I groaned and started crying, but that only seemed to make him mad. He stood up and kicked me several times along my back.
I screamed and rolled onto my side to protect myself, but he only moved around to my front and kicked me everywhere until I writhed on the ground, screaming in agony.
“That’s just a little taster, bitch,” he snarled when he finally stopped. “Don’t give me your mouth, or I’ll knock out every one of your teeth. Now, answer my question. Which of the Luciano twins is Luca Fortino’s consigliere?”
I was crying too hard to answer. I tried to turn my face into the floor to hide from him, but it didn’t work.
Every inch of my body ached from the beating, and if I believed him, it would only get worse. What if he killed me?
My heart ached for Luca and the twins. They always kept me safe. They did everything to get me through the ball and avoid exactly this situation happening. They would be freaking out when they couldn’t find me.
Theywouldfind me. They had to. All my hopes rested on them, but Giovanni snatched that hope away when he started talking again. “You boyfriend didn’t even care when I called him and told him I had you. Did you know that? He doesn’t give a shit about you. No one is coming to get you. You’re nothing to him but a hole to fuck. You know that, don’t you?”
He chuckled and strolled around me. His boots clomped on the hollow floor as he rotated from in front of me to behind me and back to the front.
His words found their way into my mind and heart. What if he was right? What if Luca never cared about me? What if he only said those things on the balcony to give himself an excuse to fuck me? What if none of them every cared about anything except doing it with me?
I couldn’t let myself believe that, but the agony of Giovanni’s kicks broke down my defenses. I couldn’t help but doubt. What if the guys didn’t care enough to search for me? What if they left me with Giovanni forever?
“You see?” he went on. “He won’t get you back until he leaves Boston, and he’ll never do that. He’ll never abandon Archhurst and the territory his father and grandfather worked so hard to win. The family comes first for him. He’s a true Padrino.”
I screwed up my eyes, and before I knew it, I was crying again. Giovanni was right. Luca was the essence of a Padrino. He would never leave Boston, especially not for me. I was the daughter of the man who sent Luca’s father to prison and killed his uncle. Why should he sacrifice his empire for me?
Giovanni chuckled again. “It’s so pathetic. They hate you, you stupid bitch, and all for something your father didn’t even do. They think Matteo La Rosa sold out the family when it was the Vittorios all along. We set up Matteo, and now the Fortinos and the Lucianos will keep hating you forever. No wonder they don’t care if you live or die.”
“You bastard!” I shrieked. “You cocksucking piece of shit! You aren’t half the man they are. You’re a worm compared to them. You’re a bitch! You aren’t fit to lick the toilet they shit in, you filthy useless fuckwit. You’re a liability to your family. Your father knows you’re too witless to do anything serious in his business. You aren’t good for anything except sticking your dick into hired sluts. You think you’re…”
I would have said a lot more. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to push his buttons and insult him in the worst way possible, and I guess I succeeded.
He let out a roar of fury and landed on top of me. He swung his fist and smashed it into the side of my head.
Before I knew it, he punched me back and forth again and again. I felt my consciousness starting to slip. He would probably beat me to death, but at least I would die loyal to Luca and the twins and the family. No one could take that away from me.
Every blow solidified in my mind that my place was with Luca and the twins. I belonged with them at Archhurst. I never wanted to be anywhere else. My life began and ended there.
Even if my body couldn’t die there, my heart would always dwell there with them. I floated into a hazy daydream about the three of them. I saw them all at once.
Luca. Dante. Dominic.
I loved them with all my heart. Everything that I was belonged to them. I knew in that moment that they felt the same way about me. Giovanni couldn’t stop me from knowing it.
My vision cleared, and I looked up at Giovanni’s contorted grimace. He knew it. He knew he couldn’t touch me, and as long as I remained silent, he couldn’t touch Luca or the Fortinos, either.
Giovanni and the rest of the Vittorios wanted to know who Luca’s consigliere was so they could harm the Fortino family in some other way. That would never happen because I would never give them that information. I wouldn’t give it even if I knew.
Frustration and rage twisted Giovanni’s features into something ghastly and beyond human. He reared up to take another swing… and froze.
A flash of silver winked under his chin. A blade pressed against his throat, and a hollow-eyed death’s head appeared in the bare light shining down from above. Luca.
“You might want to step away from her,” Luca hissed in Giovanni’s ear. “I don’t take kindly to scumbags like you harming the people I love.”
Giovanni stiffened and raised his hands in an attitude of surrender. His head jerked back when Luca pulled him away by the hair. Giovanni’s eyes darted from one side to the other.
I didn’t see what he was looking at until Luca hauled him far enough away. The darkness to my left blurred, and Dante stepped out of the shadow. He strode toward Giovanni, and another figure dropped from the rafters.
Dominic landed between me and Giovanni, and then all four men vanished into the darkness. Thumps, groans, squeals, and the unmistakable crack of bones echoed through the empty room.
I compressed my lips to stop myself from crying. They came! I searched the shadows, but I couldn’t see any of them.