Her body twitches as she attempts to move. The only part of her that succeeds is her left foot, which jerks against the floor. Sighing, I leave her there and take off down the hallway, peeling my shirt off when I enter my room. I toss it onto the floor, and then I fish out another from the pile of my stuff in the corner. With it clenched in a fist, I kick my shoes off and switch the light on. It floods the room, chasing away the shadows and serves as a buffer against the anger raging a silent war at the back of my mind. For now.
The girl’s still where I left her when I return to the hallway. She doesn’t react when I toss the clean shirt at her. She’s still curled up on her side, her back facing me. That mane of dark hair encircles her limbs like ebony netting.
“Get up,” I snap, my voice catching on the edge of a growl. “Get into the bathroom and change.”
The walls have a better chance at obeying me. I nudge her shoulder with my foot, and she whimpers. A string of words trickles from her throat, but they’re impossible to make out. Clenching my jaw, I sink to one knee and wrench on her hip so that she’s facing upright.
Then I stiffen. Her bodyalone, that’s what I focus on. She’s got nice curves for a stuck-up little princess. Her hips are narrow, but they flare out from a slender waist. Her breasts aren’t too bad—not too large, but not nonexistent, either. The curls between her legs match the same fucking shade of ebony as her hair. She’s shapely, though a little on the scrawny side. She has a mole on her hip. There’s a bruise on her thigh. A scar on her left ankle.
It’s wrong. It’s sick. But I ogle. I stare. I shamelessly eye every part of her body but the section that calls to me the most. I can’t ignore it for long, and true disgust is harder to swallow. The bastard marked her: Seven indigo letters are etched into the skin just under her breasts—tattooed there.
V I N C E N T
They’re uneven and sloppy as if hand-carved. Some of them are a deeper shade of ink than the rest. It’s hard not to picture someone holding her down when she struggled and digging the needle in even harder as punishment. She guards her imperfection well, even when drunk out of her mind and half conscious; one of her hands scuttles across her chest to shield the letters.
“Get up,” I snarl, drawing back, though I wind up lifting her anyway.
She moans when I drag her into the bathroom and maneuver her into the tub. Her eyes seek mine out, vacant and empty as I flick the showerhead on with one hand and reach for her waist with the other.
Her gaze drifts down toward where my fingers aim. Her lips move. Sound comes out.Da...dum...da...la...She’s fucking humming. It’s a frantic sound like the kind a kid makes when things are in danger of not going their way.I can’t hear you. This isn’t happening.
I snatch my hand away and turn my back on her, leaving her beneath the spray. Hopefully, some of the blood will run off her. Some of that stench along with it. Nothing spoils the mood like the aroma of pain, fear, and desperation—she reeks of all three. The stink floods my nostrils while I enter the hallway on a hunt for a spare towel.
I find one in a small closet, along with a bar of soap and a stack of spare washrags. When I return to the bathroom, she’s still curled at the bottom the tub, drowning beneath the shower spray. Her hair clings to her body, shielding most of it from my sight like a makeshift cape. She barely stirs when I grab her wrist and yank her upright. I can only force her to sit, but somehow, I manage to wrestle the soap into one of her hands and a rag into the other.
Her eyes are glassy, and she mimes the motions, washing more of the air than herself. Either way, I’m satisfied when thelast drop of what little suds she managed to work up wash down the drain. Then I cut the water off and turn for the door, aiming to leave her there.
The fuck if I know why I don’t. Maybe it’s the threat of one of Arno’s men potentially taking his boss’s words as an open invitation to get some free ass. She’s safer in the bedroom, where I can keep an eye on her, than here. It’s the only course of action that makes sense. No one is going to invade my space on her account and catch me off guard.
The light paints a harsh picture when I finally carry her down the hall. Her face is a mess—Arno might have held back from causing serious damage, but not by much. Too many of her secrets are bared to me when I let her fall onto the mattress. The letters on her chest stand out in stark contrast against her pale skin. There are other bruises and marks on her legs, too old to have been caused by Arno or myself. The duct tape on her ear glimmers silver. I can still see it even when I flick the light off and take up a position by the door, my back braced against the wall.
Arno gave me a day. A day to come up with a better way to torture Stacatto. A day to avenge Parish’s death. Another day to play nursemaid to the little bitch in the black dress.
I sigh, gritting my teeth, and close my eyes. I should have stayed in fucking prison.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Daniela
I wakeup in the lair of a beast. His scent irritates my nostrils, though for some reason my lungs heave to breathe him in. I’m nauseated by his flavor, but my belly is a shriveled ball, devoid of anything left to force out through my mouth in protest.
I don’t know how long I lie here. How long before my eyes manage to peel open one by one and light stabs at them like jagged pieces of glass. I’m naked. Damp sheets create a shocking sensation I can feel against nearly every part of my body. My head throbs, and it’s almost ironic—my fingers prefer the strings, but my brain apparently has taken up percussion. It hammers out an unsteady rhythm against the inside of my skull.
I can’t decide if I’m alive or if this is that eternal torment in Hell that the Bible warns about. An agonizing few seconds pass, but I still don’t know which destination seems more appealing, Hell or Vinny. Then I see him. My vision is a colorless blur, reducing him to nothing more than a splash of shadow against an otherwise gray surface—but those eyes shine through, unsettlingly clear. Through the chaos of my thoughts, a single namecomes tumbling out.Dante.A part of me scuttles away from it the way a roach escapes the light. It’s a terrible thing to learn the name of a monster. I’ll settle for choosing a made-up one to call him instead.
I blink until his dark features form into more solid lines. In the pale light that comes in through the window, he almost seems harmless.Lucifer.He used to be an angel, I remember. God’s favorite before he fell. I’ll call him that.
Lucifer doesn’t react when he sees that I’m awake. He eyes me coldly, and then he turns his gaze to the empty wall behind me instead. Broken women are such a poor way to start the morning off, so who could blame him?
He sits a few feet away, his back braced against the wall. There’s something on the floor beside him. Two almost invisible cylinders...white caps...light-blue labels. Before my mind can settle on an identity for them, he bats at one with the flat of his hand and it rolls toward me.
Water!I lunge for it, bringing a million different agonies to life. I try to ignore them as I capture the bottle in a trembling hand and wrestle the cap off. I’m too exhausted to pull myself upright, so I tilt my head instead and allow the water to pour into my open mouth like a funnel. More of it winds up dribbling onto the sheets than going down my throat, but I manage to drain most of the bottle in seconds. Before I can choke the last drop down, Lucifer nudges the second bottle toward me.
I reach down to trap it in a fist while easing my body upright this time.God.The world pitches and sways beneath me. It’s like I’m on the merry-go-round my brother and I used to frequent as children. My throbbing head even manages to tap out a lively beat.
Staring down at the blankets twisted around my legs, I inhale. Then I bring the bottle to my lips and greedily take in every last drop. The moment I do, Lucifer stands and inclines his head toward the doorway that leads out into the hall. The commandmay be silent, but it’s no less authoritative than one of Vinny’s shouts. Come. Now, Daniela!
I glance at my pathetic, bruised body. I’m naked except for a pair of black underwear that survived my trip from Vinny’s town car. Other than that, pale skin and numerous imperfections paint a morbid picture. I hate the fact that he’s seen me like this. His eyes have traced Vinny’s brand without a shred of emotion. If only I could be as indifferent to it.
