I knew while I stared at her body being ripped apart by Vico’s belt that I would be the man that gave her the darkness she desired. And as I counted every lash, endured every scream that came out of her mouth, I knew that I would never allow another man to lay a single hand on her body ever again. She was mine. And she became mine the second she got carried through my front door and placed behind the prison walls I had specially made for her.
I gulped down the last of my drink. “Do you want to know what’s different, Uncle?” I poured myself another glass. “I’m different. I’m a different bastard now than I was that day.”
“And why is that, Castello?”
I snorted as I turned around to face him again. “Back then, I was the bastard who had a woman kidnapped, beaten, and humiliated for his own selfish needs. And now…now I’m the bastard who has that same woman locked in his bedroom, but for some entirely different selfish reasons.”
“You need to stop.”
I snorted. “Stop what? I already started this war between me and my little brother by choosing her above my own family. There’s no stopping it now.”
“Then you better man up and get that goddamn confused look off your face.”
I scowled. “Confused?”
He threw his empty glass across the room, pieces of glass shattering against the wall. “You walk around looking like a man that doesn’t know where he belongs. Like a man that doesn’t know what the fuck is going on in here.” He slammed his fist against his own chest. “You need to decide what the hell it is you want, and then you take it, and you make sure that no one, and I mean no one, ever takes it from you.”
I bit down on my bottom lip. He was right. I was confused. Every time I looked into those beautiful sapphire blue eyes, I was confused as fuck. I didn’t understand how one woman could change so much, make me feel so many different feelings all at once.
One moment I felt like I needed her more than I needed air. The next moment I looked at her and I couldn’t stop thinking that everything that happened, Carlos death, me killing both Nicollo and my mother, this war that simmered between me and Vico, it was all because of her.
I killed my own flesh and blood because of her. My family was now divided because of her. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from wanting this woman more than I wanted anything in this entire goddamn, motherfucking world.How the fuck was that possible? Blaming someone just as much as needing that same person?
I squared my shoulders and looked at Uncle Gino, hoping like hell he didn’t see all the conflicting emotions running rampant inside me. “I’m trying to figure all this out.”
Uncle Gino stepped up, his dark stare pinned on me. If I wasn’t such a confident asshole, I would have felt intimidated by the stone cold look he had on his face. “That woman you currently have locked up in your bedroom inmyhouse will either be your saving grace or your downfall, Castello. I pray it’s not the latter. But if you keep on treating her like your prisoner, I can guarantee she will destroy you.”
I snorted and shook my head before looking him square in the eye. “It’s too late for that, Uncle. She already has.”
Chapter 4
TATUM
The second I heard him lock the bedroom door, I knew I had acted foolishly. I pushed him. I provoked him by asking the question I knew he wasn’t ready to answer. But I was getting restless, confusion taking its toll on my mind, my sanity.
Ever since we got here, I had no desire to leave the room. I had no desire to face reality, but rather to stay here between these four walls and live inside the world Castello and I had created for ourselves. Our world felt safer. I felt stronger. And I liked it.
On the inside of our world, nothing else mattered. Death, money, lies, deceit, sadness…nothing mattered but us and this weirdly twisted bond we seemed to share. I didn’t want to step out of this bubble we were in only to face a reality I wasn’t sure I would be strong enough to survive.
I had convinced myself I was still his prisoner, and I preferred it that way. I preferred to live inourworld, rather than live in mine…or his.
In the world the Fattores lived in, they did not care for any rules but their own. Loyalty was everything, yet a life held no value. I realized that the day I watched my father die…the day I saw Castello hold the gun that killed his mother.
All the chaos and uncertainty that surrounded me while living in the midst of a world I knew nothing about, I felt safer right here in this room, protected against the unknown.
But it seemed different now, after the game we played.
The second Castello told me to run earlier, I experienced a tiny fragment of freedom I had been denied for weeks, and it made me realize I could no longer live like a prisoner. I needed space. I needed air. I needed to feel alive outside the bedroom Castello and I shared. I wanted to be more than just the person he fucked in order to give his demons what they craved. And during those brief moments of freedom, I hoped Castello felt the same. That he, too, wanted and needed us to be more than just players in the dark. More than just two people who depended on each other to satiate and tame the warped desires that stemmed from the darkest parts of our souls.
But I was wrong, so very wrong. To him I was nothing more than a possession, something he owned. I was a pet, a slave. I was whatever the fuck he wanted me to be, nothing more. The sound of the door locking was proof of that.
I flopped down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. At least this prison room was prettier and much bigger than the first one I had. And there was a bathroom. And a great view. And Castello shared it with me.
Goddammit!
Why did it feel like everything changed…yet it hadn’t? Castello killed his own cousin to keep me from being raped. He killed his own mother, betrayed his family, to save me. This was just another example of how impossible it was to know what he was thinking, to know what he was feeling. Castello was an enigma, a puzzle from which the pieces only created more questions. A mystery unsolvable among a thousand riddles. Whenever I was alone, I didn’t feel strong enough for him. Yet when we were together like we were earlier, I felt like we were two pieces of a force so powerful it could destroy us both.
I gently touched the skin around my neck, feeling the burn Castello’s belt had left behind. My body ached, and my mind was a minefield of questions and confusion. Yet I had never felt more satisfied. As little as I could see inside Castello’s mind, he somehow managed to see everything in mine. He knew what I wanted, what I needed. He knew my body like it was a sculpture he had shaped and formed…as if he were god over my soul. He became the dictator, and I was merely the slave who obeyed his every command.