Page 61 of Domination

“He’s just coming ’round.” Tommy gives Robert a swift kick that has him howling like a bitch. The man looks barely able to hold his head, and I smile at the way my boys have worked him over. Blood oozes from his nose, his lip is split, and his shirt is bloody and sliced up, telling me Rocco has already started on his torture.

The chain he clings onto is stretching his arms to capacity, and I have to hand it to my boys, they know what they’re doing.

“Did Daddy get his milk and cookies before leaving this morning?” Rocco’s eyebrows dance with jest, and this time I slap the back of his head.

“Shut the fuck up, that’s your future stepmother you’re talking about.”

“Fucking great. You’re barely here most of the time already,” Rafael chastises, and I sneer in his direction. I’ve dedicated enough of my fucking life to the Mafia. If I want to slow down, then I fucking will, especially now that I have a reason to.

Rafael steps forward. “You need to take a look at what we discovered when we located him.” He holds out his phone to me, and I take it.

Slowly, I take in what I’m seeing. A dark room with a mattress on the floor with one thin sheet and a crib beside it. “It’s the basement. Seems like he kept her there.”

Anger.

Fury.

Utter rage burns beneath my skin.

A deep hue of violent red surges inside me, blocking the light from my eyes.

He kept them in a fucking basement.

What the actual fuck?

“Keep going.” He gestures toward the phone, and my thumb shakes as I swipe onto the next image showing a door with a padlock.

My legs threaten to buckle. I don’t know what’s more shocking, seeing these images or my reaction to them.

I’ve seen some serious fucked-up shit before now, but nothing, and I mean nothing, has drawn this reaction from me.

“He locked the basement door. They were practically prisoners,” Rafael continues, and all I can think about is how I’m going to destroy him bit by fucking bit.

Prisoners?

My beautiful girls were treated so cruelly.

A voracious anger takes over me, and my nostrils flare as every muscle in my body coils at what Rafael is telling me. I swipe along to the next one, a lock on the refrigerator. He locked the fucking refrigerator? No wonder she ate so little when she first came to me.

My blood boils and the fury inside me feels like no other. The only time I have ever felt like this is when one of the bitches I married tried to harm Rocco.

All of her vulnerability that bleeds from her makes sense now—the lack of clothes, the being grateful for the smallest of items.

She had next to nothing. Hell, she didn’t even have a bed.

“There’s no records of her going to school either, orhealthcare,” Rafael adds, and I snap my focus to him. Her struggle to work through the contract dances at the forefront of my mind, her struggle at the restaurant. Can my beautiful girl not read? I rub at the pain in my chest. Worse than any of this, she didn’t tell me.

Concern mars his features. “She had nothing, Papa.” His tone is full of sympathy, not something Rafael is accustomed to.

Pure unadulterated anger bleeds from my every pore, and I lunge toward Robert with savage intent. Rafael is quick to pull me back, but I attempt to shrug off my son, conscious not to harm him.

“We’ll make the fucker pay,” Tommy seethes, tugging the fucker’s head back by his hair, and my muscles slowly unfurl.

“Damn fucking straight we will.” Rocco springs up from the crate, his eyes alight with retribution.

A callous laugh causes the hairs on the back of my neck to rise, and Tommy releases Robert’s head, allowing him to stare back at me. The malice and cruelty are evident on his face, and not a trace of his daughter’s attributions are there. Has he always looked so deranged?

He swallows. “I almost had you. Almost.” He shakes his head. “I set this up a long time ago.”

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