“She couldn’t,” he said faintly.
“She should have! You were being hurt, and she could have done something to stop it.”
Domenico shook his head. “She did all that she could.”
“What about your father?” I asked. Didn’t someone stand up for him?
His jaw twitched. “He sided with Roman and told me to toughen up. So I did. Roman wasn’t the only one to pick on me. All of the Ferrante children, including their mother, did.”
My eyes widened. Why did he grow up in such an environment? Why was he subjected to that?
“Their mother? She hurt you?” I’d once seen the matriarch of the Ferrante family, and she seemed as slippery as a viper, and just as quick to strike. It didn’t surprise me that she would attack a child who wasn’t one of her own.
He nodded. “She hated me, and her children followed suit. Throughout school, with each fight, I grew tougher, stronger. By high school Roman was no match for me on his own, so he roped in some friends to help.”
“My God.” I straddled his hips and pulled his shirt up and over his head. Littered across his skin were scars, including a healed bullet wound. Some were hidden under the black and red tattoos that covered his skin. I’d never gotten to make such an inspection of him before, up close like that. To see the battle scars and war paint that littered his tanned complexion. “So much pain,” I whispered and leaned down to press my lips against his skin.
“Carne di lupo, zanne di cane,” he whispered.
You must meet roughness with roughness. It wasn’t just a saying, but a mantra, evident by the story shown on his skin.
“Senior year Roman and his friends won as many fights as I did, to the point that nobody wanted to fight me. I sent more than a few of them to the hospital.”
“I’m surprised you’re not in jail.” From what I’d cobbled together, they’d gone to school together, meaning probably a private school, maybe even the same one I went to. The school wouldn’t have allowed such behavior, so why were there no consequences?
He shook his head. “Giovanni wouldn’t allow it. He saw promise and offered me a job, one that led to right here and right now.”
“Where you gave it all away for me. Why?” It was a favorite question of mine—why? One that never received an answer. Why me?
His gaze was locked on my lips and he reached up and cupped my chin, his thumb swiping across my bottom lip. His breath sped up while his teeth mashed together.
“I’ve aided in the sale of many women in the past. There is money in people, and I know what happens to those that I transfer. Killing people? I’ve killed more than I can count, but the thought of sending you to either of those fates was something I couldn’t handle.”
“Why me?” I was desperate for the answer, to know why I mattered.
I drew in a breath as his hand snaked up my back, and the roughness of his palm sent a ripple of fire down to my core. A hard tug and we were chest to chest, his eyes locked onto mine, our lips a few short inches from touching. “You’re mine.”
A shudder rolled through me. “As much as this is exciting me, you’re not answering me.”
“But I did. You. Are. Mine.” His lips ghosted my neck, his teeth sinking in, nipping as he went. “No man but me will ever touch you.”
He was distracting me, and I was so close to letting him. “How is this different than being sold to the highest bidder?”
“Because the only thing you have to fear from me is the intensity of my need for you.”
My chest clenched again. He wanted me, needed me. Me. “Tell me why.”
“Why are you wrapped all around me after what I did to you?” he asked.
I pulled back and blinked at him. “W-what?”
“I’ve answered your why with the basest explanation I can. Now it’s your turn.”
My gaze bounced between his eyes. “Because maybe, just maybe, you aren’t the monster I believed you were.”
“I am a monster.”
I shook my head. “Not to me.”
There was a hum deep in his chest. “Oh, but I am.”
“How so?”
He rocketed forward, tipping me down to the bed as he caged me beneath him. “I want to devour every inch of you.”
I drew in a sharp breath as his touch filled me with warmth.
“Because you are the heaven I’ll never reach.”
“Anche in paradiso non è bello essere soli. I go where you go.” There is no greater torment than to be alone in paradise.
His eyes met mine. “You are my paradise. With you, I am not alone.”
Sex was so much better after I admitted how much I wanted him. After he told me how much he needed me.
For three days we’d remained locked in the hotel room. There were many hours that he kept watch out the window while I read one of the books I’d picked up from my apartment. I’d finished Domenico’s War and Peace while still in my cage and I was ravenous to read more.
Oh, how I’d missed reading. I was elated to read again.
“Isn’t your car conspicuous?” I asked as he stared out the window.
“It’s not there.”
I blinked and turned to him. I knew it was a bad neighborhood, but wow. “Someone stole it?”
He gave a small shake of his head. “The motel owner has it in a storage garage in the back.”
“Do you trust him?”
“Not particularly, but a grand in hand and no questions were asked.”
Based on his car and his status, money didn’t seem to be much of an issue for him. He was paid well. “So your little gang…what does it do for Ferrante?”
His brow furrowed. “Why do you ask?”
“From what I remember of Ferrante’s men, they were always well dressed in three-piece suits, but you are usually…casual.” I fed him a morsel, and I waited to see if he’d take the bait, but it seemed his attention was too focused outside.
“Men in suits that aren’t Ferrante are guards and brown-nosers. Assassins whose only purpose is to kill. I am the task master, the collector, the informant. The enforcer. I carry out what Ferrante needs me to. I have a crew that is a mix of soldiers and associates.”
“What types of things does your crew do?”
“Whatever is required.”
His half answers were starting to grate on me. “Are you going to keep up this whole secrecy act now?”
His jaw twitched and he turned to me. “Do you want me to tell you that you’re the only girl I’ve plucked from the street? Because you’re not. The market for girls is bigger than you think.”
“That’s what the Ferrante do?” I asked. My father’s threats came back to me. Maybe this was all a ruse to sell me.
“It’s a lucrative piece of a larger puzzle. You should know by now that the Mafia makes the world go round. Influence by any means—money, blackmail, and force. Secrets are worth more than money, and the Ferrante are better at secrets than any other.”
He wasn’t wrong there. “Any other what?”
“Family. Organization.”
“What other families are around?” I asked. It was me throwing out a lure, to see if he really didn’t know who I was.