You have my blood,myson. You come from me.He had cupped his balls.You killed all the rest by out-performing them. This tells me how powerful you are. I see it in you, the monster that will make all other monsters fear. I feel it. But you deny your true nature. You should be ashamed of the man you have become. You deny me. You deny your family, your roots, and your honor. Most of all, you deny the man God intended for you to be.
“Oh.” Her bottom lip started to tremble, and tears came glistening and fast down her cheeks. “How can you believe that?”
It was like she could sense the deeper thoughts, though she hadn’t touched the depths of them.
“It’s the truth,” I said. “You’re the only one who can’t see it.”
She flinched away from my words.
“It’s the truth, Scarlett. I am what he says.”
“No,” she shook her head. “He’s the lying bastard!”
“He can’t lie to me.”
“Oh, that’s right.La mia parola è buona quanto il mio sangue. Is that correct? Yes, I thought so.My word is as good as my blood. Well,” she said, shaking her head, on the verge of losing her composure. “I wonder if you’reinhis blood, like you’re in mine.”
Taking a few deep breaths, she calmed herself, pulling it together. She let out a trembling breath before she blinked a few times, coming to stand even closer to me. She looked into my eyes, her lashes black as night, wet with tears.
“You might have come from him,” she said so softly that I barely heard her, “but you were created for me. Just like I was born for you. He gives you the truth? Well, Ifeelyour truth in my veins.” She took a step back. “I’m just sorry thatyoucan’t see the truth for yourself. That you can’t cut the link from his chains.”
“Scarlett.” I called after her after she had turned, my tone sharp.
“I’m going home!” she said. “I’m going to pack the rest of your things!”
Again, it took only a step or two to catch up to her. I grabbed her by the arm and she froze. No rings on any fingers.
“Come with me.”
“Where?”
“I have something for you.”
“No.”
Being well acquainted with that tone of no, I counted to five, and then picked her up, throwing her over my shoulder, just like I had done back home when she’d refused to budge.
“Brando!” She pounded on my back, trying to slap myculo. “Put me down!”
“Keep fighting and I’m going to spank yourass.” I nodded to a man and woman staring at us openmouthed as we passed. “Good evening.” I tipped my head to them, keeping a firm hand on the dress so it wouldn’t ride up.
“Spank my ass!” She repeated, aghast. “You wouldn’t!”
“Have before.”
“That—” she took her voice down a notch, almost hissing. “That was in the privacy of the bedroom.”
“Our bedroom.”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she moaned, going limp. Her hands lifted and fell against my back every time she spoke. “You’re an absolute brute, a beast, a… a…”
“Un trou du cul,” I supplied.
“Yes!Precisely!”
“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” I said.
I walked for about ten minutes, her bobbing along, before we reached the old building. Once inside, I set her firmly down. She scowled at me, adjusting the length of the dress, though it hadn’t budged. An entire breast was almost visible; the fabric had shifted too much to one side.
