by Haley Stuart
He stares at me for a moment before bowing his head in respect. “Yes, Capo.”
“Good.” I turn to leave but stop in the doorway as I remember something. “I will contact you with the plan to dispose of them all.”
* * * * *
I can almost laugh. Almost. Ariana sits in front of me, seething hatred. Her face is set in an angry scowl, and she obviously believes she is on top. I want to break this bitch in half.
“Do you understand how much Elise cares for you?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer me. I can’t control myself. I reach across the table before she can blink and slam her face into it. She cries out in pain. She meets my eyes with fear. Fucking finally. I can feel the pleasure rushing through my system, but I need to calm down. If I kill her, Elise will be upset. Her gasps fill the chamber.
“Don’t you dare ignore me, bitch! You used your own flesh and blood for your selfish gain. You knew how naive Elise was, yet you used her to fish out information.”
She looks up at me with hatred in her eyes once more. “I love Elise, but she needs to face the realities of the real world. The only way to instill survival of our own family is to be ahead. Elise didn’t understand that. She was too weak!”
I can feel the anger inside of me boiling up at her. How Elise can’t see past her fake facade, I have no idea. But there is no way she can fool me.
“If anything, you should be mad at yourself. You shouldn’t have exposed her to so much. She’s fragile! She doesn’t know what the real world is like! And now, because of your idiocy, your own father is dead. All thanks to your lovely Elise.” She smiles wickedly at me, and it takes every ounce of my willpower to stay calm. “You don’t know what it’s like to have something so precious as Elise. You don’t deserve her!”
I slam my fist down on the table in anger. “Don’t you sit there and act like you care about her! You can cut the shit! I know everything! I have your file! I have your information to a tee! So you better not speak one more word about her, or I will rip your tongue out and make you swallow it whole. The only reason you are still alive is that Elise wants it. The only reason after her that you are alive is that your husband, for whatever reason, still wants you even after I gave him that file.”
Her eyes grow wide in shock at my words. “You what?”
“I gave him the file. He knows everything. Down to the smallest detail.”
I enjoy the defeat as it creeps on her face. I stand to leave the room. The only reason I’ve come here is to see how deep her “love” for her cousin runs. Now I can move forward with no regrets. Everything is falling into place perfectly. Elise’s father has started all this trying to gain power for himself, but in the end, he has made me the most powerful, and on top of that, I get to keep the most beautiful woman by my side as I take control.
* * * * *
I step into the room and immediately look for Elise. I just want to hold her tonight. I frown as my gaze lands on the bed. It is empty. I haven’t put the collar back on her after I’ve taken her from the bath. I haven’t the heart to. But the door can only be opened with my authorization, so she is somewhere in here.
“Elise?” I call out but get no reply. I try to remain calm.
“Elise,” I try again. Still nothing.
I walk around the corner and see the light to the bathroom on. I calm down a little. She is just taking a bath. I open the door to the bathroom, and for the first time since the night my father has been killed, fear explodes in my chest.
Elise is in the bathtub filled with water. The water is tinted red. Her head is tilted back, and her eyes are closed. Fuck! I sprint across the floor, vaguely registering the shattered mirror. There are mirror fragments with blood on them scattered around the tub. I reach into the water, immediately grasping for her arms, pulling them from the submerged water.
“Shit!” My voice echoes off the walls. Her wrists are sliced to ribbons. Literally. The flesh is cut in different pieces, some deeper than others, like she has closed her eyes and just started stabbing. Her skin is cold and crusted with blood that has floated from the surface of the water.
I immediately grab her out of the tub and rush her to the bedroom, trying to get whatever I can to stall the wounds. In all the frantic moving and getting her to a stable condition, I don’t have the time to check for a pulse. I just pray that when I do, there is one there.
Chapter 18
Elise
Beep beep beep.
The rhythmic sound pulls me from my slumber. I crack my eyes open, and I am looking at an unfamiliar ceiling. I look over, and my heart jumps when I see Luca sleeping in a chair in the corner. Wait. If I am awake and Luca is there …
I pull my hands up in front of my face, and sure enough, there is a thick gauze wrapped around my wrist. No, no, no. I look over to Luca’s sleeping form again. He must’ve found me in time.
I had had it. I had had enough. I didn’t want this anymore. This life, this existence. I didn’t even know why I was here in the first place. I had no one. And that was enough for me to extinguish my life. I didn’t know how, since Luca left nothing in that room for me to improvise with, but I remembered that glass could be used as a weapon. And when I shattered it, the only way to slice deep enough was to stab at it. Or so I thought. The amount of blood I lost in that tub was enough to make me pass out. I thought I was dying. And strangely enough, I was okay with that.
Tears well up in my eyes as the realization of reality dawns on me. Luca has foiled my plans once again. Why? Why does this have to be me?
A loud sob escapes my lips, and to my dismay, Luca jumps up quickly, scanning the room and reaching for his concealed gun. His eyes land on me, and he visibly relaxes. He stands from his seat and steps toward me with concern laced in his eyes. I immediately ignore him and begin tearing at the gauze. Maybe if I can get the gauze off and tear the stitches out fast enough, I can still do this.
My hands are shaking bad, and I can barely focus on what I am doing when a pair of hands gently places themselves over my wrists. I look up, and Luca is so close to me, his gray eyes boring into mine. I immediately recoil.
“Don’t touch me!” I jerk away from him. I squeeze my eyes shut, expecting some kind of repercussion for shouting at him, but I am surprised when there is none. I look up in the silent room and see him standing there with a troubled expression on his face.
“Elise, how could you do that to me? Do you realize, if I were five minutes later, you would’ve been gone?” I narrow my eyes at him.
“Yes. That was what I wanted. That was the plan, to be gone! From all this, from you, from the torture, and from the pain.” I cut myself off as tears overwhelm me. “This isn’t a life worth living.” I look down at my hands, unable to make eye contact with Luca. This isn’t worth it. I have nothing to live for.
I hear Luca take a deep breath before his footsteps echo throughout the chamber. He walks to the door and opens it, slamming it loudly and leaving me alone.
It turns out that this room is a bedroom in our new home together. I had yet to see it because I ran away from Luca in the time I would have gotten to know my own home. Dr. Shotwell comes in to check my vitals and begins speaking to me.
“You gave the capo quiet a scare, young lady. You lost three pints of blood. Any more, and you would have died. Good thing he found you when he did.” He smiles at me, as if I am lucky to be alive. I want to kick him. He knows what is really going on.
Dr. Shotwell is the family physician for Luca’s family. Being a major crime boss means that hospital visits should be kept to a minimum. Hospital visits mean records, and for the type of injuries Luca sustains, police records will be involved. They set the room up with all the machines and equipment of a normal hospital room, so I get the best care and treatment from home.
There is minimal sunlight streaming into the room, so it is very dimly lit, and from all the medication, I eventually lose consciousness.
When I opened my eyes again, Luca i
s back. He is quietly reading a book in the corner. The room is dark, which means I have been asleep long enough for the sun to go down. I look over, and there is a steaming bowl of soup on the tray next to the bed. Luca’s eyes flicker over to me, and he closes the book, slowly standing from his spot across the room.
“I see you’re awake,” he says.
I don’t respond. I just eye him with an untrusting look. He holds my gaze before looking away with a small chuckle. He grabs the bowl off the tray and sits next to me on the bed. I try to scoot away as much as I can, not liking the close proximity that he has with me.
“Stop that, Elise!” he growls out at me. I obey immediately, afraid at what may happen if I keep moving. “Dr. Shotwell said you need to rest and keep something in your system. Your body is going to need help in replenishing all that blood you lost.” He dips the spoon in the bowl and brings the steaming spoon to my lips. He gets irritated when I don’t open my mouth. He lets out a deep breath.
“Elise, I’m not going to play these games with you. Eat.”
After a moment of silence, I finally open my mouth and let him feed me. And damn, if that isn’t the best soup I have ever eaten. After I finish the soup, Luca sets it aside and comes back to the bed, taking a seat. I keep my eyes downcast until I feel his fingers underneath my chin, bringing me up to meet his cool stare.
“Elise, don’t you ever try to take your life again. Do you understand what that made me feel? I thought I’d lost you. I couldn’t live if I lost you.”
“Don’t you realize you almost lost me because of you?” I stare into his eyes as I speak, searching for some kind of understanding from him. When he doesn’t respond, I continue with a little more confidence. “You broke me, Luca. You tortured me. You carved your name into my flesh for God’s sake. You killed people in front of me. How do you not expect me to want to end my life?”
He stares at me for a long time and doesn’t speak. I wish I know what he is thinking. What can possibly be going on in his head for him to think any of this is okay?
“Your cousin’s husband is replacing your father,” he says, suddenly pulling me out of my thoughts. I am caught off guard but realize what he is saying.
“What?”
“Stefano. He’s the new capo of the South.”
I don’t understand why he is telling me this. He completely disregards what I say.
“You want to know something funny, Elise? He told me he would help me with the extermination of the Trovolis.”
My heart jumps. “W-what?” That meant my family. My blood, not just the crime family.
“That’s right, baby. Wanna know something else? Your cousin would have been thrown right into that mix if Stefano asked for it.” He pauses. “You’re wondering why I’m telling you this, right?”
He turns and looks at me with a knowing look on his face. He sits on the edge of the bed and squeezes my cheeks in between his hand.
“Your face is so easily read, sweetie.” He leans in before I can move away and gives me a light peck on the lips. “Now, I know you’re not a heartless person. I mean, you’ve gone through hell to save even people you don’t know.”
His tone is whimsical, which scares me.
“So let’s make a deal. I’m going to let one more Trovoli live. Your brother.” His eyes meet mine, and he loses all jokiness in his tone. “But I swear, if you try to kill yourself again, I will find him. And I won’t kill him, but I will make him suffer every day for the rest of his miserable life. Do you understand me, Elise?”
I meet his glare, trying so hard to keep a straight face, but I lose when my lip starts to tremble and tears well up. I shut my eyes tight, and the tears fall miserably down my face. He has won. Even though I don’t know him, I can’t sentence my brother to unknown torture because of me. And I know Luca will follow up on his promise. He is Luca Pasquino.
I feel his hand on my cheek and open my eyes.
“Oh, baby. It’s only because I love you.”
I immediately bring my hand around to slap his away from my face, but he catches it in midair. He stares at me, and something flickers across his face. He seems to be fighting his emotions. He takes a deep breath and stands from the bed, speaking to me as he walks to the door.
“Remember what I said, Elise. Your brother’s life depends on it.”
He closes the bedroom door behind him, and I can’t help take the pillow I am lying on and chunk it at the door. I fall back in the bed with tears stinging my eyes. Now I have someone else’s life to think about besides my own. Now escape isn’t an option for me anymore. Luca has me. And he can do whatever he wants all because he is dangling my brother’s life in front of me.
I jolt awake as a sound from the door pulls me out of my sleep. I must have nodded off again. It is still dark outside, and the room is only illuminated by the floor lamp. I look to the direction the noise comes from and see none other than Ari standing in the room. She is staring at me with uncertain eyes.
I don’t know whether to feel happiness or betrayal. Ari is my best friend and the person I go to about everything. But finding out that she has intentionally set me up on several occasions to fish out information … well, looking at her is a little hard right now. I immediately look down at my hands, unable to look at her.
“What are you doing here, Ari?” My voice comes out very low.
She still doesn’t speak, but I can hear her shuffling and look up to see her taking a seat in the chair across from me. After a moment of silence, she finally speaks.
“He’s planning to kill them, Elise. All of us. He wants to exterminate the Trovolis.”
I don’t respond to her; I already know that. But there is nothing I can do to stop him. He is one of the most powerful men in the world. And Ari’s actions of killing his father has put him in that position that much quicker than he should have been.
“You’re just going to sit there? Let it happen?”
I can hear the irritation in her voice. I still don’t speak. After a moment, I hear her let out a breathy laugh.
“You can’t be this weak, Elise. You have to do something. You can’t just sit back and let him win! This is our family we’re talking about. We have to protect them!”
She is shouting at me now, and I finally lose my cool. I jump up from the bed, immediately regretting the decision, as I am too weak to stand, but I ignore the spinning room, letting my anger fuel me.
“We? We? We don’t have to do anything. You can do what you want, Ari. They may be my blood, but they are not my family. Where were they when my mother was being murdered by her own husband, huh?”
Ari gasps and puts her hands over her mouth.
“Yeah, you didn’t think I knew about that, did you? You knew all this time! How could you not tell me?” I shout at her.
“I was protecting the family!” she shouts at me.
“Fuck the family!” I scream at the top of my lungs.
“Where was my family when Luca shot through me in cold blood? Oh, that’s right, they were standing right behind me, holding a fucking knife to my throat! Bargaining my life! As if I didn’t matter! I have begged and pleaded for your life so many times, and do you know what becomes of me for begging him?” I yank the shirt I have on off, exposing my side. I motion to Luca’s name. “This!” I immediately spin and show her the welts on my back from his beatings. “This!” I bring up my unbandaged wrist and show her the faint scar on it from being cuffed to that chair and begging for my father’s life.
“This is what I get for trying to protect you! My only family that I thought I had left! That I thought I could trust!” The tears are coming hard and fast, and I can feel my temper rising. I tear off the bandage from my arm and show Ari the stitching done. Some of the stitches are torn, and there is blood oozing from the wound from all my frantic moving. I grab fistfuls of my hair, showing Ari another example of what Luca has done to me.
“This is what I get for trying! For fighting back, for caring about o
ther people’s lives! And what do I get in return? A cousin that used me. Used me! That fed on my frailness, on my stupidity, on my fear of my husband! You never told me! You … you killed his father? Can you even begin to imagine the punishment I had to go through because I was the one that gave you that information? Because I thought I was confiding in my cousin, not giving you information to further our precious family’s power!”
I feel so weak, but I push through the pain. This needs to be said.
“Our family—no, your family is as good as dead. There is nothing I can do that I haven’t already tried. I … I’m just Luca’s property now. I have no authority. I’ve tried to run, and thanks to you, I was caught. I tried to kill him myself, and that didn’t work, and I tried to end my own life, but as you can see”—I motion to the room around me—“it didn’t work.”
A violent cough racks its way out of my body, and I begin to shiver. But I ignore the pain and continue to speak my mind. All the hurt and betrayal I am feeling is finally coming to the surface.
“I wasn’t lucky like you. I didn’t get a husband that adored me and worshipped the ground I walked on. At this very moment, Stefano still loves you even though you betrayed him so bad. He still wants you alive. I got thrown in with Luca.”
The room seems to be getting darker, and I can feel my body getting clammy.
“You’re just like my father. Using me to further your own gain. Our family may have been great, but we’re no match for Luca. Luca’s on a whole other level. Luca hates us so much. Now more so because we are the reason his father is dead.”
I cough again. What is going on with my body?
“You sealed our family’s fate, Ari. And now all I have left is my brother. And I have to protect him.”
Ari doesn’t even blink when I mention my brother. She probably already knows about that too. Of course she does; she is older than me by seven years. I am sure she is aware.
“Whatever happens to them is on your conscience, Ari. I paid my dues. I took my punishments as long as Luca promised not to touch them. You awoke a sleeping beast. And now your whole family is going to pay the price.”
