Page 6 of Broken Princess

“Just finished the BBQ, we’ll grab the supplies she needs and any additional stuff we need to stay at the safe house, and then we’ll be with you. What tech do you need from home to investigate this clusterfuck?”

“I have a lot here, but I’ll text you what I’m missing.” I take a moment and then add. “Grab as many pairs of sweats and T-shirts as you can from the house. She’ll need clothes she can wear over her bandages.”

“I’ll sort it, Sin,” he says before ending the call.

I grab the stool and pull it across the floor on its wheels. Taking up sentry at her shoulder, waiting for so many things. For Enzo to return, for her to wake up, and for my heart to stop pounding so loudly in my ears. My adrenaline is wearing off and an exhausted crash is inevitable.

I stare down, hypnotised by the rhythm of her shallow breaths. I hum to distract myself, which turns into a low tenor as I sink into a trance, zoning out as I sing the words my mother sang to me as a boy. In the background, the steady beep of the monitors reassures me she’s okay, and the longer I sing, the more pronounced the rise and fall of her breathing becomes.

As the song ends, I hear her sigh. One of her eyelids flutters open and she seizes my gaze.

“Thank you,” she murmurs. And drifts back into a sea of unconsciousness.

CHAPTER THREE

AURORA

This doesn’t feel the same as the other times I’ve drifted away. Normally I feel cold, and alone, and lost—right now I feel warm, and safe, and protected. It’s different, and in my experience, different is never good. You can’t trust different.

I can hear music. It’s soothing, but it moves, floating away only to return moments later. I wish it would stay. The low rumbling tones feel like they’re swaddling me. Protecting me from what always comes.

When I wake up, he’s always there, leering down at me. Marvelling at the tapestry of destruction he’s woven on me. Something was different this time, though. I know this time I’m not supposed to wake up. So why am I still here, trapped in my personal purgatory, tortured by my own thoughts?

I felt the knife go in. The searing agony wasn’t different from any other he’s inflicted, but the look in his eyes was like a goodbye.

One that pained him.

You could spend an eternity trying to figure out what goes on inside Max’s head and you’d still be no closer to understanding him. He’s a straight up psychopath. Or maybe I mean sociopath, because he can mask himself so well only I know the true depth of his depravity.

That’s why I retreat here. A place in my mind that protects me while he ravages my body.

When I dissociate, I’m numb except for occasional flashes—barrages of forced awareness. Memories that surface no matter how much I will them to the darkest recesses of my mind. When I’m here, I’m forced to face my fears and contemplate my cowardice. But it’s better than whatever reality Max is usually presenting me with.

I open the front door and step inside, finding him waiting for me in the entryway. With just one glance at his vacant eyes, I know what’s coming. He pounces, grabbing my hair and wrenching me inside while kicking the front door closed behind me. I’m hurled down on our unforgiving tile floor, and for a moment, I’m stunned, completely overwhelmed by the pain throbbing in my temple. He lurches forward and grabs my right ankle, dragging me towards the basement door.

Behind the basement door is where Max unleashes his beast. Something he hides from the rest of the world. The persona he presents is that of a ruthless Cosa Nostra prince. Maybe some would be afraid of that, but I grew up around plenty of monsters. When you think about it, I am my very own monster. I grew up tough. My father made sure I was strong enough to handle a life like this. Strong enough to run my own crew. And after my sister died, he was determined I would be indestructible.

I am a force to be reckoned with, in my own right—trained in multiple martial arts to varying degrees. There are very few people I can’t fend off and many I can leave in a ruined heap on the floor.

I used to fight. I used to kick and scream and bite. Hurting him—while satisfying my need for retribution—never stopped him. Screaming didn’t work, as no one ever heard me. And my cries only fuelled him. Strengthened him.

But the type of monster Max turned out to be, that’s an extraordinary beast. Despite my talents, every ounce of strength I have—I need it just to survive him.

I learned quickly that if I wanted to survive Max, I’d have to fight differently; protect myself. So, I hid in plain sight—floating away where he couldn’t reach me. The problem was, he discovered he enjoyed that more. Pushing me to a point of catatonia left him with a truly blank canvas. One he could play with for hours. Something on which he could hone his skills, improve his techniques. It was his ultimate pleasure and greatest reward.

Another memory forces its way to the front of my subconscious.

I’m strapped to the table, staring up at the bright surgeon’s light he had installed. From here I can see hundreds of tiny reflections of me, rivulets of crimson trailing down the sides of my body where the barbed wire has cut into my thighs and torso. He whispers in my ear how much he enjoys using me as his canvas, how he found the perfect doll, and how he’s never letting me go.

I can feel his icy fingers stroke a featherlight touch around my ankle, caressing the cuts. He brings them to his mouth and slides them past his lips. Groaning in satisfaction as he savours my blood, his dick straining at his fly as he does.

I was eighteen years old when I was told I was to marry Max. The prince and the princess, what a fairytale. My youthful naïveté had me thinking I was the luckiest woman on earth. This sophisticated older man, gorgeous by anyone’s standards, was going to be mine. I’d had a schoolgirl crush on him for years. Yes, he was once the enemy, but who wouldn’t find the forbidden enticing? Impossibly tall, with sun-kissed skin, dark blond hair topped with piercing blue eyes. Although you rarely saw both his eyes since his impeccably styled hair was long on top and fell forward across his face. I thought it made him look mysterious.

Things that seemed so attractive before, now remind me of every sinister aspect of him. His voice, which I once thought was commanding, now sounds like a venomous sneer. Just the rasp of it makes me shrink away with dread. I used to gaze into his eyes, finding depths of the Mediterranean Sea, but all I see now are the faded hues of icy barren glaciers. The curtain of hair that swept across his face, once so alluring and mysterious, now looks like a mask he hides his monster behind.

Max De Luca has been controlling my life for so long that this haven within me is the only place I have any agency over… anything.

I’m chained to the wall by the heavy iron collar, eyes covered with a blindfold. I can hear him pacing at the back of the room. There’s the occasional hitch in his step. Like he’s jumping. Like a prize fighter pumping himself up before a bout. There’s a quick shuffle before his icy claw is wrenching me down to the floor. His knee pins my chest to the ground while he unlocks the collar and releases me. I try to take my first full breath in hours, but it’s stolen from me as he grasps me by the neck and drags me across to his workbench, throwing me down. The edge of the table cutting into my hip.

---