Page 6 of Sweet Misery

I ground my teeth and looked back at her. “What’s her name?”

“Arianna,” Sever murmured.

I looked to him, surprised he knew her.

“How do you know her?” I demanded.

“Arianna Day. We went to Cardale Academy with her. She graduated at the top of my class.” Sever continued to stare down at her. “She knocked me out of the position.”

I looked back at her. She did look familiar now that he’d put a name to her face. She’d probably look better without the bruising and cuts on her face though. Perhaps I’d have recognized her faster that way. What I did remember from when she was a freshman and I was a senior was that she was picked on a lot. Rich kids tended to be dickheads to the poor who attended Cardale. That was usually the less fortunate who came in on scholarship because unless you were elite, you didn’t attend Cardale. I vaguely recalled Sever being around her here and there.

“I remember her. Looks like her tits finally came in,” Renzo said with a laugh, nudging Roman. “Remember that time Clarissa Avery stole her clothes after gym and she had to wrap toilet paper around herself and walk home?”

Roman nodded his head, grinning. “I remember. Mason Laurie tried to set the paper on fire and she screamed.”

“He did set it on fire,” Sever murmured. “I put it out. It burned her leg.”

I watched as Sever reached out and pushed her skirt up gently to display a small scar on her leg from the burn.

The way he touched her made my stomach twist. Sever wasn’t one to lay his feelings out, but if he was out there saving some girl from being burned, it meant something huge considering he was often the one setting people on fire.

I wanted more than anything for Sever to have some sense of relief in his life. Out of my brothers, he worried me most. Him snapping and taking out everything around him was a major concern. I’d never put it past him either.

“Your father wants to know what name you’ll give her,” Benicio said.

I sighed. He always made us give them stupid fucking names. I knew it had something to do with creating a disconnect in the event we tried to developed feelings.

I glanced at her again. The girl looked fucking miserable.

“We’ll call her Misery. Bring her in,” I said, backing away.

“Hell yeah. Remember Wisp?” Renzo said, lifting Misery’s unconscious body out of the trunk. Her face was too bruised and swollen to get a good look at her, so I didn’t bother trying as my brothers spoke about one of the last women our father gifted us.

“Useless,” Roman muttered. “All she did was bitch and moan. I was glad to gut her.”

I sighed and walked toward the house, the sound of my twin brothers’ laughter fading away. Sever stayed close to them though, his attention focused on the girl in Renzo’s arms.

“Your father wants you to call him after you’ve settled in with her tonight,” Benicio said as we stopped at the front door. Renzo walked past me with Misery in his arms, Roman at his side and Sever right behind them.

“Thank you for bringing us this gift,” I said evenly. “We’ll see that it’s put to good use.”

Benicio nodded. “Use her or your father will. And you know how that will go. Have a good night, Massimo.”

I watched him walk back to Jack and get into the car. I stood and watched them leave, their tail lights eventually fading away from view down the long, winding driveway to our mansion.

Sighing, I went inside to the office and picked up the phone and dialed my old man.

“Father,” I greeted him when he answered.

“Do you like your gift?” he asked, sounding pleased with himself.

“A half dead, unconscious woman in the trunk of a car? Loved it,” I said, my words clipped. “What do you expect us to do with her?”

“Fuck her. Practice torturing her to see how long it takes to break her. The same thing as you did with the last one.”

“The last one was a bitch,” I said.

He chuckled softly. “Arnold Day owed me a lot of money. This is his payment.”

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