Page 271 of Merciless Desires

“I used every last cent I had on your mamma. And it wasn’t enough. Her medical bills started piling up. I was getting calls almost daily about overdue payments. I panicked. I did something I now regret because I hurt you, cara, while trying to fix everything.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me that you ran out of money. Tell me that you were going to sell me to pay off your goddamn debts.”

“Cara…” he reached for me, but I took a step back.

“It’s very easy, Papà, to be fucking honest with me. And when it really fucking mattered, you couldn’t even do that. I thought I was being punished. I thought you were profiting off selling me to your goddamn boss. But things were so much fucking worse.”

“Marcella.” Papà’s tone was a warning, a suggestion that I turn this conversation around, but that wasn’t my plan.

“I hope losing me in the process was worth it. Now that’s your debt, Papà.” I started to turn away, but I stopped. “How was I brought up…as payment?”

Papà shook his head. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t what?”

“I didn’t bring you up. Matteo did.”

Chapter Twenty-One

MATTEO

My phone wouldn’t stop vibrating in the inner pocket of my suit jacket as I spoke with Marcella’s mamma.

I kept declining the call, wanting to give Mrs. Moretti my full attention, but barely a second later, it would begin vibrating again.

When Marcella re-entered the hospital room, I excused myself and slid past my fiancée, grazing my fingers across her lower back. She stiffened, and I wasn’t sure if it was from my touch or because her mamma hissed and reached for her ribs.

Pushing out into the hall, I pulled my phone from my pocket and stared down at the word Private written across the top of the screen.

Who the fuck was calling me from a blocked number?

“Hello?” I said cautiously.

“Privet, Cortese.”

A thick Russian accent greeted me on the other end of the line.

I didn’t respond. My blood flared and I peered around the hall carefully while backing against the wall to Mrs. Moretto’s hospital room.

“You speak, yes?”

“Only when I know who I’m speaking with.”

A dark laugh. “Oh, you know me. And I know you.”

“Dominov.”

“See? Now, that wasn’t so hard. Why are you making everything else difficult?”

“I’ve asked what you wanted, and your response has been to murder my men. This isn’t a game I want to play.”

“But I want to play, Cortese. I like playing. She likes playing, too.”

The slightest movement at the end of the hall drew my attention, and I watched a woman wearing bright blue scrubs use a key card to open the door for a room filled with medical supplies.

---