"Oh, you won't be keeping track of me yourself?" I hiss.
"I won't always be around. I have a business to run."
The thought fills me with fear. It's terrifying to think of being alone in this huge house with Adrian's father, the man who killed my parents in cold blood. Still, Adrian is right. I know his family are art dealers. There are rumors in Sicily that some dealings they make aren't exactly... legal. Still, the Bernardis are mega wealthy. The only thing they're missing is the lineage and reputation of a family like mine.
We, the Da Costas, are the owners of a grappa vineyard that has been famous for centuries. The family business has made us legends, but what the public doesn't know is that the business has fallen on hard times. My father has taken drastic measures to ensure we'd get to keep our vineyards and house, but that often included dangerous people in illegal ways. Of course, I'd never admit any of this to Adrian.
Instead, I glare at the man, wishing he wouldn't have to go away despite my best efforts to hate him. I'll hate being here alone, almost as much as I hated being captive at my parents' house.
"When I'm gone, Eleanora will still report to me," Adrian tells me. "I'll need to make sure you're being a good girl, and if I'm disappointed, you'll be punished. So you better be on your best behavior."
"Where are you going?" I bite my bottom lip the moment the question slips from my lips. I am so weak.
"Where do you think I'm going?" He laughs at me. "To put your brother and fiancé where they belong. In the fucking ground."
I spring from the bed, glaring at the man who is so very different from the boy I once fell in love with. "You're not going to kill my brother."
"You know, Marzia, I find it very interesting that you don't care about Vitto at all." He smirks. "You worry about your brother... What about your fiancé? Don't you care what happens to him?"
I purse my lips, refusing to answer his question. He won't manipulate me anymore.
He pays my silence no mind, just laughing in my face as he steps closer and attempts to touch my hair.
I snap my head away so he can't touch me.
He only grins wider. "I'll make you submit soon enough," he tells me darkly. "You'll be a good girl for me sooner rather than later."
"I'd rather die," I spit out.
"Careful what you wish for." His dark eyes sparkle with eagerness to hurt me. "I might just give it to you."
My heart pounds with fear. Surely, he wouldn't hurt me. I still see the traces of the boy I met in the docks all those years ago in Adrian. I can only hope there's still some humanity left in his soul.
"Maybe I'll bring you your brother's head as a little souvenir once I'm done," he tells me darkly.
In that moment, I see red. I stand up and walk up to him, my hand soaring through the air in an attempt to slap him.
Eleanora takes a deep breath, her hand flying up to cover her mouth just as Adrian catches my wrist mid-air.
"Did you just try to hit me, bambina?" He snarls at me.
9
Adrian
I glare at the girl before me, knowing both our hearts are pounding. Mine with desire, hers with pure hatred for me. But I'll change that soon enough.
My eyes devour her pretty features. The dainty nose, the full, bee-stung lips. She has porcelain skin with an olive undertone and a mass of dark, silky smooth hair. Her eyes are green, dark and piercing at the same time. She's absolutely stunning. How no man has claimed her body yet, will forever be a mystery to me. If I'd gotten my hands on her sooner, there's no way she would've remained a virgin for as long as she did.
Marzia Da Costa won't hate me for long. Not when I'm the only one that can give her what she wants.
I know she wants me. It's written all over her pretty, innocent face as she stares up at me defiantly. I hold her wrist in my hand, and we both know all it would take would be a twist of my fingers and her delicate bones would snap. I won't hurt her though, not today. It's too soon, and when I do give her pain, I want her fucking begging for it.
"Don't fucking test my patience, bambina," I tell her darkly. "You won't like me when I snap... It won't end well for you when I do." My warning is short and concise.
She recoils back in fear when I let go of her skinny little wrist. She rubs the spot I touched, glaring at me with undiluted anger. She feels disappointed that I've stopped her. She wanted me to see how angry she was when she slapped me, to feel the full extent of her anger.
We stare at one another, me daring her to try something else, and her raising her chin defiantly. But she seems to have some self-preservation instincts at least, and she doesn't offer a counterattack, doesn't attempt to argue with me anymore. Good for her. She finally learned her first lesson—no one fucks with Adrian Bernardi. Not even the woman who stole my heart when I was just a little boy.
"One other thing," I tell her with a sick sense of pleasure. "No one in this house will speak to you, so you might as well not even try."
"What?" She glares at me, holding her lithe wrist as if she can still feel the burning touch of my fingers on her flawless skin. "Why?"
"Because I don't want you getting any ideas." I shrug. "You're a prisoner here, and you will be treated as such."
"Do you give all your prisoners pink bedrooms?"
"Watch that mouth," I hiss. "Don't make me punish you on the first day in the Estate. I'm not going to warn you again."
"You don't—"
She doesn't get to finish her sentence, because the doors to her quarters fly open the next second.
My father strides into her space.
Marzia recoils in fear when she sees him. I don't think she'll ever get over her fear of my father. After all, he did murder her parents.
"Father?" I narrow my eyes at him. "I was just finishing up with Marzia and—"
"I'll finish her off for you, then." He pulls a gun from the holster behind his back.
Marzia and Eleanora gasp in unison as he points the gun at my pretty captive.
I curse and step in front of him, ignoring the barrel of the gun that's now pointed right at me. "What are you doing?" I demand. "She's not a threat to us."
"She is…" Father grunts. "She's a liability."
"Put your gun down," I hiss.
"Get out of my way, Adrian." He attempts to shove me aside.
I refuse to move.
He lowers his hand with the gun and glares at me. "Are you really going to go against your father's direct orders, Adrian? You're going to disobey me like this? Have you no respect?"
"We agreed," I hiss at him in hushed tones. "The girl lives."
"Well, I changed my mind." Father grunts. "I want her dead, and I want her dead now." He sidesteps and raises the gun again, clicking the safety off.
Before he can shoot, I knock the gun out of his hand.
A shot rings out, a bullet digging into the floor. Eleanora lets out a gargled groan and Marzia shrieks in fear, cowering in the corner of the room.
I glance at her to make sure she's okay, doing my best to ignore the hurt puppy look on her face and the way her body is trembling with fear. "Are you crazy?" I demand from my father. "We agreed. The girl. Doesn't. Get. Fucking. Hurt."
"You think you can order me around, boy?" Father glares up at me.
I've towered over him for years, but he still intimidates me. But I'm not stepping down, not this time. He won't kill Marzia. I won't let him.
"I own you, this house, and this captive. If I say she's dead, she's dead."
"No." I shake my head. I glance over my shoulder at Marzia's whimpering figure. "Let's talk outside."
"If we must." Father takes one last look at Marzia, like a predator scoping out his prey. He tucks the gun back in its holster and storms out of the room.
I'm tempted to speak to Marzia first, but I trust Eleanora enough to know she'll make sure my captive is okay. Instead of asking if she's okay, I rush after Father and follow him into his office two hallways down.
He groan
s as he enters, the security guards stepping aside to let us pass inside. Father always has someone guarding him. In his line of work, you can never be too careful—and I don't mean the art collector business. He sits behind his desk.
I approach him with narrowed eyes, putting my hands down on the heavy oak desk. "Why did you try to kill her?" I demand. "I thought we had a deal."
"That girl is a fucking liability now that we know Vitto Donatti and her brother survived," Father spits out. "We can't keep her alive. As long as she's here, everyone in this fucking house is in danger. Vitto and her brother won't stop until they have her back."
"Didn't we know all this before we stormed the Da Costa house?" I run my fingers through my hair. "She was always a liability. You never wanted her dead before."
"Of course I did," he says easily, as if taking someone's life is a light topic. "You were just too pussy-struck by her to accept that."
"You can't kill her." I shake my head vehemently. "I can't let you."
"Let me?" Father laughs out loud. "You're forgetting yourself, boy. You remember who owns this house, don't you?"
"That doesn't give you the right to kill the woman I..."
"The woman you what?" He narrows his eyes at me, the sentence hanging unfinished between us.
I press my lips together, glaring at him in a silent face-off and refusing to give him the answer we both already know.
"Fucking hell, Adrian." Father groans. "Don't tell me you're in love with the enemy's daughter."
"Would you let her live if I was?"
He stares at me long and hard before shaking his head. "No, that doesn't change anything. Family comes first, and then the business. Love has no place in this world, Adrian. I don't give a shit about your feelings for her. Accept she's going to die."
"Never," I hiss. "Over my dead fucking body."
Father contemplates his next words while he pours himself a stiff drink.
I notice he's drinking the Da Costa grappa, probably one of the hundreds of bottles we took from the house after we raided it during the masquerade party earlier. Night has turned into morning and into day outside and I suddenly realize I'm bone-fucking tired. But the day isn't over just yet. I still have to convince Father to let Marzia live.
"Adrian, you've been a good son to me," Father finally speaks again. "Even though you are not my blood, I care about you."
It's the closest I've come to an admission of love from my father over all the years I've been alive. My heart pounds in anticipation of what he'll say next. Father never made differences between us brothers. There are five of us, and only one, Santino, is his flesh and blood. The other four of us are adopted from all around the world. My parents were Russian, and my father brought me here when I was three years old. I don't remember anything from my previous life except the pangs of hunger I felt when I was a kid.
We had nothing.
Now I have everything.
And yet I'd risk it all for Marzia Da Costa.
"You are making a mistake by killing her," I mutter.
"No, Adrian." Father shakes his head, taking a thoughtful sip of his drink. "You're making a mistake by allowing yourself to get weak for a woman. It never ends well. Trust me."
I don't know much about Father's private life, apart from the fact that his wife, Santino's mother, died in childbirth. But I don't question him further.
"You have to understand that you will never marry Marzia Da Costa," he goes on, "She can never be yours."
My heart hammer in my chest at his words ."Why not? I thought it would be beneficial to have a connection to the Da Costas."
"Would it?" He stares me down with his impenetrable gaze. "There's nothing left of them, Adrian. They're ruined. No, you will not marry Marzia."
My hands form fists at my sides as I listen to him speak. I don't want this to be true. Even though arranged marriages are a regular occurrance in our world, it never dawned on me that Father might be against my relationship with Marzia. "But that day in the docks," I argue. "You tried to set up an alliance. You wanted me to marry Marzia."
"That was a long time ago." He shakes his head. "Things have changed. We need more powerful allies now, Adrian. Allies like the Carluccis."
"The Carluccis?" I laugh out loud. "You can't be serious."
The Carluccis are a family of traders that has lifted itself through the ranks by the money they make with their import and export business. But they are nouveau riche, considered even lower in rank than us. And their money will never make up for their lack of poise.
"They have a daughter, Nicoletta," Father goes on, ignoring everything I've just said. "I've arranged for you and your brother, Ryder, to travel to their estate in a few days to meet her."
"What?" I glare at him. "But I want to marry Marzia."
"Adrian, you're acting like an insolent fucking child," Father tells me, shaking his head with disappointment. "You will marry Nicoletta. You have three months."
"Three months?" I snap back. "For what?"
"To accept this." Father shrugs. "And of course, to end Marzia Da Costa's life."
I slam my fist on the desk, glaring at him. "You can't be fucking serious!"
"Oh, I'm very fucking serious, Adrian." Father sets down his empty glass tumbler, cold eyes boring into mine. "And since you prevented me from dealing with the Marzia problem today, I'll make things easier for you."
"How?" I bark.
"I want the girl dead," he mutters. "Since you wouldn't let me do that today, that task falls on your shoulders now. Marzia Da Costa must die. You have three months before your wedding day with Nicoletta Carlucci. I expect her to be dead by then."
I'm about to argue but he stops me with his outstretched hand. I know it's a signal I can't ignore—I can't argue with him anymore. As a coughing fit takes over his body, I notice Father's coughing blood into his handkerchief again. My heart pounds.
10
Marzia
Eleanora is the only person who spends time with me. I'm rarely allowed out of the room, especially since Adrian left on some unfinished business he refused to discuss with me. At first, at least I knew he'd stop by my quarters every day. As much as I hated his presence, it also filled me with hope that he'd help me escape this place. But now he's gone, and the daily reprieve of his visits has been ripped away from me, as have been my walks in the garden.
I know my complexion will become pale and sallow if I'm forced to remain inside, but I'm too afraid to bring it up with anyone but Eleanora, and she just stares at me, eyes wide, feeling sorry for me when I speak.
I tried talking to some of the maids when I left the room before, but they all refused to acknowledge me. Adrian had warned me that this would happen. That they'd all been warned to keep away from me, to pretend I don't exist. But I didn't anticipate for it to hurt this much. To wound me as much as it has.
I feel like a ghost in the Bernardi Estate. Unnoticed, living locked up without a single visitor but the mute maid that can do nothing to ease my fears. Every night, I'm plagued by terrible nightmares. I remember Bruno Bernardi and his gun, pointed at my head. There's no doubt about the fact that the man wants me dead. And now that Adrian's gone, I have no one to protect me anymore.
I live in fear of Bruno storming into the room and taking my life. He's already taken everything else. My home, my parents, my brother, my fiancé, and even Adrian. I have nothing left.
It's becoming increasingly hard not to give up. I am plagued by bad thoughts, wishing I really was dead and yet incessantly eager to fight for my life every step of the day.
On the third day of Adrian's absence, Eleanora pushes the curtains in my bedroom aside. I groan when the sunlight beams into the room, rubbing my eyes. Eleanora approaches the bed, and it's then that I notice the excited expression on her face.
"What's going on?" I knit my brows together. I shouldn't try to speak to her, but she doesn't even attempt to answer, and she probably can't, anyway. But it's the one tie I have left with
the normal word, and I don't try to fight the habit. I need to speak before I become mute myself.
She urges me to get up, and I groan, putting my bare feet on the hardwood floor. I follow Eleanora into the salon area in nothing but a white nightie.
At least Adrian took care of my appearance before he left me here to rot. My wardrobes are filled with beautiful clothes, much more revealing and tight than anything I've worn before. I hated it at first, hated being so exposed—but I soon realized no one would be able to see me, anyway, except for Eleanora, and she didn't appear to care about the clothes at all. Now, I'm grateful for the small mercy of getting ready every morning. It keeps me alive and moving, gives me a reason to wake up every day.
Eleanora is waiting for me in the salon, and on the coffee table in front of the sofa is a large package with a bow on top. I furrow my brows as I approach her, warily eyeing the package. "Who is this from?"
She doesn't answer of course, but she does give me a little smile which is more than I've managed to get out of her in the last few days.
I wonder whether I should open the package. It could be an unpleasant surprise... But in the end, my curiosity gets the best of me and I tug on the bow adorning the large box. It gives way and the ribbon falls open. I lift the edge of the box and my eyes widen when I see what's inside.
"Painting supplies..." I whisper. My fingers glide over things I've wanted my entire life. Two blank canvases, a sketchbook, a set of pencils, soft brushes, acrylic paints and paint thinner. This is beautiful. And I don't deserve it.
I shake my head to get the thought out. Just because papa was determined to keep me from doing things I loved too much, doesn't mean I don't deserve them. In any case, the painting supplies are a wonderful gift, and for the first time in months, I feel my heart soar.
"Are these from Adrian?" I ask Eleanora.
Adrian's Vengeance: A Dark Mafia Romance Page 6