Page 45 of Cruel Heir

It’s nearly evening by the time Antoni and I are finished with the man. There wasn’t much left of him by the time he was dispatched with a knife to the throat, but we got enough information to make it worthwhile.

Some of which I wonder if I should share with Lucia. I wonder if it would change her mind about her father—about her loyalty to him. If it would make any difference in the end.

I tell Antoni to deal with the body, striding out of the outbuilding where we took care of the questioning towards the waiting car. I’m spattered with blood, and very much in need of a good shower—and a good fuck. My body feels as if it’s humming with leftover adrenaline, and I lean back against the seat, palming one hand across my groin as I think of my wife, and the welcome I might receive when I get home.

She likes to pretend that she doesn’t want to go to bed with me—although that pretense has gotten thinner and thinner as time has worn on—but it’s abundantly evident how untrue that is. It’s been over a day since I was with her, and I know she’ll be eager for me, too.She might try to act as if she isn’t, but that’s a game we both know very well. It’s become one that I think she enjoys playing as much as I always have.

The house is quiet when I arrive, and I head straight up to my bedroom. To my surprise, when I push open the door, Lucia is sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Principessa.” I pause, trying to hide my shock. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“I—” She bites her lip, as if she’s realized too late that she has no real excuse for being in my room other than wanting to see me, and she can’t possibly admit that aloud. Her gaze sweeps over me, taking in my bloodied clothing and the streaks of it on my skin, and her eyes go wide as she jumps up from the bed. She crosses the room to me before I can say anything, her hands pressed against my shirt as she looks at me fearfully.

“Are you hurt? What happened?” The worried innocence in her gaze is so startling that I pull away from her, striding towards the bathroom before I start to laugh. Oddly enough, I find that I don’t want to hurt her feelings by laughing at her.

“Andre!” She follows me into the bathroom, once again surprising me. Lucia has never shown any genuine care for me, and she certainly doesn’t push me when I give her even the slightest hint that I want to be left alone. She’s usually more than eager tobeleft alone, quick to jump on any excuse to not have to spend time with me.

Except when she fell asleep in your arms.I try to force out that thought before it can settle in too deeply. In the days after that, I found I missed that feeling, once I’d had it. I’ve never had a woman spend the night—never woken up in the same bed with anyone—and the pleasure of waking up with her warmth pressed against me and the sweet smell of her skin and hair in my nose was beyond what I might have imagined. Being able to simply slip inside of her, half-asleep and aching, was another unexpected pleasure.

I strip off my shirt, ignoring her, but she doesn’t seem inclined to leave. “Andre,” she says again, her tone more strident than I’ve ever heard it. “What happened to you—oh.”

She pauses as I get my shirt off, and she realizes that it’s not my blood. I turn to look at her and see that she’s pale, frozen in place, her eyes skittering over my body as if she’s desperately looking for some wound—as if now she’shopingto find that I’ve been injured instead of the other way around.

“Andre, you—”

“I tortured someone. This is all his blood.” I say it coldly, casually, almost relishing the look of fear on her face when I do. It’s been a long time since she’s looked at me with that kind of fear, and I wonder if I might not have been too soft with her. If it’s not better for her to remember that I’m a man who others fear, even when she forgets to. “Do you know who Franco Castiglia is? This was one of his men. An enforcer. A tough man, to tell you the truth—it took the better part of a full day to break him.”

Lucia is trembling. Her eyes are wide, shiny with fear, like a deer frozen in headlights. “You—you tortured a man—”

She says it with utter horror, as if I’m a monster—as if she’s looking at something more evil than she could ever have imagined. And as I hear her, something snaps inside of me.

I toss the shirt to the floor, glaring at her. “Do you not know what kind of man your father is, Lucia? Do you haveanyidea? Do you think he’s never tortured anyone?”

“He—” She stammers, her eyes flicking wildly around, as if looking for an answer in something.

“I guarantee you that he has,” I tell her coldly. “Maybe not recently; he’s powerful enough now to have men to take care of that for him, to get their hands bloody so that he doesn’t have to. But I guarantee at one point, before he ran the Family, he pried off nails and stripped flesh just like the rest of us to get his answers.”

“You don’t know that’s true,” Lucia whispers, and I laugh darkly, shaking my head.

“You know,” I say almost conversationally, leaning back against the counter, “I didn’t tell you what he did to my father. Not precisely, anyway. He didn’t torture him—he made sure to point that out, when he forced my father down onto his knees while oneof his men held a gun to his head. I had towatch.” I almost spit out the word. “I watched as Fontana blathered on about thekindnesshe was doing my father, not torturing him before putting a bullet in his head. He killed him there, right in front of me. Inches away. And then he had me dragged off and brought here, to one of his estates. No chance to tell my mother goodbye or my sister. I wasn’t close to them, but with my father dead, they weremyresponsibility. Theyshouldhave been my responsibility. All of our affairs should have been. But instead, your father dragged me here, under house arrest, without telling me a goddamn thing. And then he kept me here fortwo fucking years,wondering when he’d remember that I was still alive, and it would be my turn to be the one kneeling for a bullet.”

Lucia wraps her arms around her chest, trembling even harder than before. “He wouldn’t be that cruel,” she whispers, and I laugh.

“He was,” I tell her coldly. “And that’s considered amercy, in this world. What I did today? That’s the norm. That’s whatallmen in this world of ours do. Your father kept you sheltered to your detriment,principessa, if you think that this sort of blood is unusual. If you think it makes me a monster. Or—well, you can think that, if you like. But then your father is a monster, too. We all are. Every last man you’ve ever spoken to or ever will.”

“Don’t talk about my father like that,” Lucia whispers. “I don’t believe you—”

I look at her, at her pale face, her lips trembling as she faces me, doing her best to keep the pieces of her carefully constructed world from breaking apart. And I can feel the thin thread of my patience snap.

“Do you know what I found out?” I hiss, striding forward. I grab her upper arms, spinning her so that her back is against the counter, and I do my best to ignore her small yelp of fear. “Do you want to know whatyour father’splans are to rescue you?”

Lucia lets out a small whimper, her teeth sinking into her lower lip, and for a moment, I question the wisdom of telling her the truth. If it will really help matters, or if she’ll only tell herself that I’m lying,so that she won’t have to face the reality of a world that she’s been kept away from all her life.

“Your father is taking his time to come and get you.” I reach up, brushing a lock of hair away from her pale face, keeping her caged against the counter with my body. “He’s debating the wisdom of risking his men and his security by coming to get a daughter who is no longer a virgin. He’s having meetings with the senior dons, discussing the value of a woman who has been married in front of a priest, wedded and bedded, and who might be carrying a child even now.”

Lucia’s face goes bone white at that, her mouth gaping. “You’re lying,” she breathes, just as I knew she would. “He wouldn’t say that. He wouldn’t even think it. I’m hisdaughter—”

“Yes, you are. A powerful bargaining chip. And I don’t doubt that he’ll decide, in time, that it’s worth the risk to come and get you. After all, if he were to do away with me and take you home, some of this can be salvaged. Even if you were pregnant, he might be able to ensure that the problem was taken care of, and enough money is exchanged that it would be as if it never happened. But the thing is, Lucia, he’sconsideringit. He didn’t rush in here the moment you were taken and throw everything he had at rescuing you. He didn’t offer me a don’s ransom in wealth to get you back. Because you are a chess piece, Lucia, like everything else valuable he has. And he has to weigh the value of taking you back against the value of leaving you here. It’s not about a father’s love for a daughter, and it never was. It’s about the value of a don’s empire, of his legacy, and where you stand when it comes to that.”

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