Page 11 of Brutal Crown

His hand shot out, grabbing my waist and pinning me to the mattress. The heat of his palm burned right through the thin fabric of the ugly green dress they stuffed me into.

“Your mouth,” he breathed against my ear, “is going to get you into trouble you can’t sweet-talk your way out of.”

I twisted under him, disgust flooding my veins. “Get off me.”

He didn’t move. His hand traveled down my side in a slow, punishing slide.

“You’re not in your papa’s house anymore, Lia,” he said, voice dipping low. “There’s no one coming to save you.”

For the first time since I was kidnapped, my body and mind came alive. I still remember the warmth of his breath as he whispered filthy words in my ear.

“You think that mouth of yours scares me?” he whispered. “Keep pushing,piccola. Please, I’m begging you to give me a reason to pin you down right here and fuck you so hard you forget your own name.”

A shiver had raked over me. Rage and something far more dangerous tangled deep in my gut.

“You’d like it, the depraved things I’d do to your body.” His mouth was so close, I could feel the words against my skin. “You’d hate yourself for it, but you’d beg me all the same.”

His hand found my waist, and he held me firmly. I’m ashamed to admit that I liked it. It was confusing. I felt my skin crawl and tingle at the same time. He dragged his hands down my hips, under my dress, while he told me that he told me all the different ways he could make me come.

God, I was so tempted that night to let him have his way. To put those fingers that were already so close to aching core. But I came to my senses, and I’d pushed him away, but it was alreadytoo late. He’d branded me with his touch. His words. He’d made me feel things no man had ever made me feel.

I cursed at him for trying to touch me after being responsible for my father’s death.

The bastard laughed at me.

“You think you’re better than us? Your father sold you, Lia. Like cheap vino.”

My stomach twisted.

“Don’t you dare speak about him,” I snapped, furious, tears burning my eyes. “You and your father murdered him!”

He pulled back slightly, his eyes gleaming. “He murdered himself,” Francesco said. “Tried to blackmail a god.Dio mio, how stupid could he be?”

He stood then, swaying a little, and looked down at me like I was a piece of glass he was deciding whether to smash.

“I was only checking to see if you were stupid enough to run,” he said. “Don’t even think of doing that, Lia. Or I’ll kill you myself.”

My gut told me that was a lie. He liked watching me miserable and suffering. He did it for fun. He wanted to watch me get broken down piece by piece until there was nothing left of me.

I swore then that no matter how much he monitored and watched me, he would never see me cower.

And he didn’t, because it was the last time I saw him.

Until today.

The next morning, they handed me a maid’s uniform. I realized they wouldn’t leave me locked up in a room. It would be too easy a fate for a prisoner, especially one they didn’t know what to do with. So they made me part of the scenery instead. I was kept visible and working while they kept a tight leash around my neck.

Their plan was to turn me into a slave, and I knew I wouldn’t back down without a fight.

I tried to run. Once, I even made it to the edge of the estate. But they always found me. They always dragged me back to my prison, and after spending days locked up alone, I quickly learned that the punishments for trying—and failing—to escape weren’t worth it. I was losing my mind thinking about how fast my life had fallen apart, and sometimes I even went days without food.

I finally gave up when Dante showed me pictures of my little cousins playing outside their school in Italy. I knew then that I couldn’t risk their lives. I hadn’t been close to my mother’s sister, but I loved playing with my cousins the few times they came around.

My aunt never liked my father. After my mother died, she stopped bringing the kids over. She never forgave my father for making my mother end her engagement to a wealthy man she was supposed to marry. Every time she visited and saw things out of place because we couldn’t afford better, she would grumble and curse, as if her life as a single mother was any better. But over time, I understood that my mother’s marriage to my father had ruined her family’s chance to escape poverty.

It got even worse after my mom got sick. Eventually, my aunt stopped visiting altogether. That’s why I never really bothered my father initially when he spent so much time away from home working. He was trying to make up for everything he could have avoided if he had gotten his job with the Romanos when my mom was still alive.

Despite everything, I missed them. They were the only family I had left, and I knew they didn’t deserve to suffer because of me.