Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
I shot up from my spot, ignoring the dizzying pounding in my head. My panic turned to elatedness when I saw Luca appear with his father beside him.
“I thought they got you too,” I said carefully, looking between his father and him. “Where am I?”
Joshua was in his midfifties and was strikingly similar to Luca. He crossed his arms in front of himself and lowered down onto one of the chairs sitting in the room. “We need to ask a favor of you, little Meraki.”
I ignored him and looked to Luca. “You couldn’t just ask me normally?”
Luca continued to look me up and down, and it was then that I saw distance in his gaze, miles that he had never bared to me before. “Your aunt is dead.”
I trembled back, my hands coming to the cold concrete walls as I fell. “What? No, I just saw her. We just saw her…”
Luca’s pale-blue eyes glassed over when his head tilted to the side, his mouth in a straight line. “She’s dead now. They both are.”
I shook my head so roughly that the ends of my hair whipped me across the face. “You’re lying!” I screamed, flying toward Luca until my fist hit the edge of his jaw.
He answered instantly, the back of his hand slapping me across the cheek until I fell to the floor. Shock rippled through my veins as I held on to my aching cheek, my eyes up at his.
Luca grinned, kneeling down beside me until we were eye level again. I heard Joshua sigh, as if he were bored of our antics. As if this was common practice.
Luca’s hand dove into my dried mane of curls, forcing my head back and exposing my neck to him. “I killed her.”
The way the words left his mouth and the way he looked at me now made me realize he wasn’t lying. An ache pulled in my belly. I could barely create words around the tightness in my chest.
“Why?” I choked on a sob before anger took hold of it and shoved it back down my throat.
Luca rubbed his thumb down the graze on my head, but I didn’t feel it, because all I could think about was my beautiful, selfless aunt who gave up her life to raise me when my parents died. “Because, my little chump. All you’re going to have in life is me.”
“Never.” I rolled my tongue in the saliva in my mouth and spat it at his face. “Fuck you!”
The next hit came fast and heavy, and I heard a crunch as soon as my nose swelled.
“Beat her once, Luca, but don’t make a habit of it. You’re both to build a life together. It’s the only way this is going to work.”
Luca grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me up to my feet. I swayed from left to right, unable to keep my eyes open and on him. “You little bitch.” The door closed in the background. “You always made me feel like I was second to your precious little Niko. Now look, Mer. Where’s Niko now?”
His fist was flying toward my face, and I knew that any other day, I could have probably dodged it.
But not today.
I took the hit at once, my head snapping back and my legs giving way as the floor gained clarity the closer and closer I fell to it.
Luca grabbed me by the back of my neck and shoved my face into the floor. My teeth snapped against the concrete, blood spilling out of my nose and mouth. The metallic slime filled me to a point where oxygen could no longer penetrate past it.
He shoved my underwear down and lifted my skirt. I could faintly hear him tug at his belt buckle, but it wasn’t until I felt the harsh penetration of his dick sliding down the crack of my ass and stopping at the entrance of my asshole that I realized how fucked I was.
“Bet he didn’t fuck you here, though, huh?” Luca grabbed me from around the hips and shoved his dick into my ass so roughly I wailed a heavy scream when his hips clashed with my butt cheeks. “So fucking tight and now all mine. All fucking mine.”
He pulled out and moved back in. Every time he entered, it was like knives being twisted and grazed against my canal. The anger I felt meant nothing now, not one thing. Not when the tears continued to roll down onto the concrete to mix with my blood, and not when he leaned over my shoulder and whispered, “Look up, Meraki.”
When I didn’t move fast enough, his hands came to the back of my neck and he pulled my head up in an unnatural angle that would have been about an inch away from snapping. Everything left me when I saw what he wanted me to see.