“Please—”
I grabbed her other arm, tightened my grip, and pulled her against my chest. “If you knew how much I enjoyed it when a woman begged, you wouldn’t be saying please so much, little mouse.”
She pulled her face away from mine as far as she could, whimpering while tears still stained her cheeks.
“Now, eat.” I shoved her toward the bed where the tray stood with a loaf of stale bread and a glass of water. This wasn’t a fucking five-star hotel, especially for her. All she deserved was scraps and old food the pigs wouldn’t even fucking eat.
Tatum fell beside the bed, wiping her eyes with the backs of her hands. Vico was right; she had no goddamn spine. I thought I saw a glimmer of some fight in her earlier, but I was wrong. She was nothing more than a spineless, lying slut who needed to be taught a lesson before her final payment.
“Eat your food. You’ll need your strength for what’s ahead.”
She got up on her knees, leaning with her side against the bed. “What are you going to do to me?”
“That’s for me to know and for you to find out, little mouse. Now, I said eat.”
She glanced at the tray and immediately went for the glass of water. But as she took that first gulp, she spat it out in a spray of disgust. I smiled, knowing all too well what Vico had done.
“What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”
The glass fell from her hand, the liquid spilling on the floor. “It’s water and vinegar.” She wiped her mouth.
“I know. And you just spilled it, wasting the only form of hydration you had.”
“Castello, please—”
“Let’s get one thing straight.” I crouched down right in front of her, bringing me at eye level to her. “You will not address me by my name, do you understand me? You’ll address me as ‘sir,’ and nothing else. You are nothing here, no one. As of now, you are stripped of all your basic human rights, and you belong to me. You are my puppet, and I will do with you as I please.” I got up and straightened. “If I return, you better have finished that goddamn loaf of bread, or there will be hell to pay.”
Tatum glanced at the bread before looking at me. For a brief second, I saw a flash of the fight she had earlier before Vico came in. It burned with anger behind her blue irises, and at that moment I realized I was going to enjoy every goddamn minute of breaking her.
Chapter 6
TATUM
My throat was dry, and even though I felt sick to my stomach, my body craved food. There was no telling how long I’d been here, when I last had something to eat or drink. But when Vico placed the tray with bread and what I now knew was water and vinegar on the bed, eating or drinking was the last thing on my mind. The second I laid eyes on Vico, my skull prickled with warning. Castello had darkness burning in his eyes, but Vico? There was something sinister stirring in him, and it made my skin crawl.
Oh God.
What the hell is happening?
What am I going to do? How am I going to survive this—whatever this is?
Wiping away the remnants of tears off my cheeks, I stared at the stale loaf of bread. What I really wanted was water, but when I tasted that God-awful vinegar, the gulp I took burned down my throat. Unfortunately, that small taste of water had only intensified my thirst, and now I was even willing to see how much of the disgusting water-vinegar mix my body would tolerate before I would throw up.
I glanced down at the liquid I had spilled all over the floor. Without thinking, I crouched forward, pressed my dirty hair back, and started licking the vinegar-water off the floor like a fucking dog. I couldn’t stop myself. It was like all natural instincts had set in, and if licking water off the floor was what I needed to do to give my body what it needed, then so be it.
The taste was disgusting. The sharp tang of the vinegar stung the inside of my mouth, all the way down my throat. But I didn’t care. I tried to concentrate on the little taste of water I did manage to get every now and then.
After licking up every drop I could find, I sat back, leaning against the bed, and stared at the roof. The psycho was probably watching, loving the sight of me crawling on the floor like a fucking pet. This was exactly what he wanted to see, me on my knees.
While biting the inside of my mouth, I thought about the look in Castello’s eyes when he stared at me, how the hate pulsed with thick, hot rage behind his dark irises. He thought I killed his brother, but that was not true. He wanted revenge against me for something I didn’t do. How the fuck was I supposed to get out of this, survive, when this man had nothing but resolve written all over his face?
I could feel more tears threatening to show how weak I felt at that moment, but I bit on my tongue, pushing them back. Enough tears had been expelled from my body and soul ever since the day I thought Carlo had left me. With every tear my body shed after Carlo was gone, I hated him more and more. His absence in my life made me weak, made me want to crawl back into that hole I had been in for years, after I finally managed the strength to get out of it. I had promised myself that I would never allow anything to force me back into that dark place where pain was my friend. But when Carlo disappeared, I couldn’t take it. It was a different kind of pain than what I was used to. It wasn’t the kind of pain I liked, which was why I took to drinking. Alcohol was the only way to numb the craving, to control the urge to let the pain seep out of my veins.
I never wanted to be that person again, that person who was too weak to handle the pain, who needed it expelled from their body to get some relief.
Being weak was not who I was.
I eyed the bread, remembering his warning of what would happen if I didn’t eat it. Part of me knew I needed to eat to regain my strength, but another part of me refused. He wanted me strong so I would be able to endure whatever it was he had planned. Castello wanted me to eat, which was incentive enough for me not to. How stupid would I be if I obeyed everything he said, enabling him on this twisted vendetta of his against me?