"You wanted this," he tells me, and it hurts like hell because I know he's right. "You've been waiting for someone to steal your virginity, haven't you, Marzia?"
"No!" I struggle against him, struggle against the pleasure he's bringing my unwilling body. But nothing helps, nothing works. "Let go of me! I fucking hate you!"
"Oh look at that." He laughs. "She's a little rebel now."
He pulls his finger free and wipes it on the front of my dress, leaving behind a bloody stain. Adrian takes a step back while I shiver in front of him, hating my life.
Just then, an ear-piercing scream rings out from above. My eyes fly to the ceiling and the locked door behind my captor.
"What's h-happening?" I manage, my voice shaky with nerves. "What was that scream?"
"Why don't you go take a look?" Adrian unlocks the door, holding it open for me. It's my cue to leave, to get away from him, but something tells me I won't like what's happening upstairs. "Go on, bambina. Run away from me. Just know every time you do, I'll chase you... and every single time, I'm going to catch you. There's no running from Adrian Bernardi, Marzia."
"You're a monster," I spit out at him.
"And you love it," he finishes for me.
Ignoring his cruel words, I race out of the room and down the hallway. As I make my way closer to the ground floor, my heart beats in fear, knowing something's very, very wrong.
There are people screaming. There's the sound of gunshots. I hear someone calling my name. My blood curdles as I round the corner.
What I see before me is worse than anything I could have imagined. I sink to my knees as Adrian comes up behind me, easily resting a hand on my shoulder as I whimper on the ground.
"I told you, Marzia. I want you, and nothing is going to stand in my way."
7
Adrian
While Marzia kneels, I place my hand on her shoulder, admiring the havoc we've wreaked on De Luca and everything he cares about.
The room is sprayed with blood. Bodies lie at my feet, and a man tries to crawl out of the room when one of my men walks up to him and shoots him point blank between the eyes. Marzia is screaming, the sound fading to a backdrop and melting into a hum with the rest of the noise in the grand hall. She needed to witness this. She needed to see Bernardi fury. It's not her fault her father and fiancé are fucking scum of the earth. But still, she will be forced to watch them go down, willing or not.
My eyes find my father, standing at the center of the room pointing a gun at Marzia's papa.
"Swear allegiance to the Bernardi family," father says in a low snarl. "Or pay for your insolence with your worthless life, cane."
Marzia's father shakes his head before spitting at my father's feet. "You're an idiot, Bruno Bernardi. You will pay for this crime in blood. Do you really want your family erased from the planet? Every last shred of Bernardi pride wiped away like you're worth fucking nothing?"
"You make big threats for a man who's got a gun pointed to his head," father smirks.
"You're a dead man," Marzia's father hisses. "Once the Donatis find out about this, you're a dead man fucking walking!"
"I already am," father laughs, emptying the gun into De Luca's patriarch's forehead.
Marzia screams and so does her mother, but I pay it no mind. My bambina's body collapses to the ground and she hammers her little fists against the blood-stained marble floor as her father's lifeless body hits the ground. I pull my gun out too, approaching father.
"Did you really have to kill him in front of her?" I hiss at him. "She's going to hate me for that."
"This doesn't concern you," father grunts in response. "It goes beyond your childish obsession with that girl. This means war."
Without looking away from me, he fires another bullet into Marzia's mama's brain. Another lifeless body hits the floor with a thud. The sound of Marzia's horrified screams rings out through the great hall. I rub my temples, spitting on the body of someone I don't recognize on the ground. I'll need to work on Marzia forgiving me.
I turn around just in time to see her get up, rushing to get her bearings. She takes off down the hallway and father points the gun at her.
"Are you fucking insane?" I demand, slapping his hand away. "Don't you fucking dare."
"She's a liability," he growls. "She's better off dead and we both know it."
"She's the reason we're here," I get out through gritted teeth.
"That's what you think." Father laughs before pointing his men up the stairs. "We lost Donati. Find him. Now."
"No," I reply firmly. "I'm going after Marzia."