“Fine, bro. You do you,” Thomas said with a shrug.
I stood up, too angry to just sit and watch the woman who got my blood boiling. “Yeah… I’ll do me. Stay out of it.”
“Just remember that this woman will soon be carrying our baby. Our father never treated our mother that way.”
It took all my might to not knock my brother right out of his chair. “She isn’t our goddamned mother. She’s not our wife. She’s nothing to us. This is a woman who squealed to the cops about us and tried to have us put behind bars for the rest of our lives. Have you forgotten that?”
“She still deserves some respect and some compassion,” Thomas said.
“How much respect are you giving her as you take a belt to her ass?” I snapped back.
“You have a good point,” Thomas said, clearly taking in my words.
“You would have lost your shit if you had been in my shoes,” I said between clenched teeth. “So, go fuck yourself and your judgement.”
Thomas threw up his hands in defeat. “All right, man. Chill out. I’m sorry I got you all worked up. We’re on the same page, and I got your back. Always.”
I was fucking livid. But I felt badly too. She was afraid. She had been terrified. Truly terrified, and I was the sole cause of it. Shit.
Yes, we punished her, but it was different. Her pussy dripped with every erotic spank or demand of a submissive act. The cuffs and plug were different. She wasn’t wet. There was no arousal. She was just a scared little girl with some deep-rooted demons attacking, and I allowed it. For some reason I wanted to protect her from that all.
Wait. No. Stop this fucking madness.
Fuck this confusion. Fuck Hailey and even Thomas for making my emotions run crazy. This wasn’t me. Order and structure. Black and white. Confusion was not an emotion I battled.
Enough was enough.
I needed to handle this.
I had to take control.
* * *
Hailey
Finding a way to sleep on the floor with nothing but a blanket comfortably with the plug and handcuffs still so tight against my flesh wasn’t easy, but I knew I had to learn how to accept it, or risk having continual panic attacks, which couldn’t be an option any longer. I needed to be strong. I had to find strength to survive. I had to. Finding my own internal peace would be the only thing to get me through this ordeal.
It had been about an hour or so since Thomas escorted me back to the room, and I decided to take the time to really accept my surroundings and absorb them into my soul. If I could come to terms and welcome my new situation, I would be all right. I didn’t know for sure what was in store for me with the brothers, but I had to deal with the moment. My new strength would be in not worrying about tomorrow but rather focus on today. Today, my concentration would be on breathing and comfort. Finding comfort. Rather than seeing this room as a cell, I needed to change my opinion and see it as my haven. Trick my mind, and trick my soul. It wouldn’t be the first time.
And it would be better than prison.
Even though I had told the brothers I would go to jail for them, I didn’t want that. True prison would be awful. There would be no chance to earn… comforts.
If I was a good girl.
Not a naughty girl.
I could maybe be the mafia queen who was pampered by her kings. Was that even a possibility? If I had their heir, would they feel they owed me respect and treat me better than now? Maybe I could work this toward my advantage. Maybe a baby was the key to my happiness. Because the truth of the matter was that anything was better than death, and I could see how maybe this entire nightmare in the manor could be better than prison.
If I could earn their forgiveness and make them forget about my betrayal, there was a chance for me to have a somewhat normal life.
But having a baby?
I had always wanted to have children someday. This was far from how I wanted to conceive one, of course, but I wasn’t against having a baby. Yes, I wanted love, a husband, and the normal path of creating a family, but I also gave up normal when I decided to work for a mafia family and break the law daily as I helped cook the books.
When the door to my room opened, I was surprised that one of the brothers had returned so quickly. Sitting up to face one of them, my heart stopped when I saw that it was Stefano who marched into the room.