“Every time gets better and better,” he says, enveloping me in his strong arms when I’m all fixed up and I get off the bed.
“I know,” I whisper while hugging him. It doesn’t feel weak clinging to him like this. If anything, in recent times, it seems like holding him gives me strength.
I’m fucked if I understand it.
“We’re good together,mia amata.” He tips my head back so we’re looking at one another.
“We are.”
“I don’t know what’s troubling you, and I know you won’t tell me, but I want you to know I’m here if you need to talk. I won’t judge. I couldn’t ever do that with you. I just want to help. We might not have married for love or the usual reasons, but I firmly believe we are exactly where we both should be. We belong together. I feel that truth deeply in here.” He places a hand over his heart, yet it feels like mine is the one being exposed.
“You can be incredibly romantic when you’re not being an ass,” I tease, needing to lighten the moment.
“Shush.” He kisses my lips. “Don’t tell anyone. I have a playboy reputation to maintain.”
I playfully swat at his chest. “Your playboy days are in the past. You’re mine now.”
“And you are mine.”
As I nod, I fully believe it. I don’t know how I’m going to pull it off, but I will achieve my goals without hurting my husband. It’s no longer a choice.
It’s the only truth that matters.
ChapterTwenty-Seven
Catarina
My hands shake as I clutch the box on my lap with an iron grip. Bile crawls up my throat, and acid churns in my gut when Massimo’s family home comes into view as he drives us up the sweeping driveway. Our bodyguards are in my SUV behind us.
“Hey.” Massimo reaches across the console to squeeze my hand. “There’s no need to be nervous. She’s not going to bite.”
Smothering my fear, I plaster a fake smile on my face as I look over at my husband. “I don’t have a good track record with mothers-in-law.”
His eyes drill into mine for a second. “I know and I promise this will be fine. Mama is looking forward to meeting you.” He refocuses on the path ahead, slowing down as we approach the large gray two-story building.
I attempt to ignore the anxious fluttering in my chest and how my heart picks up speed when he rounds the huge stone water fountain. The vision returns unbidden.
I’m screaming as Carlo drags me down the front steps and across the gravel toward the fountain. The skin abrades on my knees, and my bare feet are torn and bleeding. I’m naked and shivering all over, my bruised and battered body aching like I’ve been run over by a semi.
I lost track of time ages ago. Days and nights roll into one in the dark, dank basement I now call home. I haven’t seen sunlight in so long, and my body craves the Vitamin D.
My eyes lift to the dark sky, and I make a silent plea for someone to rescue me from this hell. I stopped crying out for my daddy after Carlo told me he knows where I am and hasn’t come for me.
I don’t understand. Daddy has always been good to me. Sneaking me candy sours behind Mom’s back. Ferrying me to and from dance classes and the pool where I trained with a local team. Overruling Mom when she didn’t want to let me have sleepovers with Jessa. Memories of late nights playing Xbox, indulging our shared passion for action movies, and him proudly clapping from the bleachers as I excelled at dance recitals and swim meets flood my mind, adding to my despair.
Why hasn’t he done anything? Why is he letting this pervert do these horrible things to me? I thought I was Daddy’s angel, but he’s left me here with this monster, and every day that passes, I die a little more inside. I am no longer the same girl who was bundled into the back of a black van from the front of the shopping mall many months ago.
That girl is a stranger, and I very much doubt I will ever be the same person.
Hunger gnaws at my stomach, but I have learned how to ignore it. He keeps me malnourished on purpose so I don’t have the strength to continue fighting him. But I’ll never stop. There are other ways to fight back without physical strength.
I love goading him on what a pathetic sick bastard he is, and I never willingly partake in the things he does to me. I scratch and bite and hurl obscenities at him until he ties me up and gags me. Then I glower at him, my eyes promising retribution. Sometimes the complete opposite works. Staying mute and motionless. Looking like the empty shell I feel. Letting him do despicable things to me and acting like it has no impact on me.
I like to mix it up to annoy him, even knowing he will beat me until I’m bloody. Most days, the pain is the only reminder I am human.
“Quit screaming, bitch!” Carlo snarls, digging his nails into my arm as he pulls me closer. “It’s the middle of the night, and no one is here. No one is coming to help you.”
“One day, someone will come,” I say, glaring at him as he forces me to my knees at the fountain. Yanking my arms back, he ties them behind me. “One day, I will have a knife in my hand, and I will pay you back for every cut, every bruise, every hurt.”
