Page 67 of Passion and Revenge

A bitter laugh escapes his mouth. “You don’t have a choice. Is this the life you want? Is it?” he roars. “Me returning home late covered in the blood and brain matter of people? One day, you’ll look at me, and you’ll turn away in disgust.”

“I—” I want to tell him it’s not true, but I can’t afford to say something so naive. I may feel this blinding attraction now, this attraction that is ready to burn the oceans to nothing, but what about years from now?

“Do you think I’ll sit across the table from your father every Christmas and play happy family with him?” He scoffs.

“You aren’t even willing to try,” I accuse him.

“I should never have touched you, Sienna. You deserve better.” He sighs. “And I’m not nearly good enough for you.”

“Yes, you are!” I insist.

“I’m a killer,” he says in a cold voice, turning away. “A man with endless vices and a long list of crimes behind and ahead of him. You need a good man.”

I shake my head, tears flying from my eyes. “Don’t you dare tell me what I need, you condescending asshole. You’re giving up on me because you don’t even want to try to step a foot out of the dark. I’m here, Alessandro. I’m here, and I’m willing and?—”

He releases a shaky breath and then walks toward me. My heart soars with tentative hope, and I start to smile.

But Alessandro reaches behind me, and I hear an audible click, and then the collar falls off my neck and down to the ground like an accurate representation of the thing that exists between him and me.

“I hate you. I hate you so much,” I sob. I didn’t hate him when he used a false identity to charm me. Not even when he kidnapped me, when I learned he planned to destroy my father, and when he collared me like an animal.

But I hate him now.

My chest hurts, and my vision blurs with my tears.

“Goodbye, Miss D’Addario.”

My legs give out from under me, and I crash to the floor, then gather the collar to my chest and sob my heart out.

How can one man mend me with his kisses one second and then break me just as easily the next?

I wish it were just a physical scar that I could cover up with a tattoo and pretend it doesn’t exist, but no, there is now a festering wound in my soul that will never scar over.

CHAPTER 22

Sienna

“Where have you been?” Ettore barks into the phone. “I’ve been trying to reach you all day.”

I peel the phone away from my ear and check the time. It’s already past 10 a.m. I can’t believe I slept in this late. I must have slept through my morning alarm to get up and run.

Usually, I don’t even need an alarm. My body automatically wakes up on time for a run, but the time I spent as Alessandro’s captive messed up my internal clock.

I snort to myself.

The truth is far more bitter than that. I’m depressed, simple and short. Getting out of bed every morning has become very difficult for me, and I’m barely hanging on by a thread.

I just want to stay in bed for days on end and sleep through thoughts of him, but unfortunately, Catherina and my dad are on the Sienna watch squad. If I dare show the slightest hint of not being fine, they’ll move me back into Dad’s house.

“I’m—uh—working on something new. You know how it goes,” I lie. “Getting lost in the art for hours.”

“How amazing!” he exclaims, “I can’t wait to see what you’re working on. After all, you took a two-month creative break, so I’m sure you’ve really cooked something amazing up. It’ll be ready in time for the upcoming exhibition, yes?”

My brain scrambles, and I open my mouth to say it won’t be ready because I don’t have a single work in progress. In fact, I haven’t picked up a brush in the two months since Alessandro walked away from me and then promptly disappeared from the face of the earth.

In the beginning, I tried searching for him, sleuthing through the internet for any information about him and then even going as far as buying a plane ticket to Cagliari, where I discovered that the building had been bulldozed to the ground.

“Of course,” I hear myself reply.

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