Mia had half-expected to end up in a bed with Aldo standing over her, but not quite this way. For one thing, she lay strapped down on a stretcher, and while Aldo loomed over her, he was paying attention to the man in scrubs standing on the other side, rather than looking down at her with his usual creepy hunger.
“I want her to be restored to original condition.”
The doctor frowned. “Mr. Peretti, there’s no guarantee a hymenoplasty will work.”
Aldo held up a picture of a smiling blond woman and two twin toddlers. “Your wife and children urge you to make it work, Dr. Sandoval.”
The man nodded, looking sick.
Mia yelped in protest when the doctor put his gloved fingers between her splayed thighs to probe inside her. Her ankles were strapped into stirrups, and her hands were tightly bound. She couldn’t move, but her mouth still worked. “Stop that.”
Finally, the doctor withdrew and looked at Aldo, but never at her. “There isn’t enough of the hymen left intact to perform a repair. I can reconstruct a hymen from vaginal tissue.”
“How long does that take?”
“A few hours.”
Aldo sighed. “I meant before I can use her, doc.”
The doctor flinched, his coppery complexion paling. “Oh, of course…about six weeks.” He must have detected Aldo’s anger, because he hastily stammered, “I…I guess four weeks. Maybe even three.”
“No fucking way.” Aldo glared down at Mia, as though it was her fault. From his perspective, she supposed it was. “There has to be another way.”
The nervous doctor licked his lips. “I could use alloplant to give her a membrane. It’s like a hymen, though it hurts a lot worse for her when you…use her, and there will be more bleeding.”
Aldo looked intrigued. “What’s the healing time?”
“Three to seven days.”
Her disgusting stepbrother tipped his head, as though considering weighty matters. “That sounds like a long time when I’ve already waited so long, but I do deserve the best.” With a nod, clearly oblivious to his own pretentiousness, he said, “Do that one.”
“Okay. I brought some of the tissue along when your man told me what you wanted. Just in case.” He glanced around the small room. “This place isn’t as nice as the room you had equipped for the…other Mia’s cosmetic surgery, Mr. Peretti. Do you have an operating room with anesthesia available?”
Peretti sneered. “Not this time. We’re forced to hide in this hole for the time being, so you’ll have to make do.”
The doctor nodded. “I have local anesthetic.”
“No.”
Mia’s stomach clenched as the doctor blinked.
“No? What do you mean, Mr. Peretti?”
Aldo’s expression was full of dark glee. “No anesthetic. Let the cheating little slut feel every bit of the pain and grasp the consequences of her choices.”
She refused to betray her fear and dread, tucking it in alongside her shock that Aldo had arranged for the surgical restoration of her virginity just so he could take it again. The idea of enduring the surgery while fully alert brought a sheen of sweat to her body, but she didn’t speak or beg him not to do it.
“V-very well, sir.” The doctor glanced at the clock. “It will take at least two or three hours, if you want to get comfortable somewhere, Mr. Peretti.”
Aldo nodded. “I’ll be in the next room where I can savor every scream.”
Mia glared at him, still silent, as he left her in the impromptu operating room with the shady doctor summoned to undo all the fucking she had done with Shane. The urge to laugh nearly overwhelmed her, but she bit it back. Hysteria instead of amusement prompted the reaction, and she feared devolving to a cackling loon if she gave in to the first giggle.
She watched the doctor with an impassive expression as he laid out implements on a metal stand draped with a cloth she hoped was sterile. “Why are you doing this?”
He didn’t look up at her, but he did answer, which was surprising. “He threatened my family. Sometimes having a good reputation is a bad thing, Mia. He wanted the best surgeon at his disposal, and he has ways to motivate.” A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead before disappearing under the mask obscuring the lower half of his face.
“And you’re the one who mutilated that other poor girl?” At his terse nod, she asked, “Do you know her real name or anything about her? He’s planning to kill her. You have to help get her home.”
