by Haley Stuart
Luca looks at me and turns the girl’s sobbing neck so that she is facing me. Luca has his whole body pressed into her, keeping her immobile on the desk.
“Do you see that stunning creature standing in the corner of this room? She is not a whore. She is my wife. And you threatening to kill her does not sit well with me.” His hand loosens from around her neck, and he threads it through her tangled locks. He grabs ahold tightly, lifting her head and smashing it back into the desk. I scream aloud from the sudden movement.
“I told you that if I ever saw you again, I would kill you. So why is it that you have shown up, uninvited, to my home?” His voice is coming out cold and calculated. Her whimpers echo throughout the room.
“This used to be our home,” she whispers as tears run down her face.
I feel my heart breaking for this girl.
Luca’s grip tightens on her hair, and he lifts her neck at an uncomfortable angle, whispering in her ear, “This was never our home. This has always been my home. You just happened to be a warm body that I liked to use from time to time.” Luca speaks the words with amusement. Like he has never cared for this girl. And I don’t think he ever did. Suddenly, he looks up to where I am standing.
“Elise, do you know who this is?” My stomach drops in dread. He is pulling me into his sick, twisted game, and I want very badly to not be a part of it. “Elise!”
I jump as Luca shouts my name, pulling me from my thoughts and doubts. I shake my head quickly. He laughs to himself, keeping his tight grip on the girl. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and tears are falling heavily down her face.
“This is Jessica. I met her a few years back and kept her around because I wanted to. Of course, she wasn’t the only woman I was with, and by no means was I loyal to her. But along the way, she seemed to think we were more than what we are.”
I nod, as if I were listening. I don’t know why he is telling me these things, but I don’t like it at all.
He pushes her head back down on the desk and lays his head against hers.
“She seems to think I would leave my lovely, pure, innocent wife to be with her. She believes I will go behind your back and fuck her still.” He laughs out loud. A genuine laugh, showing that he is amused by the girl’s thoughts.
In my head, I am screaming. I honestly wish that is what he will do so that he will leave me alone. But now he is laying all my hope down.
That’s when it hits me. That is why he is telling me all this. He is letting me know that he will never turn his attention from me. He must have read the look on my face, because a sadistic smile creeps on his face.
“Oh, baby, don’t you know better than that? Once something is mine, it’s only mine. You are my wife, so no one else matters. I take my vows very seriously.” His smile falls from his face, and he looks at the whimpering blonde. His hand snakes around to the front of her throat, and he begins to squeeze. Her movements become frantic as she tries to fight his steel grip around her throat.
He looks up, making eye contact with me, as if daring me to say anything. I take a step toward her, a hand outstretched. I open my mouth to speak, but I don’t get a word out. Luca moves so quickly I don’t have time to register it. He picks up the blonde and smashes her face into the desk, causing us both to scream in agony. She falls to the floor, clutching her nose. There is a fountain of blood running down her face.
Luca walks over to me and grabs a fistful of my hair, forcing me to my knees. He reaches around him and pulls a gun out. A sound escapes my lips, and he looks at me, quickly silencing anything that may have come from me.
“Jessica.” He is looking behind me, but I can’t see anything because he is making me face him on my knees. “You are nothing to me. I would never let anyone touch me except for my wife. I will never fuck anyone except for my wife. And I sure as hell will not tolerate you coming into our home disturbing my peace. Me and you? We are finished,” he says as he raises his gun, aiming it at the poor girl. He pulls back the hammer with his thumb, making the sickening click pop into place.
In the next moments, I don’t think. As soon as I hear the noise, I jerk my hand up, reaching for the gun. As Luca pulls the trigger, my hand connects with his, pushing the gun and causing him to fire a shot into the ceiling. Jessica screams, and her eyes are shut. Luca still has the gun aimed toward the ceiling. He looks at me, and I have to swallow the bile threatening to come up.
His eyes are filled with pure rage. I have interfered. I have interfered with what he is doing. I have stopped him from killing her. I have gone against him. I’ve done it without thinking of the consequences, but I know if I have sat here and let her get shot, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.
Before I can utter an apology, a blinding pain shoots across the side of my face. I fall to the floor with a cry of pain.
Luca steps over my body, walking over to Jessica. I look at him through blurry vision and can see him holding her up by the throat.
“Marco!” Luca shouts, and a man comes in the room, waiting for orders.
“Take this bitch off my property. If she ever shows her face around here again, shoot her on fucking sight.” Marco nods and drags Jessica out of the room.
Luca isn’t done with me, though; he walks over to me and straddles my body on the floor, slapping me across the same cheek. I cry out. I open my mouth.
“Please don’t.” The words come out shaky and desperate, but Luca obviously doesn’t give a damn. He wraps his hands around my throat and squeezes.
“How many motherfucking times must I tell you not to interfere?”
I can’t respond due to his hand around my throat, but he isn’t thinking. He picks me up and slams my head back into the floor. Black dots cross my vision, and my head begins throbbing in pain. But I can only moan. He finally gets up and threads his fingers through my hair, letting go of my throat. I don’t even have the time to breathe in, as he takes me by the hair, dragging me from his office. I scream from the pain of being dragged by my hair, the sounds echoing off the walls of this massive house.
Once we reach the stairs, he picks me up and throws me over his shoulder as if I weigh nothing. I am kicking and screaming and begging because I am terrified he is about to take me and break my jaw.
Once we reach our bedroom, he throws me on the bed. As soon as I get my bearings, I hop out of the bed and make a run for the door but am tackled to the floor as soon as I try. Luca puts his foot on my chest, holding me down.
“Don’t fucking move.” He heads into the bathroom.
I sit up and sit there silently sobbing. I just have to interfere. Why does he have to drag me into this? No, why does that girl have to show up here? If she has just stayed put, I wouldn’t have tried to save her life even after she has tried to fight me.
Luca reemerges from the bathroom with a pair of scissors in his hands, and my eyes go wide. What the fuck is he about to do to me?
“I’m going to give you a choice. You can sit still, or you can try to run. But if you try to run from me again, you will not like what happens.” He yanks me off the ground and sits me on the bed. He threads his fingers through my hair, not saying a word.
“You have a pattern, Elise. Every morning after you shower, you brush your hair. Twenty-three times on the left and twenty-three strokes on the right. Before you go to bed, you brush your hair. Fifteen strokes on the left and fifteen strokes on the right.” He raises the scissors, and my brain finally connects the dots.
I stiffen. “Oh god, no, Luca, please—”
I am cut off as he roughly squeezes my mouth together.
“Don’t you dare beg! It’ll only make things worse.” He goes back to stroking my hair.
“I love your hair. So thick and soft and long. But you know who else loves it? You do.”
He brings the scissors up, and I don’t hesitate. I jump up from the bed and sprint to the door, only to be jerked back by the very thing I am trying to save. Luca throws me down on the ground, and my face col
lides with the carpet. I can feel as he pulls on my strands, a giant wad, and as the echo of the scissors cutting sounds, the grip he has on my hair loosens. Strands fall on each side of my face. Long strands.
I open my mouth and scream. And scream. And scream. I am cut off as Luca reaches around me and clasps his hand around my mouth. He lifts my dress and yanks my underwear down. I am screaming and mumbling underneath his hand, but he doesn’t listen in the slightest. He enters me roughly, and the tears continue to flow out of my eyes.
As he lies on top of me, fucking me roughly, his hand snakes down around my throat.
“The next time you decide to get into things that aren’t your business, I suggest you think about the consequences,” he groans out roughly into my ears.
I look at the piles of hair that has fallen around me and cry harder.
He continues to violate me, not caring what he has just done is completely awful. Not caring he is punishing me for saving a life. The innocent life of a woman whose heart he has broken.
He is evil. He is sick. And he is heartless. And I belong to him. Till death do us part.
Chapter 6
Elise
I sit in front of the mirror for what feels like the hundredth time this week. I keep running my fingers through my hair. My now-short hair. My long, waist-length tresses are now gone. I have never cut my hair my whole life. It is something I take care of, and the only time scissors are put to it is when my ends need to be cut. But Luca has taken that away from me in the span of sixty seconds.
We have had to go to a salon to get it styled because he has cut it so unevenly. So now my hair barely falls past my chin. I have to stifle a sob as I move my hand through the now-empty air that my hair used to be in.
“No matter how many times you pull on it, it won’t grow back.” Luca’s voice pulls me from my brooding, and I look in the corner of the mirror to see him standing with his arms crossed, watching me. He always has that unreadable expression on his face. But now I know it is because he is watching me, calculating my moves, my likes and dislikes. Anything he can possibly use against me.
We have barely been married a month, and he has already gone overboard with me. I guess I just wish I could have been lucky like Ari. But fairy tales are for fools. This is the real world.
Luca is still watching me in the mirror, and I shove from the mirror, walking past him without a word. I haven’t spoken to him since he has chopped my hair off. He has never even apologized. Not like I will accept it, but still, I want some kind of indication that he has some form of emotions.
“You can’t keep ignoring me forever, Elise.” Luca’s voice carries behind me, and I still ignore him. At least now he can’t jerk me by the hair.
“Elise!” His voice comes out from behind me, and I stop in my tracks.
I know that tone. That tone means he is fed up. And when he is fed up, it is time for me to swallow my pride. He’s proven to me that he is capable of anything.
I turn slowly around, facing him.
“You’re acting like a child, Elise. It’s just hair, it will grow back. You’re still beautiful without it.” He pouts in annoyance. So the great and powerful Luca Pasquino doesn’t like to be ignored, huh?
“I’m a child?” My voice comes out before I think about what I am going to say, my rage from the moment he has done this to me bubbling to the surface after I have worked so hard to lock it away. “You … you cut my hair! My hair! You cut it off! Because I was saving a woman’s life that you destroyed!”
I am beginning to grow hysterical, but Luca doesn’t get angry like I’ve expected him to; he only raises an eyebrow at me.
“She loved you! She was heartbroken, and you wanted to kill her for that, and because I stepped in to save her life, you took my hair from me? But I’m the child?” The tears are coming on hot now, and Luca is still looking at me with a curious expression plastered across his face.
He pushes himself off the door and walks closer to me. “You are making me so hot right now with all your yelling. I’ve never seen you feisty before.” He smirks at me.
I can’t help myself. I bring my hand up, ready to slap him right across his smug face, but he catches my hand before I can, the grin falling off his face. If I haven’t witnessed it earlier, I’ll say it has never even been there.
“You wanna play rough, baby? I can play rough.” He squeezes my wrist in warning, and I cringe from the pain. I try to jerk my hand from his grasp, but he holds on tightly. “Don’t try that ever again. I don’t want to have to break your wrist because you can’t control your temper.” He speaks it so calmly and relaxed I actually feel my stomach churn in fear. I can’t believe to this day my father has given me this man to marry, of all people.
“Get dressed. We have some business to attend to.” He walks out of the room, leaving me there to my thoughts.
* * * * *
I am sitting in the passenger seat of Luca’s sleek white Zenvo ST1. I have never been much of a car person. My father has never allowed me to drive or get my permit, anyways. But this car is nice. And Luca drives it like a bat out of hell.
The ride is silent, and I look out the window, watching the scenery go by. I feel a hand on my thigh and look over to see Luca’s hand.
“You know, when my father told me I had to marry, I was pissed off.” His eyes are still focused on the road as he speaks to me. “I actually told him to go fuck himself.” He laughs aloud to himself. “But eventually, I had to accept it. If we were to be stronger and be able to protect ourselves in a wider range, a union needed to be existent. And who better to marry than the son and daughter of capos of the North and South?” He smiles, more to himself than to anyone else.
“When I saw you in that practice room, I thought, damn, this is going to be my wife. I never had this feeling about a woman. This possession. This need. This constant want. But you are just walking perfection to me. Pure and innocent when I met you. Never been anyone’s but mine. And that makes me a thousand times happier when I wake up each morning.”
I swear the temperature in the car drops as soon as Luca begins his next sentence.
“If anyone or anything ever jeopardizes this marriage, I will end them. Without a question or a second thought. You are mine. And no one else’s. I will kill anyone who gets in the way of that. Of me and you.”
He doesn’t say anything more. I don’t know if he expects me to say anything; I don’t even know if that is his version of a love ballad. But I do know that Luca is serious about this whole marriage thing.
The rest of the drive takes about twenty minutes, and we end up in some kind of warehouse. Luca pulls up and shuts the car off. There are men standing outside. I assume they are Luca’s men. Why will he bring me here if he is taking care of business? I am assuming, from the location chosen, this isn’t a deal of any sort, but a get-rid-of-someone type of thing.
Luca steps out of the car, but I stay in, hoping he doesn’t expect me to come along.
Luca walks around to my side of the car and opens the door.
“Come on, Elise. Be a good girl and remember what I said.”
I nod slowly. My hands are already shaking, and I don’t even know what is about to happen next. He leads me into the warehouse, and his men are following behind us silently. The door to the warehouse is opened, and a loud groan sounds from the door being opened. It is dark in here; the only light is the garage door that is opened for our entrance. Once it is shut, the whole place is enveloped by darkness again.
“Luca.” My frightened voice quickly comes out, and I reach for his arm in the dark, clinging to him for dear life. I can hear his deep chuckle as his hand closes over mine, and he begins to rub mine comfortingly back and forth. Even though I have no idea where I am or what is about to happen, Luca’s warm body and small gesture make me feel slightly safer. But I don’t know the hell he is about to drag me through.
The lights to the warehouse come on suddenly, and we are standing in a massive room wit
h cemented floors and walls, a fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling. Luca slides my hand off his arm and clasps my hand in his, the warmth from his body seeping into mine. He walks me over to a chair and sits me down in it, kneeling in front of me so that we are eye level. He doesn’t speak, only stares at me with those intense gray irises. He puts both his hands on either sides of my shoulders and smooths them down until he has my hands by my side.
Click.
My heart stops. He cuffs me. He cuffs me to the chair. A ghost of a smile plays across his lips as he watches my distress. I yank on the cuffs, but they won’t break.
“Luca, what is th—”
I am cut off. “Shhhhhh, baby.” He leans in and kisses me lightly on the cheek. He stands and walks away from me. One of his men walks over to him and hands him a large gun.
“Bring him in,” he says in an authoritative voice.
Another door sounds, and in walks my father. He looks beaten up and bloodied. There are handcuffs around his wrists.
A gasp escapes from me. “Papa?” My tiny voice carries across the chamber, and my father looks up at me, no emotion entering his eyes. But when his eyes land on Luca, all the rage he can muster appears. The men are rough with him as they shove him to his knees. They take a massive metal rod and push it into the ground so that his handcuffs are straddling the pole. He can’t move on his knees, and Luca is standing over him like a judge about to pass judgment.
“Luca, what’s going on?” My voice comes out in a frantic whimper. Luca only ignores me and continues to stand over my father. Hate fills within his deep-gray depths. He finally turns to me. No emotion plays out on his face, and I feel like I am about to piss my pants.
“Why did your father tell you we were to be married, Elise?”
