Page 34 of Depths of Obsession
I need to get to Pippa. The thought of her in danger drives me. Fear and determination push me forward.
She’s mine, and I will protect her—no matter what it takes.
CHAPTER 11
My heartbeat stutters. “Papa.” I don’t know what to say. The hair on my arms lifts. This man is a stranger to me. Suddenly I understand the terror that his enemies must feel when confronted with his anger.
“Youputtana. You disgraced us. You did this,” he says gesturing toward my mother. “You made me do this. You.”
He crowds nearer me, and the stench of whiskey overwhelms me as I shake my head. “I didn’t do anything. I swear I didn’t. Gazzago is lying to you. I did nothing. My boss killed Edoardo.”
“But you were there and for that we must make restitution. Gazzago wants to marry you. You will be powerful as his wife. What is wrong with you that you don’t want that?” he thunders. “What is wrong with you? Every good girl should want what her father tells her. I say you will marry Gazzago and you argue with me.” He shakes my phone in my face. I’m sure he’s forgotten he has it in his hand.
“I can make a better match than Gazzago,” I say. Anything to get him to calm down. “I can marry someone better and then you won’t have to work. You and Mama can retire.”
“It’s too late. You will marry Gazzago. You will stop embarrassing me and do as you’re told.”
My mother groans. I turn to her and reach out to touch her but my father gestures with the gun. “Leave her. She got what she deserves. She don’t listen to me. A wife should listen to her husband. Now she knows what will happen if she doesn’t listen. She argues with me. Nags me about my gambling. Nags me about money. She should be happy. I made her who she is. She was a nobody until she married me and now she argues with me. Tells me I need help. Who the hell is she to tell me I need help?” he thunders.
He waves the gun around some more as he continues his tirade and I’m afraid he’s going to shoot her. Or me. He’s lost all touch with reality. “Papa, if I marry Gazzago, what then?” I ask as I try to move between my mother on the bed and my father.
His eyes narrow. “Then you live.”
I swallow. Does that mean if I don’t marry him, my father will kill me? “But what about you and Mama? What happens to you?”
My father frowns. “What do you mean what happens to us? I go to work for Gazzago. He needs a strong man to be his right hand. His current guy is not so good. Gazzago wants me. I know how to run the business. I know how to make money and protect Gazzago. I’ve done it for forty years for Aldo and he was the head ofla famiglia. Gazzago is nothing. I can make him so much richer.” He points to himself with my phone. “I can bring him to the top.”
My father is delusional. Completely and utterly delusional. Aldo Giordano did not need my father to get to the top. He was already there. My father was just along for the ride. He was the muscle to Aldo’s brains.
The sound of a phone ringing breaks the silence. My father looks toward the door. The phone must belong to Rafe. My father snorts. “Valdici thinks he knows what he’s doing? He sends Tony and Rafe to come and stop me. They didn’t have a chance.Stronzos, both of them. What do they know? I’ve been working forla famigliasince before either of them were born. And to challenge me? No fucking way.”
My phone goes off in my father’s hand. He stares at the screen and then throws the phone across the room. “Your friends areputtanas. It’s them who turned you away from me. It’s their fault. Them and your mother. She should’ve had better control over you.” He stares at her. “She got what she deserved. She won’t disobey me again.”
He turns back to me. “And you, you are going to get the same. I will not have you disrespect the family name. Come here,” he commands as he points to his feet. “Come kneel at my feet.”
My stomach rolls. If I kneel at his feet, he will hurt me. I know this but what choice to do I have? My mother makes another sound and my father looks at her. I suddenly move toward him. I need him to be distracted from her.
I drop to my knees in front of him. “I’m here Papa.”
“You will do as I say.” He pulls out a zip tie. “Turn around.” I have no choice. I turn and he zip ties my hands behind my back. “Turn to face me,” he says.
I turn.
He pulls his hand back and slaps me across the face. I rear back but I fall into the side of the bed and not out of his reach, so he slaps me again. “Puttana,” he yells. “You will listen to me. You will do as I say.” I try to turn away from the blows but there’s nowhere for me to turn. I scream that he’s hurting me, but he’s too drunk…too far gone. “You whore. You will marry Gazzago and do whatever he says, or so help me God, I will kill you,” he roars and then hauls his arm back and makes a fist.
I squeeze my eyes shut and brace myself for the blow but it doesn’t come. Instead, I hear a strangled sound. I open my eyes. Luca has my father by the throat and he’s wrestling the gun out of his hand. Luca’s eyes glow and his teeth protrude like fangs. I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing. My father fights back and the gun goes off. Luca staggers.
“No!” I yell. “Luca!”
He staggers but then straightens. He knocks the gun out of my father’s hand and then he rips my father’s throat out. Blood sprays across the room. And then Luca is on him. He’s sucking the blood from my father’s neck.What the hell is happening? I’m dizzy from lack of being able to draw a breath. I see spots in my vision for lack of oxygen. My skin crawls with each violent sucking sound coming from where my father twitches in Luca’s grasp.
Mercifully, everything goes black.
“Is she okay?”
The voice is familiar, but my world is so foggy, I can't quite place it. I could be swimming through a thick, cloying mist for the heaviness in my limbs. I try to open my eyes, but they feel like they’re made of lead. Even the thought of moving them makes my head spin. I drift off again, losing myself to the darkness.
“When will she wake up?”
