Page 40 of Malevolent King

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When I woke again,the headache had subsided somewhat. Luckily for me, I was used to being hit in the head—a worrying thought for someone else, no doubt. I had little hope of living past thirty, so it didn’t bother me too much.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor, and I pictured the walls beyond this room. How depressing. This was the house Sofia had grown up in? It looked like I wasn’t the only one permanently scarred by a terrible childhood. My little bird with the clipped wings and I had more in common than she’d like to think. The door pushed open, and several figures crowded in. I recognized one of them.

I summoned a smirk for my abuser. “Silvio, I was wondering how long it’d take you to come and visit me. I suppose it’s hard to find a good reason, seeing as your uncle still doesn’t know the truth about what happened to your hand.”

Silvio faltered. Time hadn’t been kind to the man. He’d run to fat and looked uncomfortably puffy. His life had been too soft, it seemed, since the last time I’d seen him. Comfort made men weak, and Silvio looked the weakest of them all. Just the sight of his empty sleeve pleased me. He’d had it coming.

Silvio watched me in silence, his beady eyes calculating.“Gag him,” he said to one of his men, his eyes never leaving mine. “I don’t want to hear him talk shit when I break his ass.”

My laugh sent his eyebrows into a scowl. “I didn’t know you played for both sides. That makes you marginally more interesting. Well, that and being the only one-handed wanker I’ve ever met.”

Silvio went red in the face. “What did you say?” he asked in a tone no doubt meant to be threatening.

“I called you a wanker. Don’t you know the term? You should travel more internationally and broaden your horizons,” I got out before one of his men fitted a filthy rag around my mouth. I could hardly complain. After I’d gagged Sofia for hours a day on end, I was due.

Silvio let out a laugh. “You know, I’ve heard the rumors about you. They say you’re mad, looney toons, but I never believed it, not till now… either you really aren’t afraid of what we’re about to do to you, which would make you mad, or you don’t think we can go too far, which just makes you wrong.”

I grunted behind the gag, and Silvio tugged it down, eager to hear my fear. He wanted me to cower and beg. It’d be a cold day in Hell when I was scared of Silvio De Sanctis.

“You talk a good game, but can you deliver? If you’re going to hurt me, get on with it. All this foreplay is getting tedious,” I murmured and then laughed.

Silvio jerked like I’d hit him, and then he nodded to his men. One of them cut my hands loose, and I enjoyed the excruciating feeling of blood seeping back into my digits.

I sagged to the floor for a blissful second before being hauled up.

“You like to talk, Chernov? Let’s see how you manage it with no teeth,” Silvio said, flexing his solid-looking fist which twinkled with thick gold rings.

That twinkle was the last thing I saw before he connected with my jaw and the lights went out.

13

SOFIA

“Hold still, signorina, if you don’t want to become my pincushion,” the seamstress, Anna, muttered through a mouthful of pins. “And breathe in. I thought we discussed losing five pounds?”

Taking a deep breath that sent a hundred pinpricks shooting through my ribcage as it expanded, I pulled myself up as tall as I could and sucked my stomach in like I was doing a crunch. It was practically concave, yet it wasn’t small enough for Anna.

“Better?” Considering I had already lost some weight, thanks to several days running through the wilderness and barely eating, it seemed a cruel jab, but I was used to it.

She mumbled something critical, and my eyes lifted to Angelo, standing at the door. He stared at Anna with a deep frown.

The sound of male voices drifted in from outside.

My father had finally decided to check in with me. I hadn’t seen him since I’d been rescued from Nikolai and we’d returned to the compound. The men had taken an unconscious Nikolai away, and I’d been free to shower and huddle in my bed, feeling all kinds of things I didn’t know how to deal with. Relief to be home was undeniable. I was the idiot prisoner who liked to lock themselves in and felt safer that way. Guilt was another thing that weighed heavily on me. I didn’t know what was happening to Niko in the bowels of the house, but I was the reason he was there.

Because he’d saved me. Because he hadn’t let me fall.

The door opened, and Anna turned away, plastering a sycophantic smile on her face. I pulled one pin from the narrow waist of the gown, giving myself a very crucial inch to breathe. I hid the pin in my palm and prepared to meet my father.

He strode into the room like he owned it, which he did. The dressmaker’s shop was just one of the small businesses that Antonio owned locally. It wasn’t enough for him to run guns and drugs into Atlantic City, Trenton, or Newark. He’d also strong-armed businesses to sign over hefty percentages of ownership in return for protection.

In our tiny town in New Jersey, he owned over seventy-five percent of the businesses and was closing in on more every day. Clearly, Antonio had wished to be born a feudal lord of times past, owning everything as far as the eye could see and forcing peasants to come and pay homage to him in return for allowing them to exist in his domain.

He might be my father, but I had no illusions as to the kind of man he was.

“Sofia, how is it going? Ciao, Anna.” He strolled to a velvet viewing couch and looked me over critically.

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