Page 61 of Phantom Mine

Valentina reaches blindly behind her, feeling for and finding the door handle there. She’s holding a smile up on her face but it’s weak and trembling at the edges.

She’s about to do as I said and I’m about to breathe again, when my father speaks. “NowI’mintrigued. Come in and show us what you’ve got,dolcezza.”

Valentina’s hand falls away from the door.

“Yes, sir,” she whispers.

A deafening buzz roars to life in my ears as she comes further into the room. I train my eyes unseeingly on the floor, my pupils contracting painfully down to the size of pinholes when her feet walk past me. She moves on unsteady legs, missing a step when she passes me, and I have to strangle my hands together to keep from reaching for her.

Rocco settles back into his chair, his gaze turning black on Valentina. She starts to dance between the three of us, but he spreads his legs and pats his lap crudely, licking his lips like a carnivore appraising its freshly caught meat. “Park yourself right here,dolcezza.”

It takes everything in me, everything I’ve learned these past ten years, every morsel of control, every ounce of willpower, to calm myself down enough from my black murderous rage to notkill my brother on the spot. It’s only once I have that hold on myself that I look up at her.

I wish I hadn’t.

The evident distress on her face rips the bottom straight out of my stomach. Worse, she looks over at me for help, her eyes pleading.

She looks at me the way I looked at my father in our playroom.

Like I could be her salvation.

But there’s nothing I can do. If I cause a scene for her now, I’ll endanger her further. I shake my head, silently urging her to keep looking at me.

She has to dance.

Just the thought makes me want to bury a bullet in Rocco’s heart.

His hands close around her waist and he yanks her downward, grinding her ass on his lap with a sick grunt.

Acid burns my stomach as Valentina’s eyes go dead. The light leaks out of them as they remain fixed on me. She can’t stand having his hands on her.

“I’ve figured out what you like about her, Matteo.” Rocco looks at me over her shoulder, his smug grin a clear provocation. His eyes drop slowly down her back before he adds, “It’s thisass.”

Pure, unadulterated rage hurdles to the top of my throat as Rocco’s hands climb up her waist. My vision blurs at the edges, then blacks out. She’s not his to look at and I’m going to rip out his goddamn eyeballs and shove them down his fucking throat.

“Cazzo, this is an ass that’ll make a man believe in God.”

A thousand angry hornets crash loudly against the walls of my eardrums.

“Let her have a bounce over here when you’re done, Rocco,” Augusto says.

I lunge to my feet. Rocco flicks the lighter back on before I can take a step. Strangled rage seethes beneath my skin until I’m sure they can see it pulsing, a living, breathing thing screaming to be set free.

“If you’re not going to take this conversation seriously, then I’m going to leave,” I announce, buttoning my suit to keep my hands away from Rocco’s throat. “I’m trying to stop you both from making another mistake.”

Valentina’s eyes go wide, betrayal stabbing through them. Equal measures of satisfaction that she recognizes me as her protector and dismay that she thinks I’d abandon her pierce through me.

Rocco’s hand closes around the front of Valentina’s throat. Bands of barbed wire coil tightly around my major organs, holding my very life hostage. He pulls her backwards against his chest, and an anguished whimper leaves her lips.

“No problem,” he purrs against her ear, eyes pinned maliciously on me. “We’ll keep Melody here to entertain us. Come on,dolcezza, Matteo told me he’d be happy to share you with me. You don't mind if our father watches while you strip and bounce on my cock, do you?”

The tight ball of rage that had slowly been twisting my belly erupts into a firestorm of fury.

Ten years of control, gone in an instant.

I fucking lose it.

I’m across the room in a heartbeat, grabbing Valentina’s arm and ripping her out of Rocco’s hold.

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