Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 394(@200wpm)___ 315(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
“She’s afraid of men. Our father… she was terrified of him. And Lucien.”
“She’s a smart kid, then.”
Amadeo wraps a hand around the back of her neck possessively. He turns her to face him. Her cheeks flush when she meets his eyes, and something ugly gnaws inside me to see them like this. To be on the outside.
“Go to bed, Vittoria. She’ll wake up soon enough, and you need to get some rest.”
She makes a point of looking around the room. “No oaf to escort me?”
“Oaf?” Amadeo asks.
“A soldier. I’m guessing you don’t want me wandering around your big house.”
“You won’t do anything that would put your sister and her nanny in jeopardy.” A very subtle warning. Maybe it was smart to bring the little girl. “Go to bed. You’ll see her when she wakes up.”
She nods, and when he drops his hand from her neck, she looks up at me. Something passes between us. Not gratitude but something else. Then she’s gone, and my brother and I are alone.
“You should probably get some sleep too. Doesn’t look like you’ve had much,” I tell him.
He sits down at the table instead and looks at me expectantly. I take the seat opposite his.
“I’m glad you’re home safe, brother.”
I nod because he is genuine. I know that.
“Everything is signed. I have control. Once the will is read and her inheritance transferred to her name, we’ll own half of Russo Properties & Holdings.”
“Marriage is consummated?” I hear myself ask it and hate myself for it.
He nods once, watching my reaction. I get up and grab the whiskey from the cupboard, along with two water glasses. Nothing fancy in here. I pour us both some.
“She’s ours,” he says when I sit back down.
“You did what you needed to do. I get that. I don’t need to hear about it.”
“That missing year, she was at some clinic. Told me the name of the doctor, and Bruno already—”
“I don’t care.” I swallow my drink and shove back from the table to stand.
He stands, too, and blocks my path to the door. “Bastian.”
“What?”
“We knew what needed to happen going in.”
“Yeah, well, it’s different when it happens in front of your fucking eyes, I guess. You two cozy now?”
“It’s not like that.”
“I saw how you looked at her. How you held her.” I take a breath. “It’s fine, brother. I get it. Spoils of war go to the king.” I shove past him, but he slaps a hand on my chest. “What? I’m fucking tired.”
“I did what I had to do. You know that.”
“Hardship though it was. You say she’s ours. Let me ask you this. If I were to go up there and take what is ours to my bed, how would you feel about it?” He sets his jaw, and I snort. “Thought so.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It doesn’t matter. You just make sure you don’t lose your head. She may warm your bed, but she’ll stab you in the back the minute she gets the chance to run.”
“Something happened to her, Bastian.”
I take a deep breath in and wait for him to continue.
“That doctor wipes memories. Some sort of hypnosis or some shit. She’s missing a year. She was locked away in that place for a fucking year.”
I don’t want to care about that. I fold my arms across my chest.
“She wasn’t a virgin,” he adds.
I tense at his words. I. Do. Not. Care. I cannot care. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Do you think she had a boyfriend under her father’s watchful eye?”
I shrug a shoulder, trying to feign nonchalance. “Maybe she fucked a soldier or two or a dozen. What do we know? Maybe she’s a sl—”
“Don’t call her that.”
“Got your hackles up?”
“She’s not that. You know it.”
I shrug a shoulder. “All I’m saying is why do we care? About any of it? We’re not supposed to care, remember?”
“But we do.”
I don’t answer. I’m not going to lie.
“Something happened to her, and that quack wiped it away.”
I push my hand through my hair and take a deep breath in. “I’m tired. I need to get some sleep.”
He sighs.
“We’ll talk. I can’t fucking think straight right now. I’ve been up for almost twenty-four hours.”
“I know. Thanks for getting the kid.”
“Someone had to. Good night, brother.”
27
Vittoria
While the brothers are in the kitchen and I’m allowed upstairs unguarded, I slip back into Amadeo’s room, although I have no intention of sleeping there. During my exploration of the room while he showered, I found something that belonged to me. The small dagger he confiscated from me the night he brought me here was tucked into a nightstand drawer and forgotten.
I hurry to retrieve it, then walk into the closet to change into a pair of sleeping shorts and a silk tank top, one of the vast selection of clothes for me hanging here, tags still attached. I guess Amadeo figured out a suitcase with a week’s worth of clothes, most of which have been ruined wasn’t going to last and, considering the number of things he bought, I wonder how long he plans to keep us.