by Haley Stuart
Luca walks back to me with an even larger needle and a smile on his face. My eyes widen in fear. There is no telling what this is all about. I mean, he has fucking locked me in a deep freezer for God knows how long before he has pulled me out.
“That, my sweet, was a numbing agent. And this …?” He wiggles the needle through the air for emphasis. “Is your new microchip implant.”
I am completely taken aback.
“W-what?”
“The little stunt you pulled made me realize something in the months you were gone. I gave you too much freedom. And because of that, I had trouble finding you. So just in case you feel like doing something stupid in the time coming, we’re going to keep a GPS on you. You know, safety measures, of course.” He winks at me, and I can feel my anger bubble up.
“Are you crazy? I’m your wife, not your pet! I refuse to have that … thing put inside my body!” I shout at him, but his smile grows even wider. The look on his face is almost as if he were daring me. Just waiting for me to do or say something stupid so he can do something in return.
Suddenly, his smile drops and he crawls across the bed, coming closer to me. The look on his face keeps me rooted to the spot, afraid to move. I can’t even run if I want to, because he has me bolted to the bed. He gets even closer to me, entering my personal space and keeping his gray eyes locked on mine. His eyes flicker to my lips, and he opens his mouth slightly.
I still can’t move. He reaches a hand behind my ear and pulls me in closely before his eyes flicker from mine back to my lips. I can’t think straight with him this close. He pulls me in, and I can feel his warm breath fanning on my lips. Then he kisses me. Soft and warm. Not possessive like it usually is. I feel a dull pressure against my hip, the same area that Luca has swabbed earlier. Shit.
I finally get my wits about me and shove him off me. Hard. The syringe is empty, and the chip isn’t in the tube. So it is now in my body. Luca has distracted me. I look at him in horror, and he is smiling. Pure amusement is written all over his face. He turns away from me and drops the empty syringe on the metal tray.
“You’re right, Elise, you are my wife. My wife.” He walks closer to the bed, and I can see the malice slowly forming in his eyes. Malice toward me. He begins to unbutton his shirt and slowly pulls it off, revealing his gun holster.
“So imagine my utter shock when I find out that it may possibly be my wife’s fault my father is dead.” He begins to unfasten the holster and drops it to the floor with a loud thud—the gun is obviously loaded. My eyes are wide and filled with fear. I have no idea what he is talking about. I have nothing to do with his father’s death.
He crawls in the bed and comes toward me. I don’t dare speak. Luca is a ticking time bomb. I know the topic of his father is very tender, so I don’t want to say anything that may set him off. He is finally in front of me and pushes me so that I am lying on my back. He crawls over my body and straddles it and begins playing with my hair.
“It’s like every time I think there is no more horrifying news regarding you, I find out more.”
My heart rate begins to skyrocket. I have no idea what he is talking about, but whatever it is can’t be good. He doesn’t speak for a moment, just keeps playing with my hair. Then his hands move down and begin tracing my face. Starting with my cheek and running over my lips.
“The man we interrogated from the shooting told us who was behind it. Your filthy bloodline, of course. But he only recently spilled how he got the information of your father’s then-impending doom.” He traces his finger from my jawline to my throat. His eyes are roaming over my face slowly. Without warning, his hand tightens around my throat, and he shoves me roughly into the bed.
“Imagine my shock when I find out that Ariana Gudierri is the one that told the information to the fucking attackers.” My eyes widen in shock, and I try to pry Luca’s iron grip from my throat, but he is not having it. His eyes are filled with such a deep rage.
He drags me up the bed, slamming my body into the headboard, causing me to cry out in pain. Luca is in my face the next instance, shouting at me.
“How could you do this to me? You’re supposed to be my wife! You’re supposed to be loyal to me! Not any of them! Your last name is Pasquino now, not Trovoli! You do as I say! You keep my secrets! You stay loyal to me!”
Luca is so angry I can see a vein popping out of his neck. He jerks me away from the headboard, only to slam me right back into it. My head bounces off the wooden headboard, and stars explode across my vision from the impact. His hand is growing even tighter around my throat, making it even harder for me to breathe.
“This will never be good enough, will it? You will always try to go back to them, be only loyal to them!” He spits the words out as if he were disgusted. I can feel my head begin to pound from the impact and lack of oxygen. I try to open my mouth to say something, but as soon as Luca sees the action, he immediately jerks me off the headboard, only to slam me back up against it again. His face turns murderously angry.
“Don’t you dare fucking speak!”
He lets go of my body, and I fall forward, coughing and sputtering, trying to catch my breath. I don’t even have time to be in shock. Luca has a hold of the chain and drags me out of the bed. Literally. He jerks hard enough that the collar pulls me off the bed and I hit the ground. I am being dragged across the floor by my throat. I struggle uselessly.
Luca finally stops and looks at me, no emotion in his eyes. The same as last time, when he has dragged me into the deep freezer. And I hope to God he isn’t about to put me back in there.
* * * * *
Twenty. Twenty and counting. Luca has me chained to some kind of overhead rafter. My arms pulled above my head. This time, though, my legs are touching the ground. But I can barely hold myself up. Luca has been whipping me for I don’t even know how long. Not just on my back this time, but all over my body. And not hard enough to draw blood, but hard enough for me to feel pain.
He stands in front of me with a look of rage.
“L-Luca, please. I … I’m sorry.” I can barely get my words out from trying to catch my breath. I have been begging, hoping for some form of mercy from him, but I have gotten none. If what Luca has said is true and Ari is behind this, then it is all my fault. I have been the one who has told her about my father. The truth behind his death.
“I didn’t know she was going to tell, I swear.” I choke on a sob. My body is in pain, it is freezing cold, and I am naked and chained to the ceiling. This is misery in its purest form.
Suddenly, my arms are released and I drop to the floor in a miserable heap, still bawling in a pile. I hear Luca’s footsteps come toward me, and he picks me up slowly, cradling my body as he carries me somewhere. I still don’t open my eyes, though.
I just want to die. This isn’t a life worth living. And I now know I have no one. Ari has betrayed me in more ways than one, even if she doesn’t know the consequences. She should have thought of what will happen to me if we are found out. But she hasn’t. And now I am suffering.
Luca steps into a room that is abnormally warm, and I open my eyes.
We are in the bathroom. There is water in the large tub, with small vials of different colors perched on the side. My body is still burning in pain from Luca’s torture. He lowers me slowly into the tub, and the pain grows even more as the heat from the water deepens the pain. Luca takes a seat on the side of the tub. His face is blank. He reaches for one of the vials and pours its contents into the tub. After a moment, the pain subsides.
Luca stands up to leave, but I reach out and grab his arm in desperation. Water from the tub splashes out everywhere, and I look into his steel depths, pleading with my soul for him to hear me.
“Kill me.”
The words hang in the air. It is completely silent except for the sound of the water rippling in the tub.
Luca looks as if he doesn’t quiet comprehend what I am saying.
“Please. I … I can’t live like this
.” My vision grows blurry, and fat tears roll down my face. “I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to live, period. I have nothing, Luca. I have no one. I’ve never had anyone. Just please …” I take a deep breath. “If you really love me, just kill me now.”
Emotion finally graces Luca’s face. But only for a moment. Not long enough for me to comprehend what it is. He moves so quickly I don’t have time to register what is happening. Somehow, he wrenches his arm from my grip, and the next thing I know, my head is being plunged under the water of the tub. I have no air in my lungs, so suffocation for me begins immediately. My body’s instinct for air kicks in, and I begin struggling.
My chest is burning from lack of air. This is it. This is what I’ve asked him for in the first place. And now he is giving it to me. The edges of my vision begin to turn cloudy, and just when I think I am going to lose consciousness, I am yanked above the water by my hair.
As soon as I break the surface, I take in huge gulps of air. I cough up water and gasp for air all at the same time. My chest is still burning from the lack of oxygen in my system, and my throat is raw from all the coughing. I open my eyes, and Luca is standing in the tub right in front of me, his face still blank of emotion.
“Don’t ever ask me that again. You are all I have. And I am all you have. I told you before, I will kill anyone, anyone, that gets in the way of this. We’re married. We belong to each other, with each other. Which is why I can forgive you for your wrongs.” He leans in closer to my face and finally lets his blank expression drop. And what I see chills me to the bone, even in this heated bathtub.
“But what I cannot do anymore is forgive the Trovolis. And I swear on my father’s grave, I will make every single one of them pay for his death. I’ve had it with that filthy bloodline. And I refuse to let them live any longer.”
He stands up and walks away from me before I can form a coherent thought, slamming the door behind him.
Chapter 17
Luca
Love is a strange thing. It makes you do strange things. In my case, it makes you kill. Everything I have done in my life is because my father has told me to do it. And because I have loved him, I have followed every single one of his orders without hesitation. Pretty soon, my life has become my form of normal.
I have lived to please him. I have lived to keep the family strong. I have lived to please myself. But now I am not so sure about that anymore. Protecting the family means killing the Trovolis, but by doing that, I will be hurting the only family I have left. My wife.
I look across the room to where Elise lies. She is on her side, staring at nothing. Small tears are running out of her eyes. Damn, if she doesn’t look beautiful. Even when she cries, she is an angel. She sniffles a bit and takes a deep breath, the sound coming out shaky. I don’t know what to do when it comes to her. Anyone else will have killed their wife by now. The fact that she has told my business and the leaking of that information has led to not only the capo’s but also my father’s death … well, that is a crime fit for worse than death. She just doesn’t understand. The world she lives in, the man she is married to, all of it is different now.
Her cousin is a bitch for putting her in this corner like this. She is a conniving Trovoli. She feeds off Elise’s naïveté and has almost gotten her cousin killed. And if it weren’t me she is married to, she’ll be dead. I see the knowledge that lurks behind Ariana’s eyes. She knows more than she lets on, and she has purposely kept that information from Elise so her poor cousin can come to her, unknowingly feeding her all kinds of information. She is right about one thing, though: Elise isn’t built for this world. She is too soft. Too kind. Nothing like the filthy blood that runs through her veins. She is different.
I look back over across the room and see that she has fallen asleep. Her dark lashes are touching her cheeks lightly. They are so long. I stand and walk over to her to get a better look. Her lips are parted slightly. She has to breathe out of her mouth since her nose is stuffy from all the crying.
I am taken aback when she asks me to kill her. And I almost do on accident. The rage that fills me from the thought of her willingly wanting to die at my hands is enough to force me into a rage. The look on her face, though, when she has spoken those words has been … heartbreaking. Many women have looked at me with that look—heartbreak, sadness, sorrow—and I have never been fazed by it. But when Elise looks at me with her almond-colored eyes, I see something that makes me stop. Makes me, for once in my life, feel pity. But it is only there for a moment, because the rage takes over in an instant.
I take a seat on the bed and pushes her hair back from her face. It is getting longer, and pretty soon, she’ll be able to hide from me once again behind it.
“What am I going to do with you?” I murmur aloud.
I love her. There is no doubt in my mind about that. She is perfect. She is kind and innocent and beautiful. And so damn naive. I almost want to shield her from the horrors of this world. But I don’t know how to express that to her. I can’t change the way that I am. It is far too late for that. But I can prevent her from making the same mistakes and facing me because of her naïveté.
I stand and immediately text Nicolai. Hopefully, my meeting is already set up, because with my current state of emotions … well, this will be perfect.
* * * * *
Ariana Trovoli. Now Gudierri. She is married to Stefano Gudierri by her father to further increase ties in the South. No doubt Elise’s father has something to do with it. She was married off when she was eighteen to Stefano, and they have been together “happily” for seven years. Stefano is so lost in his emotions he doesn’t even realize how sneaky his wife is. I step into the interrogation room and look beyond the one-sided glass. He is sitting there calmly, probably unaware that his world is about to come tumbling down. I step into the room, and he looks up immediately. He doesn’t smile, only nods in respect.
I am guessing he is still sore from our last encounter. I take a seat in front of him and set the file down on the table between us.
“How are you, Stefano? Did you enjoy the flight?” I ask. I keep my voice level and my eyes trained on him. He is already uneasy, and he doesn’t even know what is about to happen.
“I’m good, Capo. Thank you. The flight was fine.”
I scoff aloud. “Tell me something, do you know whom you’re married to?”
This catches his attention, and he looks up at me with an uneasy gaze. “Uh … excuse me, sir?”
“Your wife, Ariana. Do you truly know who she is?”
“Yes, of course, sir.” He speaks as if I were the idiot for asking that question.
I push the file across the table and motion for him to open and read its contents. I wait patiently and watch in pleasure as his whole wall of safety and comfort comes tumbling down as the proof of who his wife truly is dawns on him. I lean forward in my seat on the desk, folding my arms in front of me.
“I have a little pest problem in the South that I would like to get rid of. And with your cooperation, I think I can make that happen.”
He is still in shock, staring at the folder. “W-where did you get all this?” His voice is shaky.
“Records. Reports. And I had someone tail her for the past few months. It does help that I have a few contacts in the justice system under my wing.”
The folder contains everything Ariana has been involved in within the time she’s been married to Stefano. The whole reason behind their marriage is so she can have easy access to unlimited information about all kinds of things and report it to her father, who, in turn, reports back to his brother, the capo of the South. It is a brilliant plan, no doubt. A great way to utilize your daughters. Going for a man’s weakness in the comfort of his own home.
The Gudierris are a crime family known for their cunning. The information they gather from having contacts on the inside of every legal department across the United States makes them practically untouchable by the feds. Which is why Elise’s father h
as wanted to utilize it. There is proof in Stefano’s database that information has been stolen by none other than his wife. Saved to a flash drive.
And now that his wife has betrayed him, caused my father’s death, and helped my wife run away, well, Stefano is now in my debt, and this is the perfect opportunity.
“I’m going to make you a proposition. You will be the new head of the South.”
He looks up, startled.
“That’s right. But you have to help me deal with one little problem.”
He narrows his eyes at me, and I continue.
“I want to eradicate the Trovolis from the face of the earth.”
His eyes widen for a fraction, and then he wipes his face of emotion. “What do you mean eradicate?”
“Dead. All of them. You of all people should know everything they have done and caused us. I want nothing to do with them.”
“Including your wife?” he asks.
I have to take a deep breath to keep from strangling him. “No. I want my wife alive. What you choose to do with yours is up to you. I will not interfere there.”
“I want her alive as well,” he says the words quietly. Poor fool.
“Done. I hope you realize your wife is behind my father’s death.” Judging from his reaction, he does not. “The men that shot him were relatives of hers. Sharing the same filthy bloodline. She told them the truth behind Elise’s father’s death, and she ordered the hit on my father. They were supposed to take me out too, but Elise stepped in the way just in the nick of time.”
I clench my fists as memories of that horrible night flash through my mind. I stand and push my chair back from the table, looking Stefano right in his eyes as I speak, hoping he hears me and the force behind my words are enough to sway him.
“If it weren’t for Elise, you and your wife would be dead. The only reason I am giving you an option right now is her. Even though your wife deserves to suffer for everything she’s put Elise through. You may be the capo of the South now, but you will take your orders from me. Your decisions will be my decisions. And the South now belongs to me. Do you understand?”
