Page 48 of Lily

Property of Stefano Bianchi

Roselia gasped. The cursor was still flashing over that last line. He hadn’t sent it yet. He was waiting. He was stressing.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “What does it mean? Property of Stefano Bianchi? Who? Me? And who is Roberto Moretti?” She grabbed his face and lifted it. “Talk to me. You’re scaring me.”

His expression was devastated but resolute. He stared at her, but he was not seeing her. His chest was rising and falling as though he’d run ten miles. “There’s so much I haven’t told you, Rose.”

She stared at him, waiting.

“I wanted to. I…” He licked his lips and looked down as if embarrassed. “I should have… Fuck, there’s a lot of things I should’ve done. I made mistakes—a lot of them. But I can’t keep hiding. It’s eating me up. I have to turn myself in and…”

“No,” she shouted, shaking her head. She grabbed his face and tried to get him to look at her. Tears ran down her cheeks. “No. No, no, no.” She shook her head over and over. “You promised. You promised you would never leave me. You promised!”

She was shaking so badly. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but she could feel her life falling apart like sand falling through a sieve. There was no way to stop it. No way to catch the pieces and put them back in.

He held her tighter. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“Don’t. Don’t say you're sorry. Whatever this is, we’ll deal with it together. We can go somewhere else. We can leave here. If we’re out of money, we can get jobs. We can change our names. Don’t…” She was sobbing now. Her heart hurt.

Stefano pushed the laptop into the center of the table, grabbed her around the waist, and sat her on the edge. He kept his hands on her hips. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

She shook her head. If she didn’t look… Tears fell. She didn’t even know what was happening, but she knew she wasn’t going to like it. “Please…” she begged.

“If there were any other way… You know I would move heaven and earth to protect you. I’d do anything for you. Running will not protect you. The only way I can ensure you’re safe is to turn myself in and face the consequences.”

“For what?” she wailed. “No. Don’t tell me what you did. I don’t want to know. I want you to stay with me. I don’t care what you did.”

“If it were just about me, I would run with you, Rose, and never look back. I have the money. We could move every two weeks for the rest of our lives. We could change our names and alter our appearances. We could go to France, Germany, Italy. See the world.”

“Yes,” she sobbed. “Let’s do that. Let’s just go.”

He gripped her hips. “And let this happen again to six more girls? And six after that? And then six more?”

She gasped, blinking at him. She could hear her heart beating in the silence of the room. “How can you stop it?” she asked, silent tears streaming down her face.

“Because I know everything, sweetheart. Because I know everything.”

She couldn’t catch her breath. “How?”

He dropped his forehead against her thighs and took deep breaths on her lap. She slid her hands into his hair and held on to his head. “Please don’t leave me,” she begged.

She needed more information. As badly as she didn’t want to hear it, the only way she could reason with him and convince him not to do anything drastic was if she knew what was happening.

She glanced at the computer screen and twisted her neck. The cursor was still flashing, and the last message had not been sent yet. “What does all this mean, Stefano?”

He lifted his head and met her gaze. He looked so broken. Sorry. Devastated.

He took a deep breath. “You know that tattoo on your inner thigh?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I assume Master J put it there?”

“Yes. Well, not him, but someone else. I was blindfolded. Several men held me down. I nearly died of a heart attack because I had no idea what they were doing to me. It felt like they were removing my leg.”

He gripped her hips again. “I’m so sorry. I’m pretty sure there is a chip under that tattoo.”

She flinched. “What kind of chip?”

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