“Didn’t Enzio steal his current wife? From his own twin brother?”
I snarled at her, my fist pulling hair from her scalp. “You don’t know the first thing about what happened. Enzio never touched or even wanted Bianca when Cosimo was alive.”
“Oh,” she moaned in pain, but she still had that defiance in her gaze. “So you have to kill the man first in order to take his wife?”
“If you want something that bad you have to be man enough to take it, yes. You start a fucking war if you have to, and if you’re powerful enough to win, you get what you want. You don’t fuck someone’s wife behind his back. You don’t steal a man’s honor.”
“What about the man you kill? Maybe you won’t be stealing his honor, but won’t you be stealing his life?”
“If he was worthy of what he had, if he was strong enough to protect what was his, he wouldn’t be dead.”
That gleam of the hunt sparkled in her eyes again. “Makes you wonder about what happened between Leo and Tino. With that logic, I’m starting to think I got it all backwards. What if Leo was just viciously defending his honor against the man who stole it, who fucked his wife behind his back? Wasn’t that exactly what Tino did?” Her whole face clenched with anger and hate I hadn’t seen from her before. “Shouldn’t he be fucking dead for it?”
“Basta! I know what the fuck you’re doing, and it’s never going to work. You’d say anything because of your hate for Tino. But you know your sister was never Leo’s to take in the first place.”
“Because Tino was obsessed with her first?!”
“Because that fucking traitor was engaged to my cousin! Only a piece of shit like him would take a woman when he was promised to another. He had no honor to protect. And you know when he fired his gun, he wasn’t aiming at the man who stole his woman. He wanted to kill your own sister for revenge, and Tino Bellomo is the one who saved her.”
She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut, clenching her hands into fists. “Like he fucking saved her from Frank Baldi.”
“And saved you, too.”
“I wish he never had.”
My eyes widened. “Cosa?”
“I wish anyone else had killed my father. Anyone but Tino Bellomo.”
I wished I’d been the one who had. The one who saved her. The one who protected her. “I’ve never been jealous of a man as much I am of Tino.”
“What, why? You think I’m in love of him or something. I’ve never hated a man more than I hated him, not even my rapist.”
“That’s why I’m jealous. Your hate for him is so strong it fucking owns you.” I banged the stockade I’d chained her to. The wrath consuming me now I hadn’t felt in thirty years. Cazzo, Tino was right. Nicky would make me want to kill him.
“You’re right,” she said. “The only way he’s going to stop owning me is by ceasing to exist.”
“Stop it! I won’t allow this anymore. You’re not turning me into a fucking traitor. I’m never killing Tino Bellomo for you.” I pushed the start button on the vibrator. “But I will take away everything you’re obsessed with one by one until there’s nothing left but me. You will be mine.”
“What are you gonna do with this now?”
I let go of her hair and inserted the toy in her cunt. She moaned in pleasure, but I knew soon it’d be in pain. She loved this thing so much she pleasured herself with it all the time, thinking it could replace a real man. When I was done, she wouldn’t want to see anotherwandin her life. “How many times can you come in a row before your clit is fried and it’s no longer fun?”
“What? I…I don’t know. I never came more than twice in a row with the wand.”
“And how many with your Daddy?” I knew I was being a motherfucking prick, but I was never afraid of getting my hands dirty. This had to be done.
Her chin and lips trembled as if she was about to cry. “Don’t… Just don’t.”
Oddio. That look, that damage I knew too well, had just confirmed the assumptions I’d made. And I thought no one was more of a monster than Arminio Lanza. I knew now why she said, “Thank you, Daddy,” when she came. But I needed to hear it from her.
Nicky’s aches hurt like my own. My hands curled into fists, my muscles tensing because a deeply buried instinct wished I’d protected her from whatever caused the scars she was so desperate to hide.
My whole body reacted to her pain, not in a way it usually did with any of the sons of bitches I punished, not with excitement and satisfaction. There were waves and waves of rage and sorrow shattering me to pieces.
I cupped her head and pressed my forehead to hers, breathing harshly. She trembled, overwhelmed.
But I couldn’t stop what I started.