Page 73 of Becoming His Pet

“Dad said she died. He took me to her gravesite, every year on her birthday!” Nora shook her head.

“Your father loved her very much.” Bernie nodded solemnly. “It hurt to see him hurting so much after she was gone.”

Nora turned her anger at him. “My father would have killed you if he’d known!”

Bernie laughed. “He tried. He found out; you see, you let one asshole have too many beers and he let shit slip he shouldn’t. Your father figured it out and tried to find her.”

The truth washed over her like a bucket of hot oil. “Antonio didn’t kill Dad. You did.”

Bernie shrugged with a smirk. “What can I say—you’re quick. He wouldn’t stop looking for her, and it’s not really looked kindly on to take a man’s wife the way I did. If I hadn’t stopped him, Victor would have found out.” Victor Santinelli, the head of the family, wouldn’t have put up with Bernie’s blatant disobedience.

“Antonio was taking the blame.” Her insides shook, everything she’d known about her father, her mother, it was all manufactured. Nothing had been real.

“Well, he was suspect because of the money laundering, but there was never enough evidence to act. Antonio was untouchable, well, officially.”

“Why did he get killed then?” He was right about one thing. Her father hadn’t done her a favor by hiding his real life from her. How could she swim in the pool since he’d never taught her how to swim?

“My guys made him a deal he couldn’t refuse—but he tried. So he had to go,” Bernie explained.

“What deal?”

“He was supposed to deliver you to the buyer. I didn’t want to get involved. I liked you thinking of me as your protector and didn’t want to mess that up. Then when the buyer was too old to keep you, I’d come get you. Rescue you.”

His confession was dizzying. Antonio died because he wouldn’t help Bernie sell her. And she’d been there plotting her revenge against him.

“Your goons could have come to my apartment. Why would you need Antonio involved?”

Bernie’s eyes darkened. “Because you wouldn’t let your father’s death go. You had to get a job at his shop. Did you really think Antonio wouldn’t recognize you? He knew who you were, and he told me. Wanted to let me know he was watching out for you. But the idiot didn’t understand I needed him to hand you over.”

“Still you could have just come to my apartment, asked me to visit you,” she pointed out. He couldn’t have been so stupid.

“I wanted my hands clean of it, don’t you see that? If Victor found out, there needed to be no trace of me involved. Antonio only had to let Teo and Anthony take you from the back of the shop, that’s all. No one else but me knew where you lived, Elenora. It had to be somewhere public but controlled.”

She hadn’t had a chance to get away from Bernie. She’d clung to him as an uncle. She’d relied on him to watch out for her, and he’d been pursuing her in the worst way.

“I’m not going with whoever this monster is. I won’t do it.” She sounded braver than she was. Her insides shook, a cold shiver made her tremble.

“Not really your choice.” Bernie shrugged again. “Eat your sandwich when it comes. Your buyer will be here tomorrow afternoon for you. I have a doctor coming in the morning to check you over and sign the certificate of good health.”

Certificate of good health?

The click of the lock sliding back into place snapped her out of her frozen state.

Bernie had never been on her side, had never been protecting her. Bernie had been holding her in place to replace her mother as a slave.

And she had no way out.

She was going to be sold.

---