Page 16 of Killer Love

I bite my tongue until I taste blood.

He chuckles to himself. There’s something far more sinister in his voice tonight. He’s impatient, frustrated with my unwillingness to yield. I fully expect him to start stomping his feet like a damn child.

“Sofia.” He snatches my chin over the veil and squeezes to make sure I feel it. “I admire your dedication to tradition…” He leans in and I try not to gag on his breath seeping in through the fabric. “I expect the same dedication tomorrow evening. I’ve been looking forward to our wedding night for a very, very long time.”

I swallow the bile in my throat.

“I’m sure you have, too…” He releases my face, but he keeps his hand on me, sliding his fingertips down my neck and over my breasts. “A Zappia bride wants nothing more than to please her husband.”

My hands twitch with the instinct to push him away but I lay my palms against the wall and close my eyes. He reaches behind my body to grope me and I gasp with disgust as his hardness presses against my hip.

Gio laughs at me. “I love your innocence, Sofia…” He leans closer to whisper in my ear. “I can’t wait to corrupt it.”

Finally, he lets me go and takes a step back to look me up and down again. I stand still, unable to move an inch. Fear, hatred, repulsion. It all blends together in me to immobilize every muscle and I fight the urge to cry.

He walks to the door and unlocks it. “Goodnight, Sofia.” His eyes grow about as soft as a stone wall. “Tomorrow morning, you’ll be my wife.”

I wait until I hear the door latch closed behind him before collapsing to the floor.

Hot tears spill over, trailing down my face faster than I can wipe them away.

So, this is it. Starting tomorrow, I will be Gio’s bride. I will be the perfect, doting Zappia wife I was trained to be. I’ll tend to his every need, I’ll bear his children, and I’ll raise a new generation of little Zappia brats until the day I die — and they’d better be sons.

Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Please, and thank you, sir.

I never even had a choice.

I hang my head in my hands and sob, staining the frail, black material sticking to my cheeks. Darkness clouds my vision, hanging over me like a hurricane and I wish for nothing more than to succumb to it.

I force myself to my feet and walk slowly toward the balcony.

Life is worth living. As an orphan whose parents were torn from her at a young age, I know this much to be true, but a life in the Zappia way is no life at all. As a child, I couldn’t run. I couldn’t play or sing or dance. Heaven forbid I have a daughter, as she will be expected to live the same life as I have.

I stare at the concrete patio three stories beneath me and wonder, for a moment, how much this will hurt.

Movement teases the tree line below and I pause, feeling my breath catch in my throat.

Luka Lutrova.

He looks over his shoulder, scanning the garden with nostalgia in his bright eyes. I follow his eye line to see a guard wandering the grounds at the other end of the patio. They each regard the other for no longer than a moment before ignoring each other completely and moving on. The guard takes off around the house but Luka steps into the dark trees and disappears into the garden.

The gray-eyed Russian boy.

I smile and wipe the last of my tears away.

I thought there was only one way out of this life, but I was wrong. I have one job as a Zappia woman and that’s to ensure the continuation of their bloodline, but what if…

I’ll never get anywhere if I wait for the Zappia family to change themselves. Change begins with a catalyst. One spark will light that fuse and by the time they figure it out, it will be too late to stop the flame from burning them down and destroying all they hold dear.

And I know just how to light the match.

I raise myself over the balcony’s edge, my veins fueled by fresh purpose. The lattice connected to the wall beneath it used to support my weight as a child but the fear of falling does little to dissuade me now. I give it a shake to test its durability and it wobbles a bit but stays in place all the way to the ground.

I slide down, gripping the ledge with tight fingers. My ears train to every sound below me, every snap of a twig or shuffling of feet, anything that will signal the location of a patrol guard or even Luka himself.

I move at a snail’s pace, pushing the fear even further down with each bit of lattice I descend. It takes forever to reach the earth and when my toes finally hit the hard ground, I smile even wider.

Chapter 6

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