Page 55 of The Viper

“S-sorry,” he murmurs through the sobbing.

I step back and look at him. Blood is oozing from his hand, his entire face is beaten to the point his eyes are swelling. I walk over and place the pliers on top of the cabinet, then open the third drawer and take one of the hunting knives out. “Sorry doesn’t cut it in my world.” I drive the knife through his lower stomach, twist it and drag it up until it’s near his sternum. Stepping back, I watch as his guts leak out through the wound. His screams are fading as he’s losing his life. “Don’t fucking touch what doesn’t belong to you.” Blood is oozing out of his body, and I stay rooted to the spot, watching him die in front of me. His thrashing diminishes as a calm washes over me. His head lolls forward and he exhales his last breath. “I’m done with him.” I turn to Marco. “Get Frank and clean this up.”

Marco extends his hand and waits for the knife. “I’ll take care of this. Go, be with your girl.”

I give Marco a curt nod before wiping my hands down my pants. I head out of the dungeon and up to my room. Alba is sitting on the sofa under the window when I enter. She takes in my appearance then looks over to Rosa. “She hasn’t stirred once in the last hour, Mr. Sacco.”

“Thank you, Alba. I’m sorry to keep you so late, you can leave.”

She stands and walks over to me. She lifts her hand to place on mine, but sees all the blood and pulls back. “She’s important to you.” Alba glances toward the bed, then back to me.

“She is.”

She kindly smiles and looks over at the bed once more. “Good night, Mr. Sacco.”

“Good night, Alba.” She leaves and I hear her light footsteps on the floorboards outside the room. I look over to my Rosa and decide it’ll be best if she doesn’t see the blood. I head into my bathroom to take a shower and wash all this blood off of me.

Chapter fifteen

Rose

My eyes open and it takes me a moment to realize I’m not in my room. I push the covers back and sit on the edge of the bed. My head is heavy, and fuzzy. “Oh man,” I say as I lift my hand to scrub my fingers over my eyes. The thick black carpet beneath my feet tells me I’m in Dominic’s room.

I try to push off the bed, but the wooziness keeps me down. How much did I drink? I turn to look out the window and I’m met with darkness. “Wait,” I say to myself. What time is it?

My mouth is dry and parched, and I feel like I have a killer hangover. My gaze roams around the expansive room, and I see my dress draped over the back of the plush sofa. I look down at my body to see myself in a t-shirt. I pull the hem of the t-shirt back and find I’m still wearing my bra and panties. “What happened?” I rub at the tension between my brows as I search my memory of what happened and how I ended up here.

The sound of the shower supersedes my frazzled recall, and I manage to stand without falling. I head toward the door that’s ajar. I look in before pushing the door open. I’m blessed with the sight of Dominic’s back in the shower. There are no curtains disrupting my view. It’s like one large, wet room with a large tub to the left, and opposite it, a rainfall shower head with no glass separating any of the areas, and a toilet behind the door. The room itself is black tiled with a crisp white tub, vanity and toilet all rimmed with gold. It’s anything but gaudy, more stylish. This bathroom could easily be in any home magazine.

My eyes are drawn to the heap of clothes on the floor. The bloody clothes. I bring my hand up to cover my mouth, but the squeak escapes before I can stop it. Dominic turns to look at me. My hand falls as I drag my gaze down his body to his semi-erect cock. Jesus. His cock is thick and veiny, delicious.

“Rosa,” he says without leaving the shower.

“Um.” I break the hard observation of his cock to meet his eyes. I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth and try not to look at his cock again. “What happened?” I point down to his heaped clothes, and just as I regain my own strength, I see a gun sitting on the vanity. “Why...” my voice trails off as I attempt to make sense of everything.

“You don’t remember?” He lifts a brow before turning to continue washing himself. Dominic has a full back piece tattoo. It’s of Jesus on the cross two angels on either side of him. The tattoo also has other biblical pieces toward the bottom, and all are wrapped in barbed wire. “Rosa,” he says, dragging me out of my fascination of his sculptured back.

“What happened? Did I drink a lot?” He turns the water off, and reaches for his towel. He wraps it low around his hips and I can’t for the life of me stop staring at him. “Did we have sex?” I’m gonna be so upset with myself if he says yes, because I can’t remember a moment of it.

“No, Rosa, we didn’t,” he snaps with a hint of frustration.

“Oh.” My heart seems to slow with hurt. “Sorry.” Hanging my head, I do my best to not let the disappointment show.

“Rosa.” I shake my head and take a step backward. He walks over to me, places his finger under my chin and tilts my head up. “I would never take advantage of you in the state you were in.”

My brows pull in as I try to recall the chain of events at the club. “What happened? Why are your clothes bloody?”

Dominic gestures for me to leave the bathroom, which I do and he follows. “Sit.” He points to the sofa. I walk over and sit, while he enters his walk-in closet and returns with a t-shirt and boxer briefs. “Your drink was spiked.”

“What?” I shriek as I lift my hand to my mouth again. “I don’t remember.”

“That’s the whole point.”

“How? When? What happened?” My eyes dart around the room as I try to make sense of everything I’ve seen since I’ve woken. My mind is scrambling to piece together the events. “You and Adrian went upstairs while Eliza and I had a couple of French martinis.”

“Yes, you had two, your sister had one.”

“You knew how much we drank?”

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