I swallow through the lump in my throat, not responding to Elio. He knows so what does it matter if I did or not? Feeding into what he’s already taken from me won’t do anything but give him ammunition against me. I refuse to allow him to see me break.
“When we first figured it out I had a thought,” he says, rubbing at his chin again, those dark brown eyes boring into me. “If the child survived, how poetic would it be for me to raise it as my own? No one ever the wiser but you and me. What a kick in the face that would be to your pathetic father and his crew of street rats.”
Elio runs his hand through his dark hair and gives me a wicked smile, closing the space between us once more. He trails his finger up my bare leg.
“Then I thought,”—his hand stops right at my hip, playing with the hem of my underwear—“I’m not a good enough man to raise someone else’s bastard. I would have to get rid of it and impregnate you myself.”
My teeth grind and I buck my hips to try to free myself from my restraints, not giving into the blinding pain in my body. Elio rips my panties from my body, and I spit in his face. He chuckles darkly while wiping the blood and saliva away, then crawling on top of me.
He presses his hips down letting me feel his hard cock through his jeans. I growl but can’t buck him off of me with my mobility so tightly restricted.
Elio runs his lips along my cheek and I swallow down the bile that rises in my throat when he takes my ear into his mouth.
He pulls back and smiles down at me.
“I was told to wait six weeks after we rid you of the leech. Perhaps if I give you my cock, you will behave better,” he purrs, running his hand up my side before cupping my covered breast. “Word is Malia Olin is quite the little slut.”
I snap my head forward, relishing the sound of Elio’s nose crunching under the force of the blow. Blood splatters my cheeks and I smile at him. Then he drives his fist into my face and stars burst behind my eyes as I fight to stay conscious.
“I think it’s time I break you,principessa,“ Elio growls as he shifts his body above me.
I hear what sounds like a zipper and clothes shuffling before I feel Elio spread my legs. My mind is dazed and too slow to catch up and try to fight back.
“That weak girls like you are meant to be owned and you will heel.”
“Fuck you,” I manage to croak.
I feel Elio press into me, driving his hips forward with a powerful thrust. I bite back the scream that builds in my chest as he tears into me. He smacks me again as he continues to punch his hips into me.
“Let me hear you beg me to stop,principessa,“ he snarls, burying himself deeper.
I won’t scream for him.
I won’t break.
I refuse to let him win this war when he’s only won one battle.
With every punch to my face, I give a little more into the call of the darkness in my mind. Sliding myself into the memories that make me feel whole, shutting out everything that’s threatening to break me.
15
Nathaniel
It’sbeenamonthsince my baby girl was taken. Every minute is harder than the last, knowing how ruthless our world can be. The nightmare memories of the day I found Joseph Brenner holding his dead wife with a bullet between his eyes replay every time I try to sleep. The fear that I might relive that moment, this time through his son and my daughter, is inching me toward madness.
If we find her.
The sound of fists meeting flesh and cries of pain echo through the door in my basement. Liam has taken to venting frustration on low-level gang members and anyone with a criminal record. Maybe there is some hope that he will find the right person to give us the answers we seek.
I have played this game before. I see the same fear and pain in him I saw in his father’s matching blue eyes.
Opening the heavy metal door, I step into the dimly lit concrete room. The man lying in a pool of his own blood at Liam’s feet is unrecognizable. Where there was once a face of flesh and bone, now there is nothing but minced meat and blood.
Liam’s leg swings back and then forward, driving into the man’s ribs. No sound other than the man’s pain tells me his ribs are already broken.
“Where the fuck is Rico Martinez?” Liam demands, wiping blood from his face with his tattooed forearm.
The man below him groans his pain, possibly trying to answer but beaten too badly to form words or make his mouth work. Malia would be proud of him. I cannot say I am.