Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 38723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Maybe she was the one who was my lifeline. I’d never felt more alone, more powerless. My whole life, I’d commanded the people around me. Dante was treating me like I was less than nothing.
You’re not a man. Not anymore. You’re mine. I recalled the stomach-churning words he’d uttered when he’d captured me.
He’d ripped my pride away and thoroughly emasculated me when he’d coerced Nora into forcing me to feel pleasure against my will.
My cheeks burned, and Nora’s expression tightened as though she was remembering the awful scene too.
I drew in a deep breath. I had to hold myself together for her sake. Now wasn’t the time to allow my self-loathing to claim me. Not when she needed me to be strong and promise her that I would find a way to save her.
“Let me see your wrists,” she commanded gently, releasing my hand so that she could open the first aid kit. I followed her retreating touch, my fingers sliding along hers as she pulled away.
To cover my moment of weakness, I thrust both of my hands through the gaps in the bars, my fists clenched.
“I can do it myself,” I said, my voice a touch sharp from my frustration at my own helplessness.
She shot me a level look and then returned to the kit. “Will you know what you’re doing?” she challenged breezily. “Because I do.”
I gritted my teeth. No, I didn’t know how to properly treat my own wounds. When I’d been hurt in the past, I’d always had a private physician on hand to see to my injuries.
Nora gently touched a damp cloth to the ring of raw skin around my right wrist, and I hissed at the sting. I ignored the pain as she efficiently cleaned the wounds, resolving to be stoic around her. It wasn’t as though I hadn’t been hurt before. Just last year, Gabriele had shoved me down in a firefight, saving my life. I’d gotten out with a bloody gash in my side, but I’d survived, thanks to my friend.
My chest tightened. Gabriele’s life was in my hands now. If I defied Dante, he would be killed, or at the very least, tortured.
I couldn’t allow that to happen. Not when I owed him my life. Not when he and Lorenzo had stood by my side since we were kids.
The bars of the cage seemed to press closer, the confining space becoming even smaller.
“How do you know how to do this?” I asked Nora to distract myself from the suffocating sensation.
She peeked up at me, then dropped her focus back to my wrists. She shrugged as she wrapped them in gauze.
“I had to tend to Giana and myself over the years, especially after my mom died. Without her to remind him, Father forgot to make sure our injuries were treated after we received a beating.”
Rage licked at my insides in a fiery burst, a familiar burn that I felt whenever I thought of her father. Only this time, it seared my heart. All my loathing for Giuseppe had been magnified.
He was the reason I was Dante’s prisoner; I’d been captured when I’d run straight into his trap. Giuseppe was the one who’d ensured my suffering when he’d betrayed me and given Nora to the monster.
His own daughter. He’d condemned her to a lifetime with a sadist. Twice.
“I should’ve killed Giuseppe the moment I found out about his plans to marry you off to Dante,” I growled, muscles flexing with unspent violence.
I’d known about the old man’s callous cruelty for years before that, and I’d done nothing. Nora had suffered her whole life under his thumb. After Alberto attacked her at our wedding reception, I’d learned that she’d suffered at her family’s hands. But the casual way she spoke about her father’s abuse made me see red.
“I should’ve killed the old bastard years ago,” I gritted out. “I’ve wanted him dead since I was thirteen, but I let him live, even when he tried to set up Dante to usurp me.”
Fury singed the inside of my chest, but I had no outlet for my murderous impulses.
Nora’s eyes flashed up to meet mine, surprise making her dark lashes sweep her brows. “You’ve wanted to kill him since you were a teenager? Why?”
“He’s the reason my mother is dead.” Familiar hatred spiked through my heart, a black, icy blade.
“What?” she gasped. “I thought you said your mom died of an overdose.”
I nodded grimly. “She did. She became addicted to opiates after my father beat her so badly that she was hospitalized. He beat her because he found out she’d been having an affair with Giuseppe, his best friend. But of course, he did nothing to retaliate against your father; my mother was the only guilty party in his eyes. And Giuseppe didn’t defend her. He’d claimed to love her in order to lure her into bed, but he let her suffer alone in that hospital. He didn’t say a word as we all watched her succumb to addiction. And on the night she died, he came to our house. I overheard him cursing her name for her weakness in an attempt to console my father.” I gnashed my teeth at the memory. “The fucker should be in the ground by now. I should’ve ended him that same night.”