Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87704 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 439(@200wpm)___ 351(@250wpm)___ 292(@300wpm)
When the door has closed and he’s locked her inside again, Alexis whistles. “She’s going to be so much fun to break.”
Although nothing comes between me and food, the bread has become paste in my mouth.
When I first stepped up to take a place in the family business, my father had given me a man to interrogate. Filled with the confidence of youth and ignorance, I’d thought it would be easy to extract information from him, after all, I was the one with the power and he was bound and defenseless. But he wouldn’t tell me what I needed to know, no matter how much I beat and humiliated him. After two hours, he was dead, and I learned a valuable lesson, one I've never forgotten. Not everyone can be broken and those who can’t be broken shatter a piece of you in the process.
***
Aemelia is dressed in white to remind her father of what is at stake. The new dress is satin, expensive, and cut close to her body to hint at what’s beneath. The fabric catches the light, clinging to every curve, a vision of purity tainted by the weight of our intentions. I stare at her, my mouth dry, my dick half-hard. Aemelia Lambretti could wear a plastic bag and look like fire, but in this dress, she’s a dream I don’t deserve to have.
Andriana must have supplied her with makeup because her face is decorated with black winged eyeliner and her trademark scarlet lipstick—war paint to make her look powerful and put together. But I know better. I see the slight tremble in her hands, the way her pulse flickers at the base of her throat. For all of my denial to my brother, seeing her like this makes me want to tear the dress from her body and find all sorts of terrible, pleasurable ways to smear that lipstick from her pouty lips.
Is this the look that will bring Carlo running into the arms of death? Will he even care?
It’s one thing to leave your family to protect yourself, knowing they’re going to be safe. It’s another to abandon your daughter to your enemies, letting the world watch as she suffers in your place. The Lambretti name is already mud in my eyes, but there are different kinds of mud. Getting someone from outside your blood killed is one thing. Allowing your blood to die out of fear for your own skin? Shameful. Unforgivable.
Maybe this whole thing is foolish. Maybe all we’ll do is humiliate this girl and breed hatred into another Lambretti.
And what will we do with her if Carlo doesn’t return? Antonio would do anything I asked, even snuff out her life, but I don’t want that. She’s a butterfly, a creature of beauty and fragility, not a rodent like her father. Flanked by my brothers, she looks smaller and more vulnerable, but I have to remind myself that she has a nasty bite.
“On your knees, gattina,” I hiss.
Aemelia grits her teeth as she drops to the floor, and my dick jerks against my expensive pants.
“Tie her hands.”
Antonio reaches into his pocket and pulls out a zip tie. He secures her wrists behind her back, and she winces as he runs his finger beneath, ensuring there’s enough space for blood flow.
“Come here.”
Alexis is filming, keeping my face out of the frame. Aemelia hesitates then begins to shuffle on her knees. It’s ungraceful, jerky, humiliating. When she’s close enough, I grab her hair, the silky strands filling my rough fist, and yank her until her face is tipped to me.
“Beg,” I say. “Beg your fucking weasel of a father to come for you. Beg him to save you before we destroy everything innocent and precious about you.”
Her eyes flick from me to Alexis, the camera rolling as she turns over her decision in her pretty head. Will she comply or will she rebel. I know where her heart is. She wants to spit at me, to tell me to go fuck myself. If I put my dick in her mouth, she’d bite it clean off. But she’s deciding if her father is worth experiencing more pain for. Or maybe she’s considering whether I'm worthy of her surrender.
“Fuck you,” she spits, and I grip harder. “I won’t beg at your feet, Luca Venturi.”
I wave at Alexis to stop filming. He deletes what he has as I lean over the girl on her knees. Her skin is like porcelain, her eyes intense with fury and defiance, and as pissed as I am that she’s not playing along, I’m turned on by her fire.
Your dick doesn’t need to feel guilty.
That’s what Alexis said at the wedding, and he’s right. She’s a grown woman now, one I paid a lot of money for. There were always two ways this situation could play out, and she is picking the hard way. My dick has always enjoyed the hard way the best. Nothing good ever comes easy. I’ve spent my whole life taking what should be mine, holding onto what my father built, forcing my way into new profitable areas and between the most converted legs.