The moment Angelo Russo touches me is like a million bugs crawling over my skin. The tiny insects dance over the bare flesh of my cheeks where his lips pressed so gently. But I know a shark like Russo doesn’t do gentle, and his words only prove that.
Death is a better option than being his wife, so I can’t bring myself to regret the lies I’ve told. All the things I didn’t say, and the things I didn’t tell Rayne whirl around in my mind on an endless loop, tormenting me.
“Bring her to me,” Angelo demands and a moment later I have a man on either side forcing me forward. Their fingers bite painfully into my flesh and I know they’ll leave bruises, if I’m alive long enough to bruise.
The men fling me to the ground and I fall to my knees, all the fight, all the strength I had before is long gone and all that’s left is the things I never got to say to Rayne. Everything else seems insignificant in the face of that. The Center. The debt. The criminal underworld I accidentally found myself in the center of. None of it matters.
“Saint James was smart to lock you down. It kills me that he beat me to the punch though.” Angelo grips my chin between his long calloused fingers tightly. “Such a pretty little thing to start a war over. All wars start the same, with a pretty girl both sides want,” he muses.
“I’m not worth starting a war over,” I whisper.
“Of course you are. If I were smart, I would just let you walk out that door. I would apologize to your husband and assure him I won’t touch his family again.” His thumb brushes roughly over my cheek, the punchline is coming. Whatever comes next will be worse than all that came before. “But women make us stupid. He was stupid to think a ring on your finger and a piece of paper would keep me away from you.”
“Please just let me go,” I plead. It won’t make a difference, but if Angelo has an ounce of a soul within his darkness, maybe, just maybe, he’ll take pity on me.
“Oh sweetheart, I’ll let you go. But not until I’ve had my fun. Not until you’re bloody and broken, and the girl Saint James knew is so far gone you won’t even know your name anymore.”
As badly as I want to be strong, as much as I would like to make it through this without shedding a tear, that’s not practical, and so a sob breaks through my chest painfully. Hopelessness like I’ve never felt before infiltrates my mind, and I allow myself to accept my circumstances, to accept what is about to happen to me.
People don’t come back from the things he’s talking about. I may survive, I may see Rayne again, but I’ll never be the Emerson he remembers. I’ll be a shell, a broken woman who fears her own shadow, and that’s no way to live.
I imagine myself begging to die, begging him to kill me, the broken look on his face when he doesn’t know how to help me. The thought hurts more than any physical pain I can imagine.
“Just kill me,” I whisper. “It will hurt him more if he never sees me again.”
“But that’s a lot less fun.” Angelo shrugs, finally releasing my chin and standing to his full height. “Leave us.”
I listen as footsteps retreat and when I brave a glance over my shoulder, all the men are gone. I don’t know whether I should be relieved or more distressed. At least before I had a chance of appealing to one of them to help me. I could compare myself to their sister, or wife, or mother and maybe they would help me.
But I wouldn’t have that kind of luck with Angelo and his cousins. I saw it the first time I met them. Cold. Ruthless. Unfeeling. I won’t survive whatever they have planned for me, not in a way that matters at least.
“Isn’t she a pretty little thing?” Tony stands from his seat, approaching me like a lion approaches its prey. And that’s what I am to them. They’re going to chew me up and spit me out, punish me for mistakes I’ve never made.
“For now.” Paul chuckles as he comes at me from the other side.
Words catch in my throat. The fight I should have wavers under the pressure. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I would think I was having an out-of-body experience, looking from the outside in, but the way my head throbs, the way my ribs ache, I’m here and present for whatever they have planned.
“Strip her,” Angelo orders as he moves back to his seat.
Tony and Paul grin sadistically. Where I hadn’t seen any similarities the first time I met them, I now see two sides of the same coin. The moment their hands are on me, I want to throw up again. My stomach rolls at the feel of them grabbing at me. Paul tears my coat from my body, yanking both shoulders back painfully in the process.
Meanwhile Tony works on my jeans. He grunts as he tries to work the button through its hole, but quickly grows frustrated and pulls a knife from his back pocket. The metal glints in the light and panic rises in my throat. No. I can’t do this. This can’t be happening.
“Please stop. I’m a good person. I’ve dedicated my entire life to helping people. I don’t deserve this.” Even to me, my pleas sound pathetic. This is what they want. They want to break me and I’m playing right into their plans.
Angelo chuckles from where he’s perched in his seat like he’s a king on a throne. The darkness in the sound sends chills across my skin and I realize no amount of begging is going to get me out of here. Only a miracle can save me.
A moment later, Tony grasps hold of one of my ankles and slides the knife underneath the denim, using it to cut away the fabric. The blade slices into my skin as it moves up my leg, and my tears come faster. The pain is already horrific, the fear has me paralyzed, but it’s only going to get worse, and it’s that fact that terrifies me.
“You’re right, Angelo. She is pretty when she bleeds,” Tony says as he starts on the other leg. I’m not brave enough to look down and see the mess he’s made. Part of me hopes he’s going to slice through my femoral artery and end it all sooner rather than later, but I won’t be that lucky.
Whatever they have planned for me is so much worse than death.
Tony tears the jeans from my legs at the same time Paul rids me of my shirt, and I’m left bare in front of them. The only thing covering me is my bra and panties, the pretty pink ones Rayne bought me the other day because he felt bad that I was locked up in the penthouse alone all day. Not that I was really alone, but if he wanted to guilt buy me things, I wasn’t going to say no.
“Such a pretty body.” Angelo’s gaze travels the length of me, the hunger in his gaze causing nausea to crawl up my throat. “I can see why Saint James is so infatuated with you.” He doesn’t move from his seat though, relying on his cousins to hook their arms underneath my armpits and drag me until I’m thrown to the ground in front of him.
My knees hit the carpet roughly, the bite of pain causing me to cry out and I hate myself immediately. I don’t want to be weak, I don’t want to show fear, but these men are ruthless. I should be scared of them and what they’re going to do to me.
I flinch the moment someone’s hands meet my waist, despite the fact they’re surprisingly gentle as they slide up to my lace covered breasts.
“Tell me, Emerson, are you a good little whore for Saint James?” Angelo hisses.
“I bet she sucks his cock real good,” Paul growls from my left, his rancid breath whispering across my cheek.
“Are you a dirty girl under the good girl act?” Tony asks from the other side.
I squeeze my eyes shut the moment another pair of hands move between my legs, barely holding back the tears pooling in the corners. Fingers work their way into my panties, roughly moving over my sensitive folds. There’s no gentleness. There’s no finesse. They’re going to take anything they want from my body, and that’s what fucking terrifies me.
“Lay her on the table,” Angelo orders, and the tears I barely held back a moment ago run down my cheeks. It’s every woman’s worst nightmare, the thing everyone thinks happens to other people but will never happen to them… until it does.
Before I can think to fight, or scream, or even protest, my back is slammed against the small table I served drinks on only a couple of weeks ago. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it also feels like yesterday. Everything changed that day, but not in the way I thought it did. I never expected this to happen. Not my relationship with Rayne. Not falling in love. And certainly not being abducted and tortured by the most ruthless men in the city.
The air leaves my lungs in a rush, the hard wood hitting my back so hard I can’t catch my breath.
“If only Saint James could see his sweet girl now,” he sneers at the words but I’m not brave enough to look at him, not brave enough to move. His use of the term of endearment Rayne uses for me only has nausea rising back to the surface.
Angelo moves around the table, circling me like a shark circles its prey. His eyes burn with hunger and darkness, the intoxicating mix matches his brutal exterior so perfectly.
“The knife.” He holds his hand out expectantly and Tony delivers it right away. “I could grow addicted to the way you bleed, pretty girl.” His finger grazes the cuts on my legs and I flinch from the sting. The blade hovers over my stomach, the bare flesh pebbled with terrified anticipation. My body knows there’s pain coming. It knows that whatever comes next is going to break it. And it’s trying to prepare itself even if my mind can’t comprehend it.
The tip bites against the soft skin, Angelo pressing just hard enough to slice into me and I barely hold back the cry. It’s lodged in my throat painfully, and the further the blade sinks into my skin, the longer the cut gets, the harder it is to swallow.
My heart beats so hard in my ears I almost don’t register the sound of an explosion, or the screams of panic, or even notice the way Angelo abruptly pulls the blade away from my stomach. The only thing I hear is my name being yelled above the chaos.
All I hear is Rayne.
