Page 20 of Ruined

I fall asleep, feeling safer and more content than I ever have in my life.

8

When the morning comes, I ache.

I wake up alone in my prison bed, though the door to the room is open, and I can smell food. Toast. Croissants. Bacon.

It draws me from bed. The only clothing left to me is a shirt. It smells like Angelo, and fits like an oversized hug. This is my third day in the House of Vitali and I am padding out through the halls as though I have always lived here.

I can feel semen dried on my ass cheeks, and a little on my chin. I am a mess. I should get cleaned up. I don’t bother. I go straight to the kitchen with messy hair and even messier orifices. This is how they want me, after all. They want to strip the civilization from me. They want to obliterate all my training as an agent. I have to make them think that is happening.

So I don’t go and take a shower. I don’t clean myself up and make an effort to be presentable. Instead, I strut right into the kitchen and swipe a piece of bacon off Bobby’s plate.

“The fuck?” He curses and tries to snatch it back, but it is already in my mouth.

“Good morning, Riley,” Angelo says from the table, where he is eating a slice of brioche with his coffee. He is dressed in a white shirt like mine, but looks relaxed with the top two buttons undone, and his cuffs rolled up exposing his forearms rather than neatly closed with cuff links. They are on the table beside him, ready to be donned.

It is a rare sight I am getting, a perspective into the House of Vitali that few are ever granted.

“Morning,” I say, suddenly shy.

“Why don’t you stop taunting Bobby and make a plate,” he says, a slight glint of warning in his eye.

“Bobby doesn’t mind,” I say with confidence I don’t feel. I glance back at Bobby, who surprises me by smirking. He actually doesn’t seem to mind.

He was rough with me last night. If I lift my fingers to my throat, I can feel a slight raised edge where my body is beginning to mend the damage he did with the knife he held at my throat.

I am sure we do not trust one another, but unlike other houses and families where trust is implicit, or at least it should be, the House of Vitali does not work that way. You do not need to be a good person to be in the fold. You just need to be thoroughly dominated and owned by Angelo, and there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that I now meet that criteria.

I decide to sit at the island with Bobby. Every part of me aches and throbs, so it is easy to forget that there is a particular portion of my anatomy that is significantly worse than the rest. With every step, the ache left from the bruising cane shoots through me, refers to other parts of me, finding my knees and my shoulders, my fingers and my toes.

The second my ass touches the seat at the island, my body is bluntly reminded where all that pain is coming from. A fresh bolt shoots through every part of me and I leap back up, deciding to half-perch, half-lean instead. I can feel Angelo and Bobby sharing a dark smirk as I pick off the serving plates that Angelo has placed on the counter. There’s bacon and warmed croissants and juice. It’s like a continental breakfast at the verge of Hell.

I’m still not safe. To imagine that I am would be delusional. Angelo has a plan for me. He will try to use me sooner or later. But for now, I enjoy breakfast.

“You still mad about yesterday?” I chance the question, indicating Bobby’s neck with a bit of bacon.

“Nah,” Bobby replies. “You’re not a Vitali until you try to kill a Vitali. It’s a… what did you call it, Angelo?”

“Rite of passage,” Angelo says from behind his newspaper.

There is a warmth in Bobby’s eyes that wasn’t there before. I think he’s being genuine. I also think he’s going to have a scar on his neck for as long as he lives.

I have been accepted into their fold as one of them. I’m like Jane Goodall, but among much more dangerous creatures.

Thwip!

The first bullet shatters one of the great floor to ceiling windows, and passes through Angelo’s coffee cup, sending shards of ceramic and splashes of coffee arcing through the air.

Things move in slow motion as the windows shatter, every single one of them turning to an opaque curtain of falling glass. The room is full of noise and light, small projectiles obliterating what was beautiful and refined.

The law has arrived.

I feel a punch low in my stomach. I feel myself falling, suddenly out of my body and above it all, the cool observer of my being taking an interest but feeling no investment in what happens next.

I am caught by Bobby, who grabs me up over his shoulder, scoots low, and runs. My view is of a house being absolutely decimated by gunfire, marble and glass evaporating into shards and sand under high impact rounds.

It all goes dark.

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