Noooooooo!!!
My stomach empties itself, and I gag through the sobs tearing from my chest.
Oh, God.
No.
No.
“What…?” I hear Gino’s voice, and before I can lift my head, his cry is muted by another gunshot.
Gino’s body drops near his son’s, and I scramble backward until I slam into one of the walls. Horrified, I can’t stop staring at the two bodies. Bile dribbles down my chin, and my chest is on fire.
Dante moves, and terrified, my eyes snap to him. I watch as he tucks his flaccid dick away.
I gasp for air, my lungs burning and my throat aching. The bile rushes up again, and somehow in my traumatized state, my body knows to turn to the side so I can throw up.
When there’s nothing left to vomit, I sink back on my butt, and leaning against the wall, I try to breathe through the gruesomeness surrounding me.
Gino and Alfonso’s bodies. The blood staining the wood. The tainted scent of leather and steel.
It’s all too much to process. It’s a nightmare. A cruel and depraved nightmare.
“You will fucking stay here until I come back,” Dante warns me. As he begins to shut the door, he threatens, “Try to leave, and I’ll fuck you raw, Principessa.”
Dante leaves me in the room with the two bodies, trembling with the fear of being raped. The air quickly grows putrid with the acidic smell from the vomit.
I sit frozen in the nightmare orchestrated by Dante. Unable to move… unable to believe what happened… unable to process anything, I just stare at the lifeless bodies.
I have no idea how long I sit like that, staring at death, my mind filled with static.
As the sun sets and the room begins to grow dark, life returns to my limbs. Slowly, I crawl to my clothes. It takes a lot of concentration to get dressed as if my mind has forgotten the simple task.
Only then do the events begin to replay in my mind, ripping a broken sob from me. I move to the other side of the room, and sitting down in a corner, I wrap my arms around my legs.
Alfonso and Gino are dead. Dante forced his erection in my mouth. He came in my mouth.
Every thought is a merciless blow to my soul. The shame bears heavily down on me as if it’s trying to squeeze the very life from my body. I can still taste the bitterness of Dante’s orgasm on the back of my tongue, the vomiting having done nothing to erase it.
For a moment, my eyes lock with Alfonso’s lifeless ones, and it makes me cry harder.
I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry.
Please forgive me.
Chapter 2
ELENA
The Past - 20 Years Old.
I can feel Dante’s cruel stare on me where I’m standing out on my balcony. The raindrops pelt my skin, chilling me to the bone.
I gaze through the curtain of rain at the grounds. The last time I left the house was when Alfonso and Gino were killed, and Dante forced himself on me for the first time.
The days following the horrendous incident, I was like a zombie. A prisoner in my own mind, plagued by the horrors that occurred.
It annoyed Dante, and when he beat me for it, the hatred and rage I felt during the incident flared to life. It was the first time I tried to fight back against him. I didn’t win. Of course not. Dante’s twice my size and much stronger. But it never stopped me from trying to defend myself.
It’s been four years, and my nightmares keep growing. I thought my life was suffocating before the horrific incident, but compared to now, it was nothing. I was almost happy before it happened. Now, I’m a prisoner of perpetual torture and guilt, with the threat of being raped by Dante hanging over my head.
Even though I’m freezing, I stay out on the balcony as long as I can. It’s the closest I get to outside. My days are now spent between the library and my room. I no longer get to walk between the manicured flower beds.
Whenever I try to leave the house, I’m rewarded with a beating from Dante. Every time he’s done painting my skin with bruises, I promise myself to try harder to escape the house. It’s weird. It’s as if Dante torturing me is fueling me instead of breaking me. In turn, Dante seems to thrive on it when I try to fight back. It’s like we’re stuck in a destructive tango that will only lead to one thing – one of us dying. And unless I learn how to fight, it will probably be me.
It’s only been Dante the past three years. I haven’t had tutors since I finished school, and honestly, I miss the reprieve they offered. The staff and other guards have been instructed to ignore my existence, and they’re too afraid to do otherwise.