Antonio needed to get new clothes ordered. He would see to it this morning. He gave her the dress she had worn the second day. It had been cleaned and returned to her wardrobe.
“This doesn’t really fit me. It’s too tight there.” She motioned over her breasts as she blushed.
“I prefer dresses. It will be seen too that you get appropriate things.” That was the end of the discussion. She didn’t answer back. He was glad that she was learning her place so quickly.
Antonio brought her down to breakfast. He could feel her shaking as they got closer the dining room. Vinnie was already at the table reading several papers of his laptop. “Good morning Antonio, Anna.” He gave them each a nod.
Anna also gave him a nod as she sat down at her spot. She was sitting on Antonio’s right side with her back to the window. Hopefully, they would have a normal breakfast, she thought. Anna felt as if she were starving.
A couple of young maids came in and brought them their food. Anna noticed their eyes as they smiled at Antonio. They looked as if they knew him well. They were smiling and almost giggling.
She felt lucky that they didn’t drop her plate in front of her. Their smiles disappeared when they looked at her. A cockroach would have gotten a more loving look. She hoped they hadn’t spat on her food.
The food was normal. She ate her fill. Anna had been feeling weak lately. She had been through so much in too short of a time. She wanted out of here so badly.
As always, the men ignored her. She had finished eating and gazed around the room to cure her boredom. It had hard wood floors. All the rooms had them. The walls were painted a pretty French blue and the furniture all matched. It was dark wood. It was very expensive looking.
He had a lovely home. She didn’t see it as being hers.
Vinnie stood up, excused himself by Anna and left.
Antonio turned his attention back to her. He glanced at her plate and nodded. He loudly called out something in Spanish.
The big woman from last night came in.
Antonio spoke with her and pointed at Anna a lot. Señora Raposa answered and nodded often. Anna felt so frightened because he didn’t look pleased. The woman shook her head and nodded. Anna was worried that she had done something wrong.
Antonio got up and left too. Anna looked at the woman for some sign of what was expected of her now.
“I come to your room in two hours,” the woman said before she left.
Anna slowly got up and went to the door.
The maids were back for their dishes. They were even more obvious in their hate now.
Anna went into the courtyard and closed the door behind her.
The women laughed as soon as she was gone.
Anna fought back tears. She scolded herself for letting them get to her. She had bigger problems than them.
Anna was on her way to her room when she spotted a beautiful white cat with tiger-spots on it, lying in the sun. She carefully knelt down next to it and carefully petted it.
Cats could suddenly attack, she knew that, but this one allowed her to pet it. She whispered to the cat, telling her what a nice cat she was. The cat got up and walked around her legs and purred.
“Anna!”
Her head shot up, and she looked for the source of his anger. He was standing outside of his office the door was open. There were other men in there too. She rose to her feet.
“Go!” His head motioned to the staircase.
She gave the cat a brief glance and went up to her room. She cried for a bit, frustrated by her own helplessness. Then she read in her book for lack of anything better to do.
She had already started the second one when the big woman came in with one of the maids and a woman she had never seen before.
Anna stood up as they came in. She had a feeling that they didn’t like her. She feared that they might attack her.
The older woman stood behind Anna and tugged her dress down to her waist. Anna’s arms crossed over her breasts. Were they going to punish her because she hadn’t gone straight to her room?
“He wants you have new dresses. This woman make for you.” Señora Raposa said in English. The woman got out a measuring tape.
The maid was trying to hide a smirk. The older woman scolded her. She sat down at Anna’s desk and took a pencil in her hand.
Anna breathed in through her nose, trying not to cry. She would never be happy here. Her only job was to obey and to let things be done to her, be it sex, punishments or what these women wanted.
They measured her, and the maid wrote down what the other two told her to write. They measured everything.
The maid laughed as she wrote down the waist measurements. Anna thought that she had lost a lot of weight since she had met Antonio. She certainly wasn’t fat.
The older woman removed her dress completely, and the woman stared at the marks on her bottom. They had already started to heal, but it still looked bad.
She avoided eye contact as the room turned terribly quiet. The maid looked up to see what was wrong. She snorted a light laugh.
Anna’s shaking got even worse.
The women finished up and left. Anna put her dress back on and sat down on her bed and cried.
Chapter 14
“Anna!” Antonio was calling for her again.
Anna wiped her tears away and stepped out onto the balcony that surrounded the second floor. He was standing in the courtyard. He stilled looked so mad.
Antonio made a motion with his head that she should come down. He took her hand at the bottom of the stairs and look at her face. If he wasn’t mad before, then he was now.
He wanted to show her off, and she looked as if she had been crying. “This is about that damn cat, isn’t it?” He stopped to ask her.
Her shoulders jerked forward as she tried so hard not to cry because she was so afraid that he would punish her if she did.
He shook his head. “You can play with the cat in your room where no one can see you, but only if you can catch it in less than a minute on the way up to your room after lunch.”
The cat was still lying in the sun. She had a good chance of catching it, he thought. His offer was fair and just. “You have to act like the lady of the house.”
He escorted her into the dining room. It was filled with men who were talking with each other at once. It was very loud. Antonio sat her down in her chair before he sat down in his. The food was already being brought in. It was similar to what had been served last night.
Anna wasn’t hungry so it didn’t matter anyway. She tried it for good measure, but it was exactly as spicy as the stuff last night. Every once in a while, she took a mini bite.
No one seemed to be paying attention to her. The men were talking over each other. They were only silent when Antonio spoke.
The meal lasted over an hour. Anna was bored, and boredom made her thoughts wander. She worried about this and that. Her mind was still in New York, and then it jumped to the gossip that was probably going on in the kitchen and then back to what was going on in the room here.
The maids brought in dessert. They cleared away plates and replaced them with a pink sherbet looking dessert. Antonio held onto Anna’s plate so the maid couldn’t remove it. He said something to her, and then she did remove it. She also took the last dessert with her as she left.
Anna was surprised that the talking didn’t resume as it usually did once he had stopped speaking. She glanced around. All eyes were on her. She looked at Antonio, who was scowling at her.
“I told the maid to set your plate aside for dinner. You won’t get anything else to eat until that plate is cleaned.”
She nodded that she understood.
“Go.” Antonio tilted his head to the side, motioning to the door.
She rose up and pushed her chair back in. All eyes followed her as she left the room.
“No cat!” he called after her.
He was so mad at her. He was providing her with everything she needed, and she wouldn�
��t accept it. If they had been alone, then he would have given her a taste of his belt already. He wanted her to appreciate what he gave her. He was fit to be tied. She hadn’t thanked him for the dresses that he was having made for her either. Saying thank you shouldn’t be difficult for her.
Antonio returned his attention to the men. They talked business again.
They had been surprised by how cold he had been with his fiancée. He treated her as if he couldn’t stand her.
Some were starting to rethink their bitterness that he hadn’t chosen a girl from one of their families.
After the meal, most of the men sought out a chance to talk to Vinnie alone and ask him what was going on between the boss and his fiancée.
Vinnie explained that he had kidnapped her and was now saying that she would be his wife. He was as confused as they were. Several of the men suggested that their daughter or nieces would be a more obvious choice for the boss’s son.
Anna read all afternoon as she worried having to eat that terrible food. She couldn’t eat anything she didn’t like. And she didn’t like a lot. It always came back up.
Mealtimes had been terrible for her as a child too. Her mother had forced her to stay sitting at the table until her plate was clean. She remembered sleeping on her folded arms at the table.
She hadn’t been a stubborn child; she simply couldn’t do it.
Would the fight end with her throwing up, or would that get her punished all the more, she wondered?
Chapter 15
“Anna!”
It was suppertime already. Anna went down to Antonio, and he gave her a look, warning her. He sat her down at her spot and stared at her.
Anna was glad that they were alone.
He didn’t look away as the older woman brought in their plates. Anna got her plate from lunch.
She stared at it and picked up her fork. She tried a little, but even though it was cold it was too hot for her.
“Eat it, Anna.” His tone was not one to mess with, but she couldn’t eat this.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t care for spicy foods,” she confessed.
Antonio pushed his chair back with such force that the chair flew backwards, and he reached out and grabbed her by her arm. He laid her over the table in between their plates. He held her hands behind her back as he removed his belt.
“Please don’t. Spicy foods make me sick. I’m so sorry.” She knew that her begging was pointless, but her lips felt the need to do something to save her poor backside from what was about to come. This would be like the punishments she got for lying about her driver’s license and for trying to run away. Those punishments hadn’t turned her on. They had hurt.
He lifted her dress and ripped her underwear off her. His belt whistled as it sliced through the air. He hit her without mercy until his arm hurt him. She had cried out at the first blow, but she cried softly after that. Her will had long since been broken.
He sat her down on her chair and held her firmly in place while she squirmed from the pain. He picked up a spoon and filled it with food from her plate and shoved it into her mouth.
She gagged and choked on it. He held her nose closed and forced her to swallow it. She threw it up on her plate.
Antonio was shocked that she had done that. He laid her over the table again. By the time, he was done with her, he had brought his belt down over a fifty times.
She fell to the floor when he let go of her. He picked her up and set her down on shaky feet. She held onto the table for support.
“Go to bed, Anna,” he demanded of her.
She concentrated on walking out of the door. She walked as best she could, but she was sore. Her hands were rubbing her rear end, trying to ease the burn.
She stood at the bottom of the steps and looked up at them. There were so many steps. She longed to lie down in her bed and sleep so she forced her feet to carry her up the stairs.
Anna made it to the top of the stairs. She felt the heat rise up in her body. There was pressure on her chest. She felt so dizzy and sleepy.
Chapter 16
A woman screamed. There was a body at the bottom of the stairs. Lights went on all over the house. The bottom of the staircase was lighted up, and everyone could see what had happened.
Antonio also went out to see what was wrong. He had been working in his office. He pushed his way through the crowd to see what had gotten everyone so excited. The housekeeper was praying over a body. His butler was rolling it over.
He saw his Anna.
Was she dead?
He took her from the butler and carried her up to her room. He laid her on her bed and listened for a heartbeat.
She was breathing very softly. He turned the chair from her desk and watched her unconscious sleep.
He wouldn’t let himself feel guilty. She had gotten what she deserved. That she fell on the stairs was unfortunate. Maybe she did it on purpose, or maybe she slipped as she could have any day.
For someone who told himself that he didn’t have to feel guilty, he sure did have a lot of butterflies in his belly.
Antonio took hold of her hand and held it as he stared at her. He knew that someone would call the doctor. He had to be patient and wait for the doctor to come and fix her.
Antonio watched her until there was a knock on her door. He stood and went to the door. He glanced back at her before he opened it. The knock hadn’t woken her.
“The doctor was called for,” Antonio’s butler informed him. He stepped aside so the village doctor could look at her.
The doctor had heard the rumors, but hearing them and seeing them were two different things. The woman lying unconscious on the bed didn’t look good at all.
Any other man would have received a tongue lashing from him, but Antonio was the boss man. He had control over everyone’s life or death here.
If this was how he treated his future wife, then he wouldn’t treat the people well either. “She has to go to the hospital. She needs x-rays. Lots of them.”
“No, she stays here.” Antonio wasn’t about to let her get away now that he finally had her here. The thought of letting her leave didn’t sit well with him. It felt wrong, too wrong to let her go.
“If bones are broken, they need to be set immediately. If she has internal bleeding, she will die.” The doctor tried to reason with the young man, but he could see from the look on his face that there was no chance for the girl to survive.
He wouldn’t let her go. “She’s fine. She only needs to rest. At this hour, everyone should be in bed. Thank you for coming. Goodbye.” Antonio went back to Anna. He didn’t like the way the doctor had turned her. She never slept like that. He rolled her back on her side.
The doctor felt a flicker of hope, watching the way the boss gently touched the girl. He stepped close to Antonio so no one else could hear what he was saying. He knew above all else that Antonio’s pride had to be preserved. “If you feel even an ounce of love for the girl, you will let me take her with and try to fix her. If she stays here, she will probably be dead by morning.”
“She stays. Besides, she might be pregnant. You can’t do x-rays then.”
“Señor, if she was pregnant, she isn’t anymore,” he whispered.
“Leave us alone,” he barked. Antonio listened to the men leaving and sat down with his Anna.
“I’ll come by in the morning to check on her progress.” The doctor and the butler left.
A crowd had gathered by the entryway of the courtyard. The people that had resented her being here were starting to think differently.
They were afraid of the boss now. They had seen her at the bottom of the stairs. Most believed that he pushed her. They knew why, because she hadn’t cleaned her plate. They had heard him beating on her.
Vinnie entered the courtyard as the doctor was about to leave. He looked at the crowd gathered here. They whispered to him, telling him what had happened. Vinnie was shocked. He didn’t think he would kill her. He held up his hand, stopping th
em.
Vinnie called the butler and the head of the household over to him and step aside with them. “What happened?” he asked them.
The head of the household nervously wrung her fat hands together. “He had order that she get the same plate as at lunch. I had only been gone for a minute when he started whipping her. I went in later and they were gone. I cleaned everything up. She had thrown up. When I was doing my rounds, I found her at the bottom of the stairs. I thought she was dead.”
The butler took over then. “I heard my wife scream and came to help. The young miss was lying at the bottom of the stairs, and I ordered that the doctor be called. I tried to turn her over, but the boss came and picked her up and brought her to her room. He seemed surprised that she was there. When the doctor arrived, I brought him to them. The doctor wanted to take her to the hospital, but Master Antonio refused.”
Vinnie had a feeling that the butler was leaving out a lot, but Vinnie knew that he was very loyal to the boy.
He decided it was time to talk to the doctor and then maybe to Antonio. He dismissed them and called the doctor over who started in talking without him asking any questions.
Vinnie made a mental note to remind the good doctor about his oath after he had told him everything he wanted to know.
“The girl looked terrible. Bruises everywhere,” the doctor told him. “The one on her face didn’t come from the fall. She wouldn’t wake up. She hardly had a pulse. I begged him to let me take her to the hospital. He refused and said she had to stay here. I told him that she could have internal bleeding and broken bones that she needed x-rays. He said no, and that she might be pregnant so she couldn’t have them. I explained that if she was pregnant, then after the fall she wasn’t anymore. He ordered us out then. I told him she would probably be dead by morning. I’ll come back for the body then.”
“As a doctor, you have to keep everything that happened to yourself. You understand. You gave an oath, and there are other reasons to keep quiet too.” Vinnie looked at the doctor pointedly.
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