Page 73 of Owning Nicci

“You’re up.” He looks surprised, and I frown.

“I woke up, and you weren’t there. Where did you go?”

“Oh,principessa.” He smirks. “You missed me.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t get your hopes up. Answer my question, Savio.”

He narrows his right back. “There was a time I would have put you on your knees for talking to me like that.”

I tip my head back, looking up at him, and I can see the sheen of desire in his eyes, behind the frustration. His mind is on something else, and now I’m curious as to what. “Maybe I’ll putyouon your knees, next time.”

That smirk lingers. “I might like that,principessa.”

We stand there for a moment, that thread of desire snapping taut between us, and I almost expect him to pick me up and carry me back into the bedroom. I know I’d let him, too, if he tried. Whether or not I should—I want him, and that feeling isn’t going away. It won’t until he’s dead…and maybe not even then.

“I have a surprise for you,principessa,” he says a moment later, his voice rough. “That’s where I went. Come with me?”

“A surprise?” I look at him curiously, and he shrugs.

“Just follow me.”

I’m too curious now to argue. I follow him down the stairs and through the house, out of the back door, and into the yard. He leads me down the hill to the pond and a little further, to a large outbuilding that I saw when we were here last. I went down one afternoon and poked around, but it didn’t seem to be anything other than a large, empty shed.

“What’s going on?” I look at him quizzically, feeling a small thump of fear in my chest. I haven’t forgotten that this is still the man who bought and kidnapped me.

Ignoring me, Savio pushes open the doors and walks inside. I hesitate for just a moment before following him, my pulse picking up speed as I do. I freeze just inside of the doorway, my mind taking a minute to catch up and believe that what I’m seeing in front of me is real.

My father and brother are hanging from meat hooks in the middle of the shed, their feet barely touching the wood. A rustling sound startles me, making me jump, and I pivot sharply to see Savio shaking out a tarp.

A groan catches my attention, and I turn back, seeing my father come back to consciousness. He’s still dressed—slacks and a button-down, one shoe lost. But my brother is stripped down to his boxers. I see him starting to stir, too, and my pulse races as I look back at Savio.

“This is my surprise?”

He nods, spreading the tarp out beneath their feet. “We had a deal,” he says calmly. “I brought them here for you. Do whatever you like,principessa?—”

“What the fuck is going on?”

My father’s thick, slurred voice cuts through the warm air of the shed. He twists in the zip ties holding him, looking at me and then at Savio. Panic and confusion in his features. My chest feelswarm, my veins buzzing with adrenaline at seeing him like this. Seeing him captive, afraid, hurting.Finally.

“Why the fuck am I here, Valenti?” he spits out, as my brother starts to stir, coughing as his feet kick against the floor. “Was she too expensive? Did she not please you well enough? Is this some kind of trick—that you pay me for my daughter and then break into my house, make her watch while?—”

“No one’smakingme do anything,” I snap. I stride to the table next to Savio in a few quick steps, picking up a pair of pliers. I hear my father splutter as I grab a chair and drag it up next to him, standing on it so that I can reach one of his hands. “Just like no one made you beat me. No one made you hit me, over and over. Just because I said I didn’t want to be used as your fucking bargaining chip.” I grab one of his fingers in the pliers and twist.

The snap of bone is drowned out by his cry of pain. He jerks back and forth, and I laugh, a bitter sound that seems to come from somewhere deep inside of me.

“Did that hurt? It hurt every time you hit me. Every time, you knocked me down to the floor.” I grab a second finger in the pliers, breaking that one, too, and let out a long breath as I listen to the ragged groan that spills from his mouth.

I jump down from the chair and cross the room to where my brother is hanging. “I’ll come back to you,” I tell my father. “First, I’ll let you watch while I take your heir apart piece by piece, until he’s begging me to stop. Just like I begged him to stop, remember? You should remember. You watched all of it—while hetrainedme to please the men you tried to sell me off to. While he used me as a punishment. He’s never going to be able to use anyone else. Ever again.”

“Nicci.” My father’s voice is pleading. “You can’t do this. You can’t hurt your own flesh and blood?—”

“Like you hurt me?” My voice rises. “What the fuck am I, then? Just a daughter, so it doesn’t matter, right? Just a disobedient hole to be taught how to be used? Isn’t that what you said?” I pause next to where my brother is waking up, a low moan coming from his lips as I move a chair next to him. “I’m going to break every single one of his fingers while you watch.”

“Nicci—” My brother mumbles my name, and I backhand him, hard, satisfaction slithering through me as I feel the crack of flesh against flesh.

“How does it fucking feel?” I hiss, as I reach up to grasp one of his right-hand fingers in the pliers. “How does it feel, getting slapped in the fucking face?” I squeeze the pliers around his finger. “How about this? You remember what you did with these fingers? How I begged you to stop? You remember your hand around my throat, slapping me down to the floor before you pulled me back up on my knees and shoved your fingers in my mouth to make me open it? Do you remember what else you did?”

My voice rises as I speak, until I’m nearly shrieking in his face. Savio says nothing. He’s standing by the door, arms crossed over his chest, watching me. I can see satisfaction in his face, too—and pride. There’s no doubt that’s the other emotion I see. He’sproudof me, and warmth washes through me at the realization.

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