break me.” She looks down at her beaten body. “Seems like he won.”

  I place a finger under her chin so that I can see her endearing dark eyes that are full of fight despite everything she has alre
ady been through. “He didn’t win. You have plenty of fight left in you. You aren’t broken yet.”

  I cock my head to the side and grin because I know she will smile, too. She does. She can’t help herself; my grin is infectious even in her broken state.

  “He might have broken your body but not your spirit. I have no doubt that, if you had a gun or a knife tucked in your pajamas, you would still try to kill me right now to get your freedom. Even in your weakened state.”

  She smiles. “Others, yes. But I wouldn’t try to kill you.”

  I smirk even though I know she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I’m not her friend. I’m just as dangerous as the rest of my family. Just because I kept her alive for a few days doesn’t make me a saint. I’m a monster, like everyone else. I might even be worse because I’m the devil who hides behind his charms.

  “Anything else happen?” I probe.

  I feel the anger rising to the surface. Her eyes look like she is about to rip someone’s head off, and her body is flush with rage.

  “It wasn’t just your father. It was your brother, too. He raped me. I thought he was like you. I thought, deep down, he cared and would never do anything to really hurt me.” I see the tears welling up in her eyes. “But I was wrong. He’s just as vile as your father; he just didn’t have the balls to try to break me himself. He let his father do all the dirty work.”

  I take her hand and interlock my fingers with hers, letting her think that I would never be as awful as either my father or brother.

  She exhales deeply when I hold her hand. “I hate him. He’s a monster,” she says, thinking back to what Arlo did to her.

  But there is something other than hate in her eyes. Lust. As much as she hates Arlo, she still enjoyed herself. She still wants him to fuck her again.

  I smile. “And what do you think of me?”

  Nina looks at me with the same glimmer of lust still in her eyes. “I have some hope that you are a better man than your father or brother.”

  I laugh. “Well, that’s not hard to do. My brother is an idiot, and my father is the devil.”

  “Why did you save me?”

  I sigh and then move closer to her. Our eyes are locked, and our lips are millimeters from touching. “What kind of monster wouldn’t save a gorgeous girl like you?”

  She closes the gap whether intentionally or unintentionally. Her lips press against mine. Her breathing is still heavy and labored, so I know I can’t let the kiss last long. But her lips are so soft and plump that I don’t want the kiss to ever end. The second our lips touch, a spell comes over me, and I become just as obsessed with her as my brother is.

  I stop the kiss when I hear the tiniest wheeze in her throat. I sit back up and let her breathe as I cherish the kiss.

  “What was that for?” I ask.

  She sinks back into the bed, her eyes closing from the exhaustion again. It’s amazing that she was even able to stay awake this long. It’s going to take weeks for her to heal enough to leave this room. I’ll have her in my bed for weeks. I’ll become her friend, her confidant, and maybe even her lover. She’ll be mine if I want before Arlo even has a chance to change his mind.

  “Because you saved me and I wanted to,” she says, opening her eyes for one more second. And then her heavy eyelids quickly fall, and she drifts back off to sleep.

  I lean forward and kiss her forehead, needing more of her scent. Nina Young, what are you doing to me?

  I watch her sleep. I won’t leave her alone for a second. Not now. Not ever.

  I won’t let anyone else hurt her. I’m the only one who will get her pain.

  11

  Nina

  I want to kill Enrico.

  That’s the main focus of all my dreams. Finding a way to kill Enrico before he touches me again. I’ve never felt such pain before. And I made a promise to myself with every lash of the whip, every bruise and broken rib that formed from his beatings, and every rip from his cock tearing me wide open that I would do everything I could before letting that happen again.

  Even kill myself.

  I can’t go through that again.

  Not even for Heath and Eden.

  I have a new obsession, and right now, it’s finding the most painful way to end their father’s life.

  “How are you feeling?” Matteo asks for the millionth time this week, like he always does when he enters the room.

  I smile. “Better.”

  I am better. I can actually stay awake for hours at a time. I can sit up in bed. My appetite has returned, and the pain is slowly subsiding. I just don’t have much strength left. I can barely walk. I can barely lift a fork to my mouth.

  Matteo sits on the edge of the bed as he tucks a strand of my hair behind my ear. I love the feel of his hand against my cheek. Just like I love when Matteo asks me how I’m feeling. I love how he makes me laugh. I love how he holds me while I sleep to keep my nightmares away. I feel safe with him.

  “Good. I brought you more books to read,” Matteo says, setting a large stack of books on the nightstand next to me.

  “Thank you,” I say as Matteo stands up from my bed. “Where are you going?”

  “I need to shower, and then I’m going to crash. It’s been a long night.”

  I study Matteo further and realize that he is a dirty mess. I know, before I spent all my nights in his bed, he spent his nights away doing God knows what for the family business. But last night was the first night he spent away since I joined him in bed. I hated it.

  “Crash here,” I say, needing him near me to push away the demons.

  His eyes search mine a second—for what, I don’t know. But I let him in and show him how much I need him. I need him to lie next to me, so I can get some sleep. I need to feel his steady heartbeat and the calm inside him that washes over me whenever he’s close.

  But I’ve become obsessed with the feel of him against my skin. I can’t sleep without him. If I’m not thinking of revenge against his father, I’m thinking about him. It’s probably stupid. I shouldn’t trust Matteo so easily, not when he is related to such monsters, but I do. He’s the only one I can trust. I need to trust someone if I’m going to survive here.

  Matteo stands and kicks off his shoes. Then, he lifts his shirt over his head. I soak in his hard abs and chest, which are almost identical to Arlo’s. His long hair and scar on his face are the main differences between the two. That’s not true. Matteo is caring while Arlo is just as bad as his father.

  He slides his pants down until he is standing in just his briefs. I try not to stare. I try not to think about what lies beneath the briefs. But my eyes automatically go there.

  His smirk tells me he knows exactly what I’m thinking.

  Damn it!

  I shouldn’t feel this way, even about Matteo. I’m married.

  But I need to make Matteo care enough about me to help me escape. And the only way to do that is to pretend like I care about him, too. Heath will forgive me for whatever happens while I’m here. He already knew my whole story when he married me. He knew this was a possibility. And, while he swore to do everything to protect me, he made me promise to do whatever it took to save myself. He didn’t specify what he meant. Now, I know.

  I swallow down the lump in my throat. He’ll forgive me, but will I ever forgive myself?

  Matteo walks over to the other side of the bed and pulls the sheets back before climbing into the bed next to me. “What are you thinking about, beautiful?”

  I smile weakly as I fidget with the covers. “You.”

  Again, Matteo searches my eyes for the truth, and when he finds what he thinks is the truth, he moves closer to me. His hand goes to the base of my neck, and his lips press against mine. He tenderly kisses me, carefully touching me only on the places that aren’t bruised. He draws me into his kiss and makes me forget about everything. I feel the familiar ache deep in my belly, and I pull away for a second, stopping the kiss.

  I thought I was in control, b
ut my body continues to disobey me. I’m not supposed to actually feel anything for these men. I’m not supposed to be turned on by Matteo’s kiss. I wasn’t supposed to come when Arlo fucked me.

  Matteo kisses me on the forehead, and I melt a little. He’s so sweet and caring to me.

  How could I not fall a little for him?

  “It’s okay to want me. There is nothing wrong with wanting more than one man,” Matteo says, reading my mind.

  “I only want Heath.”

  “I know.” But his smirk says otherwise.

  I frown. He thinks I want Arlo, too. He couldn’t be further from the truth. I don’t want a man who raped me. Ever. No matter how obsessed and attracted to him I was before, there is no way I will ever want him again now.

  Matteo pulls me close to him while he softly kisses me everywhere that I’m not bruised. My mind twists with thoughts of Arlo, Matteo, and Heath. I want the nightmares back. It would be better than what my twisted mind is thinking. Instead, I drift off to sleep in Matteo’s arms while I think of two other men.

  My eyes fly open, and I see Arlo standing over my bed. Matteo’s arms wrap around me tighter as he lazily opens his eyes.

  “Well, don’t you two look cozy? I didn’t mean to intrude,” Arlo says.

  “I bet you didn’t,” I snarl at him.

  Arlo raises an eyebrow at me, not expecting my snarkiness. But he hasn’t seen anything yet.

  Matteo doesn’t seem the least bit concerned to have his brother standing in his bedroom while he was sleeping with me.

  “Relax, brother. I’ve just been taking care of Nina here since you couldn’t deal with the sight of her so broken. Don’t worry; she still cares about you,” Matteo says, casually leaning back on the bed with his arms behind his head.

  I give Matteo a dirty look that shows him just how insane I think what he just said is.

  “I don’t care about Arlo.” I turn my attention back to Arlo. “I don’t care about you. The tiniest feelings that I had for you before vanished when you raped me.”