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)
“Pussy and cherries?”
Her face twists. She has no idea how sweet she is.
“What do you want from me?” Her voice is a whisper. Alexis and Antonio wait, as still as the statues that once decorated the Colosseum.
“Obedience,” I say. “Understand. You do what I say when I say it. Don’t make this hard on yourself.”
I turn to my brothers. “Take her back to her room.”
They approach, eating up the distance between us with long strides. They take an arm each, lifting Aemelia to her feet and frog-marching her away.
I watch her go and ask fate to make Carlo Lambretti see sense quickly, because the longer Aemelia is in this penthouse, the less likely I am to resist doing to her all the things she fears the most.
7
AEMELIA
MONSTERS AND MEN
I don't know how much time has passed since they took the video. Minutes? Hours? Time feels strange here suspended between terror and exhaustion, blurred by the dull ache in my arms from being tied up too long. My wrists burn from the zip tie, my shoulders stiff from the forced stillness.
They sent my face out like a calling card. Aemelia Lambretti, bound and helpless. A message to a ghost—a father who vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a last name and a target on my back.
I should be furious. I should be screaming. But I just feel hollow.
Eventually, I have to call out. I can’t use the bathroom like this, and I’ve held out for so long, I’m in danger of peeing myself. Alexis is the one who turns the lock and appears by my bed, his hazel eyes hungry and amused as he stares down at me.
“Can you remove the zip ties? I need to pee.”
“No, gattina. You didn’t do what you were told.”
“I did.” My voice is a whine that makes me wince. I sound desperate, pathetic, like a teenager asking for more money to go out with her friends.
“Not until you were forced, right? Not until my brother made you.”
“So you want me to piss all over this expensive bed?”
“No.” He takes me by the elbow, his fingers punishing. “Come with me.”
I’m half-dragged to the bathroom which leads from my room. It’s spacious and marble with a double vanity and a walk-in shower with a rainfall head that must feel like heaven. It’s a joke how much nicer this place is than my actual home. There’s no mold in this bathroom, no cracked tiles or broken flush. And yet, I’d do anything to get out of here.
Anything.
The word taunts me. What would I do? Let Luca touch me, fuck me? What about his brothers? Would they want that, too? I’ve seen the way they look at me like they’re imagining my naked body and all the filthy, corrupt things they want to do to me. How far would I go for my safety and freedom?
I don’t know. I really don’t know. And that’s what scares me.
Alexis nudges me back towards the toilet with his colorful inked arms, the flames raging dangerously across his body, then he shoves his hand beneath my skirt and begins to tug my panties down.
“No,” I say, but he doesn’t listen.
“Do you want to pee through your panties?” he asks instead, shaking his head. “This fucking girl.”
I flush hot with mortification when my panties drop around my ankles. Alexis pulls up the back of my dress and pushes me until I’m sitting. My cheeks burn as the pee drops out of me with urgency and Alexis watches with amusement lighting up his devastatingly handsome face. His eyes focus on my panties and my embarrassment increases a hundredfold because I know they’re damp. When Luca touched me, my body reacted like a traitor.
What kind of sick person am I that his finger forced between my legs turned me on?
I close my eyes, wishing that the blackness between my eyelids could swallow me whole. I wish I could disappear into it, like the ocean at night, and escape this captivity.
The sound of the toilet paper roll unfurling makes my heart stop. I can’t wipe myself with my hands behind my back. Is he going to do it for me?
“Spread your legs.” Alexis crouches in front of me, so we’re eye to eye. The dress is covering my bare pussy but for how long. I ease my legs open, watching him watch me. With his eyes downcast, his eyelashes seem impossibly long, his nose, which is slightly crooked, refined, his mouth which seems to carry sly happiness at its corners at all times, twitching. He’s enjoying this and I hate him for it. I close my eyes when he dips his hand between my legs, and shudder as he draws the paper over my sex. A distressed whimper leaves my lips and his smile broadens. He thinks I like this.