That’s it. I’ve had it with her shit, with the scene she’s making, with all of it. The delivery guy reaches for her, but I step between them and punch him in the face. He crumples to the ground, out cold.
No one fucking touches my wife.
Without a word, I throw her over my shoulder and carry her inside, straight into the elevator. I set her on her feet only once the doors have closed and the car is moving.
“What are you going to do to me?” she asks, sounding half defiant and half scared as she brushes her hair out of her face, apparently done with the histrionics.
Not nearly as much as you deserve, baby girl.
I don’t say the words aloud, though. I watch her, wondering what she wants me to say, and what sheneedsme to say, and if those are very different things. The bratty, spoiled princess I married wants something very different from what I’m starting to suspect the scared, insecure girl inside her needs. The question is, can I give her that?
I promised myself I wouldn’t. But if I could teach her to be good, if I could show her she’s worth teaching, she might learn to live with me. She’s my fucking wife, after all, not some random girl whose name I forgot two days after she spread her legs for me. It would be worth it to try, if she’d let me. It would be worth it to see what makes her tick, though I suspect I already know. From the rare glimpses I’ve caught of something beneath the glossy surface, I think I know how to give her exactly what she needs.
“Well?” she asks as we reach the apartment.
I push her inside and close the door before answering. “You acted like a child, so you get treated like a child.”
“What are you going to do, punish me?” she asks, rolling her eyes. Even when she acts like a brat, there’s something so incredibly innocent about her, as if all that bravado and sass is just a cover to hide the fact that she’s scared, and broken, and too naïve for her own good. Her eyes are wary, her hair a mess after her tantrum outside, and damn if she doesn’t look too fucking sexy for her own good.
“If that’s what you want,” I say. “You need discipline, Eliza. Punishment can be part of that, if you like that.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” she demands.
“It means the same thing I said before. If you do what you’re supposed to do, if you behave yourself, you get your phone back. If you throw a fucking tantrum on the street, you get punished.”
“Oh,” she says, swallowing.
We stare at each other for a long minute, measuring each other. I’ve never punished a girl before, never even thought about it. The thought is… Hotter than it should be. I’ve never been with a girl long enough to warrant games like this. If I didn’t like something a girl did, I walked away and never looked back. But there’s no walking away from Eliza Dolce. She wears my ring and carries my name. She’s family, and I don’t walk away from family.
ten
Eliza
“Sit down,” King says, gesturing to the table.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t that. I thought he’d bend me over the table and make me pay for what I did. Instead, he stares at me with dark, expectant eyes that leave no room for argument. I can see the fury inside him, behind the sheen of control. I can see the glittering malice, the sadistic monster who would love nothing more than my disobedience. I can see him itching to put me in my place, to hurt me. He probably thinks I’m going to do what I did before, but there’s no point now. Why throw a fit for only him to see?
That’s a performance, something a girl does to get her way. It usually worked with Daddy. I’d start making a scene, and he’d give in, not wanting the public spectacle. The only time it didn’t work was when he told me I had to marry a Valenti.
He’s not here to rescue me now, and King’s the villain, not my knight in shining armor. So I placate him because I want to survive this as much as he does. I sit at the table and fold my hands expectantly. Waiting for whatever horror he’s about to serve up. And even though my heart is racing and my nerves fluttering, I won’t let him see. I show him only attitude, though I’m beginning to think he’s onto me. He may be young, but he’s not dumb. He may not be able to see through me yet, but I bet he knows he’s only seeing the surface just like I know there’s more to him than meets the eye. And not just because the handsome face hides a devil underneath. No, King has walls even thicker than mine. We may put up different facades, but I’d bet they serve the same purpose.
What’s he hiding behind those dark, smoldering eyes? What made him a sadistic Valenti man at only eighteen?
King retrieves a set of Asian-style soup spoons we got as a wedding gift and sits down at the head of the table. He opens them carefully, neither of us speaking. In the same slow and methodical way, he unpacks the bag of food. For a minute, I think he’s just going to make me eat with him in silence, like we did on our honeymoon. I have nothing to say to a man whose family killed my brother. If it weren’t for the Valentis, my mother would still be here, too. She wouldn’t have decided she couldn’t take the Life anymore. True, she wouldn’t have realized her dreams, either. But she’d be here to tell me what to do, to advise me. I don’t have the first idea of how to be some man’s wife, let alone a stranger’s.
“You behaved like a child, so you will be treated as one,” King says, setting a bowl in front of each of us. “I will feed you, and you will eat, but you will not speak.”
What the fuck?
This is definitely not what we did on our honeymoon.
I open my mouth to argue, then decide it could be a lot worse. If he has some weird fetish about feeding people, whatever. At least he’s not starving me or raping me or beating me. He could do any of that if he wanted. I’m at his mercy. If the worst he’ll do is burn my mouth a little, I’m getting off easy.
“That’s it?” I ask. “That’s the only punishment? If I let you feed me dinner, you’ll give me back my phone?”
“You’re not to speak until I say so,” he reminds me.
“Fine by me,” I mutter. “I don’t have anything to say to you, anyway.”