Prologue
The cold steel against my back relieved the burn of marred flesh. My body felt heavy, the weight of every bone pulling me down. Tears stained my face, and the dried-up sorrow of pain and torment clung to my cheeks like his vile lust stuck to my thighs.
I leaned my head back and closed my eyes, trying to remember her face, her voice. With every lash of his whip, every bite of his teeth, and every insult he spat at me, her face would be as clear as daylight. Beautiful blue eyes. Innocent smile. Pure heart. But it was moments like these, the moments where exhaustion dug its claws into my body, despair choking the fight from my soul, that her face would disappear. I couldn’t forget her. Not now. Not ever.
“Schiava.” The bars reverberated against my spine as he slammed his cane against the steel. “Don’t you dare pass out on me now. The night is only beginning.”
I opened my eyes, staring at the monster who leaned over the cage with his arms stretched out wide. Sweat covered his naked body, his cock hard, and his expression that of pure evil. Dark brows framed wild eyes that reflected hell’s shadows within them, and I feared it would engulf me.
The five o’clock shadow that covered his jaw wasn’t there when I first met him. Those familiar eyes weren’t so wicked and malevolent either, possessed with an unspeakable evil as he unleashed the devil in him. He used me to fulfill his wretched fantasies as he bathed in his sadistic tendencies that pierced my flesh over and over again. The only part of my body which remained unharmed by him was my face.
“Let’s not ruin the prettiest part of you,” he’d say while he stared at me as if I was a dream to him. A dream caught in the web of this nightmare he created.
I glanced at the woman on the bed, settled on her knees, arms stretched above her head. She moaned as she fought against the chains, mouth gagged and ankles tied to a spreader-bar. But she was only playing her part, doing what she was paid to do. To let him fuck her while I watched, her body bent and used in the most depraved ways. But unlike me, she had a choice. She chose to be here. She chose to give ownership of her body to the monster who relished our pain.
“Eyes here, schiava.” He slammed his cane against the bars, the sound vibrating all around the cage and crashing against my chest as he demanded my attention. He glanced down at the fresh cut on my inner thigh. “If you get blood all over your cage, I’ll make you lick it up like a fucking dog.”
I snarled, my hatred oozing like an open sore. If I weren’t so tired, I would have launched myself across the cage so I could claw his eyes out while I spat in his motherfucking face. Piece of shit.
He smiled as if he could read my every thought. “No matter how exhausted you are, the fight in your eyes remains.”
I pulled my dirty knees up to my chest, wincing as the cut on my thigh stretched with the movement.
“I’ll tell you what.” He pushed away from the cage and sauntered toward the bed, the gagged whore moaning as he approached her. “You seem like you need some rest, so I’ll grant you a little reprieve by letting you watch. But tomorrow I’ll be sure to fuck the filth out of you, prove what a masochistic slut Emilio Moretti’s daughter really is.”
Renewed strength surged through my veins at the mention of my father’s name. The man whose actions and decisions had brought me to this moment. He might as well have placed me in this cage himself, locking it with his threats and lies.
I watched as he tightened the belt around the whore’s neck, pulling her head back. Her back arched and spine bent with a sickening curve. The glint of a knife in his hand demanded my attention, and I gasped as terror stole my breath.
“Nothing is as pure as the color of blood, don’t you think, Daniela?” He placed the tip of his knife against the pulsing vein in her neck, and my mind was already a few seconds ahead, picturing her cut throat and bleeding corpse hanging from silver chains. “You know,” he brought the knife up to his lips, feigning a look of thought, “I think this was the part I looked forward to the most.” Evil eyes locked with mine. “The part where I could share my most immoral and heinous fantasies with you. The part where I could show you just how perfect we are for each other.”
Before I could digest his words, he flipped the blade and pressed it against her shoulder, slicing it down her arm. She screamed through the gag, and I slammed myself harder against the bars, my cries joining hers with alarm. I tasted my fear as I watched blood ooze from her flesh. The monster behind her dragged his fingertips through the crimson liquid and spread it across her skin, his eyes dark and hooded, his expression that of the devil’s lust. Tears of pain slipped down the woman’s face. Dirty blonde hair clung to her cheeks and forehead, but no matter how she screamed, the lust glowed in her eyes as she tasted hell.
I sobbed while watching him fuck her from behind, her blood soiling the white satin sheets. Her cries of pain turned into shrieks of pleasure, the chains above her head complaining as her body was used mercilessly. It was an endless game of mindfuckery, a gauntlet on the devil’s playground. His low grunts of euphoria mimicked a demon’s laugh. The wickedness that radiated from the scene clawed at my soul, and I could no longer keep the bile down. I heaved and pressed my palms against the cold ground. My body expelled the morsel of stale bread he had fed me, and along with it the last shred of strength I had left.
The bars reverberated as I collapsed against it, my palms drenched in vomit. My mind pulled me back to the day my life changed irrevocably. The day my fate was decided because of my need to protect her.
“Do not defy me, daughter.”
“If you refuse, this duty will be passed on to her.”
“One of my daughters will marry the Silvestro boy. It’s up to you to decide which one.”
I decided.
While their moans of ecstasy filled the room, no part of my body untouched, and in agony, I didn’t regret my decision. I never would. No matter what kind of torment fell upon me, I’d endure it for a thousand lifetimes if it meant sparing her one day of pain. But now it no longer mattered. Nothing mattered anymore. But still…I did not regret it. There was only one thing I regretted the most, and that was falling for his deceptive lies. It was the biggest mistake I had made since I walked down that aisle. It was a mistake I would pay for every second I spent in this cage—an eternity because no one would come for me. No one.
So, even though my soul cried for God to help me, I refused to pray. I refused to fall asleep with hope, dreaming of a life before I walked down the aisle. She was a part of that life, and remembering those times hurt more than the whips and chains that sliced my flesh.
This was my life now.
This was my fate.
This cage.
This hell.
Chapter One
(Few weeks earlier)
It should be the happiest day of any girl’s life—a day she gets to wear a designer label wedding gown and Jimmy Choo heels. Instead, the soft layers of white lace and exquisite embroidery that embellished the delicate bodice and sleeves of the dress handmade by one of the world’s most famous designers made me feel like a sacrificial lamb adorned with wealth so the gods would accept my family’s offering.
Not a day went by in the past eleven years that I didn’t think of this day. Wondered how it would be, how it would all play out. The day that marked the beginning of a future destined for me because of the name I carried. It was yet to be determined whether the Moretti name would be a blessing or a curse. The warning at the back of my skull said the latter.