by Nicole Fox
Rokiades eyes me, wondering if he’s done enough to put me in place. I drag my eyes up to meet his, even as my head whirls with pain and deliriousness.
“Seriously,” I bite out through a cough, “had to bring a pack of tissues with me to the firefight and everything.”
The Greek snarls angrily. “Again!” he roars.
Confirmed: the man really doesn’t like humor.
I’m prepared for the second punch, though. I barely feel it—mostly because I’m waiting for Renata’s reaction. She’s cringing away from me, her eyes half-averted, and half-peeled, as though she can’t decide whether to look away or not.
Rokiades signals for the man to keep going. Karl rains blows on my exposed torso. I think I feel a rib crack at one point, though by now my whole body is such a blur of pain that I can’t be sure.
After a while, the Greek raises a hand and his thug stops assaulting me. “Would you like a go?” Rokiades offers, pushing Renata forward toward me.
She almost trips in her ridiculous high heels as she tries to push him away. “Stop this,” she whispers, so low I barely catch it.
“What was that?”
“Please… make him stop.”
Rokiades holds up his hand and his goon melts away into the background. I glance up to Renata, hoping that she’ll pay attention to the purpose in my eyes.
Let me be the one to suffer, I’m saying. I have the strength to get through this.
I don’t dare say the other part: that I fear she may not be strong enough for what he has in store for her.
“You care for him, don’t you, dear?” Rokiades asks.
She’s quiet for several long seconds. Refusing to take his bait.
“Hmm… maybe I’ve got it wrong. Karl, continue.”
The blow comes from the back this time, right at the middle of my spine. Feels like the bastard grabbed a club from somewhere unseen. I arch forwards and roar in agony as my eyes roll back towards the warehouse ceiling.
“No!” Renata bleats. “Stop!”
I feel her scream as though it’s echoing inside me. When my head sags forward again, Rokiades is gazing at Renata with a jealous triumph in his eyes.
“What will you do to make it stop?” he inquires gently.
I want to tell her not to say a word. Let me suffer, I plead again. I can take it. I’ll take it for you.
But she won’t look at me. Can’t see the message in my gaze. He’s laid the perfect trap… and she’s about to talk right into it.
“Anything,” she says. The word flies out of her in an agonized moan.
I feel my chest constrict uncomfortably. It’s a feeling I don’t recognize. One I’m not used to. One I’m woefully unprepared to deal with.
“Then it’s simple,” he says. “Marry me. Freely and willingly. In front of my friends, family, and colleagues. That is my condition. If you accept it, the beatings and the torture will cease.”
“You’ll release him?”
He snorts with laughter. “No, of course not. I am no fool. Kian O’Sullivan is a valuable asset and I will not set him free. At least not yet. But he will be given a room with a bed and three meals a day. And of course… no pain.”
Renata flinches. Her eyes flit up to mine.
I shake my head. Imperceptibly, but I’m almost certain she notices. And yet she ignores it.
“Fine,” she says, without missing a beat.
I don’t even have the energy to argue.
Rokiades looks positively euphoric. “Yes?”
She nods. “I’ll marry you.”
“How wonderful,” he says. “Well then, we’re engaged. Officially. How lucky you are to be here for it, Kian! A moment to remember.”
He puts a hand on Renata’s shoulder. I want to fucking break it off.
“Now, Renata, my love, let us seal the promise,” he serenades. “Give me a kiss, glikia mu.”
She tenses visibly, but she doesn’t cringe away or refuse him. She takes a step forward and presses her lips to his cheek in the lightest of kisses before she backs away.
The Greek’s face twists into anger. “That is not worth the sacrifice I’ve just made for you,” he snarls. “Make me believe you mean it.”
The gap between this moment and the next feels like it lasts a lifetime. Renata standing there, tall and lithe and beautiful. Her hair like dark silk. My heart aches with how bad I want her. How wrong this is to make me watch this shit.
Renata closes her eyes.
Leans forward.
All the pain I’ve been dealt is nothing compared to this. To watching her give herself up to another man. To a fucking beast.
I’ll take a thousand needles to the skin, a thousand punches to the gut if it means never having to witness this shit.
But just as I go to turn my head away, my good friend Karl snatches my face between his meaty, bloodstained hands and forces me to look…
Right as Renata’s lips touch the Greek’s.
I strain against my bonds and try to roar, though almost no sound comes out and I’m tethered too tightly to my wooden boards to do much more than tremble the metal chain-links.
My vision goes red. The only thing I can see is all the ways I’m going to kill this motherfucker when I get free.
He doesn’t know it yet. And neither do I—I don’t know how I’ll get out of here, or when, or what it will cost me.
All I know is this: sooner or later, that moment will indeed come.
And when it does, I’m going to make him hurt.
49
Renata
Three Days Later
“How is he?”
Rokiades looks at me with obvious annoyance. “How the fuck am I supposed to know?” he demands. “I don’t want to see the Irishman’s face any more than necessary.”
I take some comfort in that. If Kian was still being tortured, I’m pretty sure Rokiades would be there to see it. He’s sadistic like that. Petty and sadistic.
“Part of our deal was that you would make sure he was comfortable.”
“And part of the deal was that you would start playing the fucking part,” Rokiades hisses at me. “You don’t look like a happy bride to me right now.”
I grit my teeth. “That’s because you insist on forcing me to wear that hideous dress.”
I gesture towards the gown that’s hung against the back of the door. It’s a massive frilly confection with puffy sleeves and a low neckline.
Rokiades narrows his eyes. “That was my mother’s dress.”
“That makes sense,” I remark. “I don’t know how to break this to you, but that dress went out of style around the time you were born. So five hundred years ago, give or take.”
The head seamstress who’s about to take my measurements exchanges a glance with her two assistants. Something that doesn’t go unnoticed.
“Lola, take the girls and go outside,” Rokiades orders without bothering to even look at them.
The older woman bows her head deferentially and snaps her fingers at the two young girls behind me. They follow her out of the room.
I square my shoulders as Rokiades gets to his feet. He walks to me slowly. His stomach seems to have doubled in the last few days. I have noticed that he’s been eating a lot more lately—stress eating, perhaps? I sincerely hope so. He’s got good reason to be stressed, from what I can tell. I may be confined to my bedroom most days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hear things.
There have been attacks all over the city. Irishmen attacking the Greeks and the Italians alike. Things are escalating fast.
And it seems that without Kian’s leadership, the attacks are both brutal and leave no room for diplomacy. Everything I’ve heard has been pieced together based on scraps I overhear from my own guards.
None of it sounds good for Rokiades.
He leans down in front of me, giving me an eyeful of his stained grey whiskers. “I have been very generous with you,” he warns. “Too generous. Don’t make me regret it.”
I look down, biting back the retort on my tongue.
“Kiss me, Renata.”
I raise my face up, but I refuse to look at him as he leans the rest of the way in. His fat, dry lips scrape against mine. The whole time, I hold my breath, stay deathly still, and pray for it to be over.
He pulls away in frustration. “You call that a fucking kiss?”
I stay silent.
“There’s no life, no passion behind it! It feels like I’m kissing a corpse.”
I want to tell him to get used to it, but I clamp down on my tongue instead. I can feel his eyes boring into me. He’s annoyed with me—angry even.
I know this isn’t just about me, though. The noose is tightening. And he’s getting nervous.
The wedding date was moved forward three weeks. As best as I can guess, the Lombardi loyalists and the leadership of the Mariani family are both reluctant to commit to the alliance with the Greeks before the wedding actually takes place.
I hadn’t put up a fight when Rokiades broke the news to me about the change in timing. He didn’t like that—I’ve fought him on everything else, so why not this? But I let him be as suspicious as he wants.
I just need to protect myself… and the child I’m carrying.
Instinctively, my hands twitch towards my stomach, but I suppress the urge forcefully.
This child is nothing short of a miracle. I spent the first few days after the revelation in denial. The doctor who’d examined me a lifetime ago in the wake of my rescue from the bikers had told me in no uncertain terms that I was damaged beyond repair. That I’d never be able to bear a son or a daughter.
But Dr. Lenore is certain.
“There are lacerations in your womb,” she’d explained, “but they’re not so bad that they can prevent you from getting pregnant. The human body is remarkable. It’s amazing how it can heal itself against all odds.”
I’d been only nineteen when I was told I would never be a mother. I suppose I was young enough and broken enough that the news felt almost like a blessing back then. Why would I want to have children? To perpetuate the cycles of violence and unhappiness I’d been born into?
No, it felt like the inability to get pregnant was a good thing. As I’ve gotten older, that has changed so imperceptibly, so slowly I didn’t even notice until now.
It isn’t that I want to have a child, per se. I just resent the fact that I’d been robbed of the choice. And now… well, there hadn’t been much of a choice involved.
But I am pregnant.
With Kian’s baby.
And somehow, it’s hard to find the downside in that. Except for the fact that I’ve agreed to marry another man. One minor hiccup.
“I’m going to expect more from you from now on,” he says, straightening up a little.
“More?”
“The talking back needs to stop,” he says firmly. “I expect you to be respectful and courteous at all times. I expect obedience at all times. I expect submissiveness at all times.”
I tense, but I know that agreeing to his terms are the only way to get what I want—Kian’s life intact. “How do I know you’ll hold up your end of the bargain?”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I told you O’Sullivan will not be touched and he hasn’t been. Not since you and I came to our little arrangement.”
“I haven’t seen him since then,” I point out. “I want proof.”
He stills for a moment, eyeing my carefully. “Proof?”
“I want to see him.”
He looks irked at the mere request, but he’s trying to contain it. He’s trying to act as though he’s not jealous. But I’ve always been able to read jealousy. It’s not an emotion that men can handle or hide easily.
“That is inappropriate.”
“Almost as inappropriate as forcing a girl who’s less than half your age to marry you?” I ask. “I doubt it. I’m giving up a lot here. My freedom, my autonomy, my happiness. I’ve agreed to marry you and I’ve agreed not to embarrass you in front of your guests. All I’m asking is to see Kian. One hour a day. That’s all.”
Rokiades likes that part even less. “An hour every day?”
“Yes.”
“Not a chance in hell.”
“I’ll wear your mother’s dress without complaining,” I tell him. “I’ll smile as I walk down the aisle. And I’ll… I’ll give you the heir you want so much.”
His eyes go wide at that.
Apart from demanding a few wet kisses from me, he hasn’t tried to force himself on me. God only knows what’s keeping him away. But I know that will change after we’re married.
I also know that the only reason he hasn’t raped me already is because he’s terrified I’ll shut down and that’ll ruin the precious image he wants to offer up on the wedding day. An image of power and control for all the other dons in the city to fall for.
“You’ll give yourself to me?” he asks. “Willingly?”
“Yes.”
He smile spreads across his face. “Fine,” Rokiades says with a curt nod. “You can see him. But one hour is out of the question.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he holds up his hand, silencing me.
“Fifteen minutes,” he says. “That’s all you’ll get. And you will be accompanied by two guards at all time. Nor will you be permitted in his cell. I don’t want that animal’s hands to touch what’s mine.”
I flinch back at the possessive bent of his words. “Fine,” I mutter. “Deal.”
He nods once more and pivots away from me, but I can tell there’s something on his mind. Something that’s troubling him.
“How did he do it?” he asks, turning back slowly to look at me.
“Do what?”
“Make you fall in love with him.”
I bristle instinctively. “I’m not in love with him.”
Rokiades cocks his head to the side and gives me an almost pitying expression that makes my stomach twist. “You’ve bound yourself to me for life in order to save his,” he points out. “Why else would you sacrifice yourself for a man like him, except for love?”
My heart beats unsteadily, but I try and remain calm.
“So tell me, Renata,” Rokiades presses, “how did he do it? I understand the surface appeal. He’s rich, good-looking, powerful. But that can’t be the only reason he—”
“I don’t love him,” I say again. I want so badly to believe it. For one instant, I do. I close my eyes and say it again, as if to convince myself. “I don’t love Kian. I just don’t want to see anyone suffer on my behalf anymore.”
I can feel Rokiades’s gaze raking over me as he weighs that. In the end, he shrugs. “If you say so.” His footsteps shuffle across the floor as he heads for the exit.
His voice oozes from the hallway as he gives orders to the seamstresses. “Lola, you may begin taking her measurements. And make sure they’re precise. I want the dress to hug her figure. Let the world see what I now own.”
I feel a kernel of dread as Lola and her assistants re-enter the room. The wedding is only two weeks away now. I just hope my body doesn’t go through any major changes in the meantime.
Hold on, little one, I whisper silently to the life in my womb. We’ll get through this. Just stay with me. I’ve got you.
50
Renata
I’m flanked by two guards. Both are older men with expressionless faces. They lead me to a hidden building at the very back edge of Rokiades’s property.
It feels weird that Kian has been so close to me this entire time. A stone’s throw away—but with a whole fucking world between us.
When I walk into the warehouse, the large wooden plinth-like structure that he’d been tied to is gone. I can’t see him anywhere. “Where is he?” I ask.
Neither guard answers me. Instead, they lead me silently to the back of the warehouse, towards a line of doors with small square partition windows at the top. I know immediately that the second door on the right is Kian’s
room because there’s a guard stationed just outside it.
Before I can head over, the door opens and none other than Dr. Lenore walks out. She’s wearing one of her signature baggy shirts and her head looks freshly buzzed. The guard locks the door and follows her as she makes her way towards me.
“Renata,” she says with a pleasant smile, as if we’re old friends. “You’re looking well.”
I glance over her shoulder. “Were you treating Kian?”
“I was.”
“Is he okay?”
She gives me a sympathetic smile. “His injuries will all heal in time. How are you?”
Her question is pointed. I know what she’s really asking. “Tired,” I respond. “But otherwise, good.”
I’m about to move past her when she reaches out and grabs my wrist. “Renata…” I look down and she drops my hand immediately. “I have to tell you: Don Rokiades has requested your medical file. And when he sees it…”
I freeze. “Oh.” She doesn’t have to say the unspoken part. When he sees it, he’ll know your pregnant. He’ll know it isn’t his.
“He’s expecting me to hand it over in a day or two,” she says. “I can’t stall much longer than that.”
I nod. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Good luck,” she says before walking away.
I close my eyes for a moment, trying to determine to how handle the coming shit storm. I decide that there’s nothing more I can do but brace.
For now, I need to see Kian. I take a deep breath and open my eyes. “Stay here,” I tell my guards authoritatively.
Neither one seems inclined to listen. I stop and turn around slowly. Drawing myself up to my full height, I look each man in the eye. “I am to be your don’s wife. Do you really want to get on my bad side so early?” I ask.
“We have orders—”
“Your orders are to watch me. I will be within your line of sight, talking to the man through a closed door. Let’s not be precious about this.”
The two guards exchange a glance, and then the taller of the two shrugs slightly. Then, in unison, they retreat a few steps back down the hallway. Smart boys.