“How?”
“I have my ways.”
She launched herself at me. I wrapped my arms around her and stood, sitting down on the couch and setting her on my lap. She shifted on my lap to straddle me. My hands slid underneath her bathrobe, up her smooth thighs. She rocked against me when my hands went higher. I leaned in for another kiss. This time, when she pulled away from the kiss, I saw tears streaming down her face and took my hands out of the bathrobe.
“Hey.” I cupped her face with both hands and wiped her tears away with my thumb. “It’s going to be okay.”
She shook her head, her lip quivering like she was about to lose it. I put my thumb on it, as if that would somehow remove the pain. I knew she’d be like this right before the wedding. It was one of the reasons I had to come here today. I wanted to assure her that it would be okay, that she would be fine, that we never had to talk about what happened to her father after tomorrow, and that even though the thought of it ripped me in half, I’d love her even if she chose to walk away from me.
“Tell me what’s wrong, baby.”
“H-h-h-he got rid of Aanya.” Her voice broke as she said the name.
My body went rigid. “Your horse?”
She nodded.
I waited until I trusted myself to speak again without blowing up. “He killed her?”
“He sold her.” She shook her head. More tears sprang from her eyes. “He sold her to hurt me.”
“Fuck.” I held her tighter and rocked her slowly. He was such a fucking asshole. I needed to make sure I found out exactly where her mother was, because I knew that would be his next move. “We’ll get her back. I promise.”
“We don’t even know who he sold her to, and now I have to marry Adria—” She hiccupped. “Now I have to marry Adriano and I won’t have you or Aanya, or anything I love that brings me comfort.”
I squeezed her tighter. “You’re not marrying him. It’s going to be okay.”
“He’s a monster,” she whispered once her tears subsided. She wiped her face and pulled back. “He’s a monster, Rocco.”
“I know, baby.” I wiped more tears away.
“I hate him.”
I sighed heavily. She was speaking out of anger so I wouldn’t bother to tell her that I hated him too. What he did was fucked up, but it could have been worse. He could have had Aanya killed and shown Lenora pictures of the slaughter. It was what I would expect of him. A man who could kill a child was capable of anything, and Giuseppe had done that twice — that I knew of. I pressed my lips to Lenora’s forehead and promised that everything would be okay.
“He hit me,” she said, her voice so quiet I almost missed it. A heat wave ran through my body.
“What did you say?”
“H-he hit me.”
I pulled back to examine her. “Where did he hit you?”
“He slapped me.” She pointed at her right cheek. “And he grabbed my hair really hard like he wanted to rip it off my head. . .” she paused when her lip started wobbling again. “And then he pushed the back of my head against the wall.”
My fists clenched on her lap. I closed my eyes and focused on breathing. I thought I’d felt rage before — when people owed me money, when I found out a husband was beating his wife, when I found out about the dad raping his daughter. I’d taken care of all of them, not out of rage but out of principle. The rage I felt right now was blinding.
“Rocco,” she whispered, snapping me out of my haze.
My jaw ticked as I ran my thumb over her cheek. “If I thought for a second he would get violent with you, I would never have sent you back there.”
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
“You’re sorry?” I asked. “For what?”
“For upsetting you. You already hate him so much, and now. . .”
“Lenora.” I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her. Instead, I stared. “I love you. Yes, I hate him, butI love you. I’m upset because knowing you’re in pain hurts me.”
