This thought had just entered my consciousness when I felt my long hair pulled backward by the roots. I gasped at the pain, at the shock of Romeo’s abrupt presence. And suddenly the listlessness that had held me as captive of the Cavettis evaporated like mist. A white-hot rage I’d never experienced before surged through me, bunching up my muscles and readying me for a fight. And fight was exactly what I did.
I flew at the man who had once claimed he would be my husband, striking out at him with hands shaped like curved talons. My nails dug into the flesh of his cheek and my teeth sunk into his tailor suit-clad forearm. He roared in—pain, anger, shock, I didn’t know which—the whites of his eyes showing, and I felt intense satisfaction at his visceral reaction.
When his strong hands seized me and pushed my body away, I attacked again like a woman possessed. My vision had turned a solid opaque red, and my instincts had taken over, lashing out at him without regard for anything but making him hurt as badly as I did.
But though I managed to mark him, his strength far outweighed my own. He snatched both of my wrists in his own, raising my arms over my head as he thrust me backward and into the wall. Then, the voice I hadn’t heard since my arrival spat out at me, his words low, staccato-like, and furious.
“You’ll pay for that, Lucia.” He dragged me to the dresser and bent me over it, my face pressing into the cool wood. “I haven’t seen you in a week, and this is how you greet me? I’ll kill you for such flagrant insubordination, but I think I’ll punish you first.”
He raised the long flannel nightgown I’d been wearing, whisking it up and over my waist, exposing the tiny panties I had on underneath. I felt air whoosh over my exposed flesh as he yanked those panties down to my knees, and a bolt of fear crested inside of my chest. But instead of doing what I’d feared he might, I felt the palm of his hand smack the roundest part of my backside. There was a flash of pain, followed by a heat that wound through my core. He spanked me again, and the heat grew, spreading its warmth along my center and outwards. A sound escaped me unbidden. A moan I couldn’t control.
“You like that,” he breathed out, sounding as if he’d just sprinted for over a mile. “I’m punishing you, and you like it.”
The next time when his hand slapped against me, it was slower, less violent. The freestanding mirror had been placed against the opposite wall, and he physically turned my head with his free hand, forcing me to look in that direction.
“See how deliciously pink your ass has become,” he intoned in my ear. “Is it stinging?” When I said nothing, his voice became a growl. “Answer me, Lucia.”
“Yes,” I hissed out. “It’s stinging.”
“But you like the stinging, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
He began to rub the reddened flesh, almost massaging it. Then he repositioned me slightly, using that hand to push my legs further apart. In the mirror, I watched him lean down and leer at my bottom up close. I closed my thighs so he couldn’t see more than he already had, feeling my face grow hot with embarrassment.
“You have a beautiful ass, farfalla,” he whispered, again using his pet name for me. I wasn’t sure what that might mean. Would he call me his butterfly and still murder me right after? The odds of this were likely. He hadn’t hesitated to crush the butterfly, so why not crush me, as well? This wasn’t a question of his ability but more an estimation of his intent. Romeo pressed his torso against mine, and I felt his erection poking into my bare skin. “You want this. You want me.”
I opened my mouth to deny it. To tell him how much I despised him. To yell at him and call him every filthy name I could think of. But he chose that moment to straighten me back up, keeping my back to his ribcage. The fabric of my nightgown started to slide back into place, but Romeo slid his free hand up beneath it. His already dark eyes went black with desire, and it should’ve frightened me. But instead, it made me ache low in my belly.
Before I could attempt to squirm out of his iron-clad grip and do something to push him away, he raised his hand past my hip, skimmed my stomach, then cupped my left breast underneath my nightgown. While I was no longer exposed, I had never felt a man’s hand on the bare flesh of my breast before. He pinched first the left nipple, then the right. Each pinch elicited a burning sensation mixed with a sharp stabbing pain that made me exhale out a noise that wasn’t a scream or a shriek. It was a whimper. A desirous whimper asking for more.
More, more, more.
“My Lucia likes this, too, I think,” and he pinched my breasts again, each one in turn, this time doing it for a longer amount of time. I moaned so loudly that he moaned as well, his hips jutting forward to press his hard arousal against me. I closed my eyes. “No, keep your eyes open as you observe what I can do to you. See my hand moving over your breasts? They feel so full and luscious. Your nipples are poking out now as if presenting themselves to me. Fucking begging for me.”
It should’ve frightened me to feel his trouser clad erection bumping into my hip bone roughly enough to leave a bruise, but it didn’t. Neither did his spankings or the harsh way he grabbed at my breasts. I didn’t understand my body’s reaction to what he did. Why did touches meant to incite pain also cause me to experience pleasure?
I didn’t know.
But as much as I hated Romeo and was repulsed by who he was, I had to admit something to myself. I wanted him to continue what he was doing. I wanted it desperately. Even if shortly thereafter he would see fit to dispose of me.
His hands came out from under the material then, and he pulled the fabric tight, accentuating how distended my nipples had become through my nightgown. His hand returned to my breasts over the flannel, pinching them on the outside now. Helplessly—and against my will—I moaned again.
“No,” he said, his tone sounding like he spoke more to himself than to me. “I won’t be rid of you after all. No need to squander such a prize. I have use of this and of you.”
Then releasing me so fast I had to reach out to keep myself from falling to the floor, he marched out my door, vanishing from sight.
2
Romeo
A vicious storm had hammered against our Chicago mansion all night, and now in the meager light of a gray morning, the wind and rain continued to whip against the exterior windows like a mother crying for a lost child. I found this oddly fitting since we were embarking on the funeral of my brother Gianni.
Black umbrella in hand, I crossed our expansive grounds to the back-right corner of our property taking in the headstone of my mother. Dahlia Cavetti had been only twenty-four when she’d died, the same age that I was now. I’d been six and Gianni five when something had gone terribly wrong during the delivery of our baby sister Natalia. So of all my siblings, Gianni and I had been the children with the most memories of her, the ones who really knew her. Her warmth. Her kindness. Her tenderness toward us. She’d been the opposite of our father in every way.
The thought of her always brought a pang to my heart. It was why I never came out here to our private family plot. I didn’t need a reminder that the only person who’d ever truly loved me was long gone.
But I quickly shook those memories away. Yes, this was my brother’s funeral, but I was Romeo Cavetti, the next in line to be the patriarch of our clan. Whatever remnants of goodness and decency that had come from my mother had been overrun by my father’s cruel legacy. Shortly after his wife’s death, Angelo had taught me that mercy was for the weak, that sentiment had no place in our lives. As the underdogs within our insular society, we had to be the most callous, the most barbaric, and the most willing to use any means necessary to succeed.