Page 24 of Their Princess

“It’s boring and lacks personality.”

“Duchess said no one was living in this room.”

“Who?”

“The older woman that Sas asked.”

“Oh, right.” I guessed I would have to start learning these people’s names.

“Apparently these rooms belong to the club bunnies,” said Rafe.

“Bunnies?” I raised my eyebrows, nearly laughing, but my uncle just thinned his lips, like this wasn’t a laughing matter. He rarely laughed anymore. In fact, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen him smile. It had to be before he left for the Marines.

I took a few steps until I stood right in front of him, looking up. “I’m missing something about bunnies, aren’t I? Tell me they’re not like Playboy-mansion bunnies.”

Rafe gave a curt nod, and I groaned.

“I’m not a fucking bunny,” I snarled. “Or a sweetbutt. Or bitch. Or old lady. Or.... What other derogatory terms do they like to use for women around here?”

“Property.” Rafe lifted a hand to the back of his neck and rolled his head, letting out a crack.

“Goddammit, I’m no one’s fucking property!”

“I know,” he murmured.

“Then why aren’t you doing something about it?” I stomped and balled my fists. “Get me the fuck out of here.”

“I can’t, Adelina.”

“Why?” I flipped my hand toward the door, indicating the men somewhere beyond. “Because you’re one of them now?”

“So are you.”

Clamping my jaw shut, I narrowed my gaze on him. Thoughts tumbled through my head to jab at him until he agreed to see things my way. If he was anyone else under the sun, I would hurl every name I could think of at him.

But he wasn’t someone else. He was my uncle. One who played with Catalina and me when we were kids and protected us at clubs from drunken club leeches. A man who had endured all the nasty things my grandmother used to say about him and his mother. I’d heard Nonna call Rafe’s mom a slut, whore, money-grabbing marriage wrecker, and so much more.

Even after Nonno Ivo died, she would rant at Papà in Italian and throw out all the curses in the book to show what she thought about his cheating on Mamà.

But the only words she’d used for Rafe were bastardo and figlio di puttana?1. Not hard to translate the first one, so even though Rafe struggled with his Italian, he could always pick out that word. I didn’t, however, know if he understood the other.

No, I could never treat my uncle that way, because he’d been a constant in my life. And he was standing right in front of menow. Still a rock in a raging river, doing everything he could to deflect the violent rapids from washing me downstream.

Instead, I let out a deep breath. “Doesn’t Sas know I can’t stay in here? Not at this warehouse either. Wasn’t that covered anywhere in the deal?”

Rafe scowled. “I’m not sure Mass thought about that.”

I barked a laugh. Not thinking of others was just like my father.

“And now Sas sees me as his property. I guess ‘property’ is a proper term for women in this lifestyle.”

Rafe tilted his head in a motion that almost pleaded with me to see a little reason. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“He locked me up, Rafe!” I kicked at the bed. “Doesn’t he know that I have enough money to buy this whole warehouse? I have enough money to buy a mansion in LA.” I threw up my hands and paced the room. “Enough, also, to pay off the goddamn cartel!”

“You don’t come into that inheritance until you’re married or turn twenty-six,” Rafe said to my back.

I whipped around. “And that will be when? Tomorrow? The next day? Oh yeah, a week. Goddammit, Rafe, I never felt like an object to be bartered with until Papà decided arranged marriages should be brought back from the Middle Ages.”

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