“Perhaps you should remember that your mother still owes us four thousand dollars.”
She froze. “Are you threatening to kill her too?”
“No,” I said. “Just reminding you that she needs someone who makes sure she pays us back.” I was a fucking bastard for using her mother against her, but I’d do anything to stop Leona from leaving, even this.
“Just tell me what you want from me. That I sleep with you? Would that settle my mother’s debt?” She said it with so much disgust that it set my veins aflame with fury.
“Do you really think fucking you once is worth that much? Leona, believe me, it’s not. For you to pay off four grand, you’ll have to let me have your pussy for a long time.”
She slapped me hard. She’d caught me by surprise. I caught her hand, my fingers tight around her thin wrist. I jerked her toward me, so our faces were inches apart. “This once. Only this once,” I said in a low voice. “Never raise your hand against me again.”
She glared at me with tear-filled eyes. “I hate you.”
Those words weren’t news to me but coming from her…
“I can deal with hate. Sex is so much better when there’s hate involved.”
“I’m never going to sleep with you, Fabiano. If that means I’m breaking some Camorra rule, then so be it. Torture me if you must, but I won’t be yours. Not now, not ever.”
I could tell that she was serious, but she knew nothing of torture. I leaned close to her ear. “We’ll see about that.”
She jerked open the door and fled the car.
“Don’t forget your backpack,” I called through the open window. She went to the back and picked it up. “And Leona,” I said in warning. “Don’t ever try to run from me again. I won’t let you go, and I’ll find you wherever you go.”
She watched me, shoulders slumping, expression desperate. “Why?” she murmured. “Why won’t you let me leave? I’m not worth the bother.”
Remo had as good as said the same. And I knew they were right. She was nothing. I’d fucked so many women, could have many more, Leona was nothing to write home about.
“You are right, you aren’t.”
She flinched as if I’d gutted her. Those hurt blue eyes. She nodded, then turned.
I almost called out to her, but what could I have said?
I’m sorry. The idea of you leaving me is the worst torture I can imagine. Be the woman Aria gave me that bracelet for.
Stay, even if I’m not worth it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I practically ran back home, my heart beating in my throat in anger and hurt. I couldn’t believe what he’d said to me. Had he really meant it?
I was breathless when I arrived at the apartment. I unlocked the door, and froze on my way to my bedroom. Grunting and moans were coming from my father’s bedroom. Was my mother already using it for work? He hadn’t been dead for more than twenty-four hours and she had moved on.
I hammered against the bedroom door until she finally opened it, dressed in a bathrobe, nothing beneath it.
“Leona?”
A hairy man, at least seventy, was sprawled on the bed completely naked. I whirled around and stormed into the kitchen where I gripped the counter in a death grip.
Tears burned in my eyes.
I could hear Mom’s shuffling behind me. “Did you return because of that man? He seemed really intent on finding you. Looks like you really got under his skin,” Mom said as she stopped beside me. I had a hard time ignoring her skinny nakedness.
The only way to get under Fabiano’s skin was with a knife. It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that my mother took Fabiano’s possessiveness as a sign of him caring for me. She’d had a habit of making that mistake with her past boyfriends. “He didn’t let me leave. I didn’t want to return.”
“Perhaps it’s for the best.”
I searched her face. “You told him I went to the bus station, right?”
She finally closed her bathrobe. “I think he really cares about you.”
“What did he do? Did he threaten you?”
She looked embarrassed.
“He gave you what? Money? Drugs?”
“He promised to give me meth now and then. For free, Leona. But I wouldn’t have told him anything if I didn’t think he meant well.”
Mom touched my hand. “It’s not a bad thing to be with someone like him, especially if he is good to you. He holds power. He can protect you. What’s so bad about being with him?”
“Mom, Fabiano killed Dad, don’t you remember?”
Mom’s hand tightened on mine. “I do remember. But I also remember the first time I had to sell my body back when we lived in San Antonio and your father owed one of the local MCs money. He asked me to help him but behind my back he had already told their president I would spread my legs to pay off his debt. You were only a baby and I was still recovering from giving birth to you. Five of them. I had to sleep with five of them. Had to bear their filthy hands everywhere. They took more than was agreed on. And it was fucking painful, but you know what? Afterward, your father asked if I would now fuck him too. I hated him. But he promised it was only this once. It wasn’t. Next time he owed money, I had to do it again, and that time they gave me meth, and I took it because it made me forget. So yes, I remember that Fabiano killed your father and I am thankful. On the street they told me what happened to him and all I could think was that I wished I could have been there to see it because he destroyed me, and because of it I was never there for you. I was a horrible mother.”