Page 25 of Pretty Pink Poison
I started to point out how sick that was of my father, but she held up a hand. “He’s done his best, okay?” What was best when you’d give your own spouse away? “Just remember it’s better not to fight. Better to just let them have what they want. Rememberyour place and remember what you must do for the family and the syndicate.”
“They’ve lived next door since I was a child, Mom. They aren’t that way—”
“You’ve been protected.” She grabbed my elbow, a new fear in her dark eyes. “You were considered achild, not a woman. The night your father said I was a woman they could have… well, let me tell you a story, Bianca.”
Bile rose in my throat upon hearing her retell her torture that night. For her and for myself, and for us. For the mother who was sending off her only daughter to the sons of men who’d raped her willingly and without hesitation.
“Bane will be no better. You’re a woman, and you’re his for five years now.” My mind fought the idea at first.
I wanted to believe we had something more between us, that Bane would never hurt a person that way even if his father and uncles had.
But then I walked into the resort to meet him and he nodded at me before one of his details walked over to pat me down, to take my phone from me, and search my bags. “You don’t communicate with anyone but me or your security unless they’re in this phone and have been vetted.” He handed me a new phone and didn’t wait to hear any of my own requests.
The first month, I learned the routine was that I would basically be confined to my penthouse except for dinner and potential travel. In that time, I learned his bark was every bit as lethal as his bite and he didn’t care to hide it. During that month, I saw more than one man look at him wrong, and Bane would have him dragged out screaming and pleading for his life.
The first time I heard a shot on the other side of the doors, I jumped. That was the only time he met my gaze that night, and all he said was, “Eat.”
I remember staring down at my plate and blinking rapidly. My father and mother were cruel, and so were many of the men in the syndicate and mob, but I’d never been that close to an actual murder. “Bane, I don’t know if Icaneat,” I whispered.
I heard him crack his knuckles like he was releasing irritation. “The dining not up to your standards, Ms. Zarelli?”
“That’s not what I said.” I finally met his eyes and glared at him. I took a breath and reminded myself that if I was going to endure this for five years, I had to learn not to back down. I swallowed the fear and responded, “Maybe I don’t especially care for the ambiance.”
Bane was about to eat the morsel of food on his fork, but he set it down and stared at it before a small smirk played on his lips. Then he looked around the table at the other men there, the ones he hadn’t introduced me to. “How’s the food, Benson?”
A man sitting diagonal of me said quickly, “So good. Could eat a second and third helping.”
“And how do you feel about the ambiance, Oli?”
Yet another man didn’t help me at all and instead said, “It’s fantastic.”
What a bunch of suck-ups.
I jumped when Bane said my name. “Bianca, where do you think you are?”
“In the Black Diamond,” I answered, knowing then he was playing chess and I was going to have to keep up.
He took a linen napkin to wipe his mouth and then set that down too. “Yes. Did you know leaders of other countries have eaten at this very table?”
“I know our syndicate’s history, Bane.”
“Then, you know that theyallaccepted the ambiance.”
“Does that mean I’m required to?”
He hummed and it felt like all the men that were standing near the doorways, the staff, our tablemates all shifted back. Ishould have been doing the same, but the way he commanded a room and instilled a fear in most everyone had me reacting to him in a way I was embarrassed about. My thighs clenched together, and my heart rate sped up. And then he said to me, “Bianca, I don’t know what you’ve been used to at home, but I assure you, if you don’t eat now, you won’t eat at all.”
I glanced at the food. A part of me wanted to defy him, to push him to see if he would break like I was already broken.
He looked at me like I was nothing now, like we hadn’t had something before, like I’d betrayed him, because in his mind I had.
It was that thought that settled in my bones and made me concede. I knew the gluten on my plate wouldn’t sit well but I could only push back so much for now. Plus, I knew what it was to go hungry. My father’s punishment tactics were creative enough for that in the past.
So, I ate a little, not sure when I’d be offered another meal and considered how we were so far from where we once were. Fields and oceans of doubt and a mountain of what he felt was betrayal seemed to separate us. The space between us felt too big to overcome as the seconds ticked by on a grandfather clock in the corner of the beautiful private dinner space. It was at the top of the resort near his penthouse suite and no one seemed to have access except Bane and his guests.
I tried, really tried, to take another bite of the food, but I couldn’t. I stood abruptly and murmured, “I think I’m done.”
I still remembered the way the room tilted, the way my vision seemed to home in on just him, how all of the air in that space seemed to disappear. One second, I was steady; the next, my knees gave, and the carpet rose up like a wave.
