Page 46 of Drowning in the Deep
He patted my arm. “Yes, it’s good that you were able to come. I’m honestly surprised that La Rosa girl isn’t on your arm. I’d heard the two of you were getting tight. Now, that’s a fine piece of ass.”
I felt my abdomen tighten as I wanted to punch him again. “Yes, well—” I began, trying to think of a reason why Elisa wasn’t there.
He snapped his fingers, interrupting me. “That’s right. Her father mentioned he had her tied up at the moment.” He chuckled under his breath and shook his head.
A sickening feeling radiated through my body as I realized he wasn’t speaking figuratively. “What’s that now?”
“Oh, yeah. I probably shouldn’t say anything, but I don’t mind telling you.” He snickered again. “Apparently the little bitch pissed her dad off, and he’s got her locked up in the basement of that big house he just bought. Well, if she’s still alive. La Rosa is on the warpath again. Oh, well, there’s no shortage of fine ass around here. Just had myself a nice piece in the guest room over there. Don’t tell the wife.” He patted my shoulder again as he began to move past me. “Be sure to find yourself a new girl to warm your bed before you leave tonight.”
Fuming, I took a deep breath to keep from snapping his neck and I wrapped my arm around his shoulder to steer him away from Vin. “Be sure to drink an extra flute of champagne for me tonight, Viktor,” I told him, returning the pats on his back as I watched him head down the hall.
As soon as he was gone, I helped Vin get Nelson’s body into the nearest room and stash him under a bed where he wouldn’t be seen for a while. Then, I told my brother, “I’ve gotta go.”
I had a girl to see about.
CHAPTER31
ELISA
Every single square millimeter of my body hurt. On the inside and the outside. My father finally left after he did the waterboarding thing a couple more times. While that pain was the worst I’d ever experienced, it wasn’t all he’d done. I had a feeling some of my ribs were cracked. My face was swollen, with broken bones and bruises, and I could barely open my eyes. With no way to see myself, I had to imagine what I looked like, and the image was bleak. Akin to what a person who’d been run over by a semi-truck would look like, no doubt.
My arms were numb from being attached to the pole above my head. Even when he left a few hours ago, he didn’t bother to unhook me. I knew what all of this added up to. Yet, I kept a small spark of hope alive that Daemon or someone else would show up and save me.
What if Drake happened to come home for an hour or two and overheard some of my father’s men talking about him having me tied up downstairs? I knew my brother wouldn’t let me die. He’d find a way to get me out of here, even if it meant my father came after him for doing so. He was the only one I could think of who might be willing to intervene, though. The rest of my brothers would be disappointed that Father didn’t ask them to help him beat the shit out of me. No, if it wasn’t Drake or Daemon, there was no one else coming. Even that maid who had helped me the last time had moved on, gaining her freedom. Lucky bitch.
My wrists ached with every slight movement, so I tried to stay still, my head leaning back on the pole. I should’ve known something like this was coming eventually. After all, my father had given me plenty of warnings over the years—a punch here, a kick there. It was all bound to add up to one horrible beating eventually. And the waterboarding shit? Well, I would’ve never been able to guess that was coming because I’d never known it existed until I experienced it. The insides of my nasal passages burned all the way up into my brain. I silently wondered if I’d have permanent brain damage from all of this.
Not that it much mattered. If I thought I was walking out of this dungeon anytime soon, I would be sadly mistaken. The only way I was getting out of there was rolled up in a carpet, and that would probably mean I was dead. I wasn’t useful to my father anymore because he couldn’t trust me. So what would be the point of keeping me alive? It wasn’t as if he’d have to explain my mysterious disappearance to anyone. If Daemon was bold enough to ask, my father would probably just shoot him in the face. Drake might ask, but he was smart enough to know he would be better off pretending he hadn’t noticed I was gone. Otherwise, he’d be dead, too. And Sarah, thank god, didn’t have any way of getting in touch with my family.
So I would just disappear off the face of the earth, and this blob of junk would keep on spinning. Nothing gained, nothing lost.
It was disheartening, honestly. I’d had plans, things I wanted to do with my life. Instead, I’d lose it all to the one man I should’ve taken the opportunity to kill when I’d had the chance. Daemon had been right when he’d approached me to help kill my father. He knew what was in store for me, eventually, one way or another, and I had been too fucking stupid to jump at the deal because I felt bad. For a man who talked so much about family, it sure didn’t mean anything to him. Any loyalty I’d had for him died when he’d shoved that Tabasco sauce up my nose.
“You’re such a fucking idiot,” I whispered, my voice hoarse and gravelly. Even the inside of my mouth seemed to be swollen.
The door opened a few seconds later, and I jumped, though I was still trying my best not to look afraid. Through the slits that were now my eyes, in the dim light, I made out the form of my old man and snarled at him. If he wanted to treat me like an animal, then that’s what he’d get.
“Relax, bitch,” he said, and I noticed then he wasn’t carrying any more seltzer water or fire. No knives or other implements of torture. He pulled a chair from around the corner and sat in the doorway so that he was neither in nor out. Sort of fitting, I thought. He’d never wanted to release me from the family, but he never wanted to fully commit to me being his daughter either. “You surprised me.”
I tried to stare into his eyes, but I had lost control of the muscles in my eye sockets a while back. Like everything else in my body, they were alight, and I couldn’t readily control them, so I only glared at him, wishing he’d just fall over dead.
“Seriously, I never thought you’d be able to handle thetehuacanazo.Some of my biggest, bravest men would’ve crumbled under that degree of torture, yet you just took it, like it didn’t bother you at all.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. Of course, it hurt like a motherfucker, but I wasn’t about to cave to him, not when I didn’t even have answers for him anyway. I said nothing, just stood there, willing him to die. It didn’t work.
“You are definitely stronger than you look.” I felt his eyes roaming over me as he tried to assess any good qualities I may have. Then, he shrugged. “It’s too fucking bad you were only able to show that strength because of a Petrov. If you were this loyal to your own family, then maybe we could’ve worked together. But now, well, I think we both know that it’s too late.”
I couldn’t help the chuckle that rose up the back of my throat. “You say you hate the Petrovs so much, but then you went and married one. Explain that bullshit.” I wasn’t afraid of him anymore. I’d already accepted the fact that I was dead meat hanging on a hook. My body had taken all the pain he’d poured out on me, and I hadn’t broken yet, so why would I now?
He straightened up in his chair, and I could see his disposition change as he grew angry at my words. “Lillian is not a Petrov,” he told me in no uncertain terms. “She’s a Malatesta. We go way back to when we were kids. It’s not her fault she had to marry that bastard Petrov, Russian scum. He forced his way onto her, made her marry him, took advantage of her in every way possible, and there was nothing I could do at the time. So I met your mother, and we were happy for a while.” He shrugged, like my mother was an afterthought. “Lillian and I had no choice but to go our separate ways. But things change. Circumstances change. People die. Availability is renewed.”
He was talking like he was buying a fucking house that had been on and off the market, not losing a wife and gaining a new one. I wanted to punch him in the face for disrespecting my mother, but I couldn’t move.
So instead, I listened, trying to soak up what he was saying since he tended to disclose important information to people he assumed were already dead. If I had an opportunity to get the fuck out of here, some of this might be important.
I could tell my father was no longer talking to me but was just rambling as he looked down at the floor. “It took way too fucking long, but she finally got her shitty ass husband killed.” He chuckled under his breath. “Fooled that dumbass son of hers, that’s for damn sure. And here he is thinking this was going to work out in his favor. Fucking idiot.”
He was talking about Daemon. He had to be. What the fuck did he mean? “Fooled her son?” I asked, mostly under my breath to myself as I processed. He looked up at me then, and I wished I hadn’t said anything. Now, he knew I knew too much. My father shook his head, and that was all I needed to know. “It doesn’t fucking matter now, girl. Don’t you understand? You’ve betrayed the family. There’s no going back from this. We have to remove you from the family. And you know there’s only one way out of the La Rosa family.” He stood then, taking a few steps closer to me. “It’s time to prune the bushes.”
