Page 129 of Pietro

"You know what your problem is, Declan?" My voice shakes but I push through. "You still think pain will make me choose you over him. Like if you hurt me enough, I'll remember my place."

"Your place is wherever I say it is."

"My place is with Pietro." Each word costs me, but I need him to hear this. "In his bed. In his life. In his family."

The third finger gives way with a sound like snapping twigs. The scream that rips out of me is pure animal pain, and for a moment, all my defiance vanishes. There is only the blinding, jagged agony radiating from my hand.Get it together, Nora. Don't let him see you break.

"Hard to be in his bed when you're here with me." Declan releases my mangled hand. "And you're going to be here for a while. Until your father decides what to do with you."

"Connor won't come."

"Of course he will. You're his daughter."

"I'm his disappointment." The broken fingers throb in time with my heartbeat. "The daughter who chose a Sartori over family honor. He'll let me rot."

"Then I'll sell you to the highest bidder." Declan pulls out his phone, snaps a photo of my battered face. "Plenty of people want a piece of Connor O'Sullivan's little princess."

"Good luck with that."

He pauses, thumb hovering over his screen. "You really don't care, do you?"

"I'm already dead." The truth tastes like freedom. "The moment I was born, I signed my death warrant. You, whoever—someone was always going to collect. At least I got to feel alive first."

"Alive?" Declan barks out a laugh. "You call this alive? Tied up in a basement, beaten bloody, waiting to die?"

"More alive than three years of pretending to love you."

The phone clatters across the floor. He's on me in two strides, hands fisting in my hair, yanking my head back.

"I should kill you right now."

"Do it." I bare my teeth at him, feral. "Put a bullet in my skull. End this."

His grip tightens. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Quick and clean."

"I'd like to stop looking at your face."

He releases me with a shove that rocks the chair dangerously.

"I need you alive." He retrieves his phone, checks the cracked screen. "Connor wants his pound of flesh. But if you keep pushing me..." He pulls a Glock from his waistband, presses the barrel against my temple. "Accident happens. You tried to escape. I had no choice."

The metal is cold against my skin. My pulse hammers but I don't flinch.

"I stopped being afraid of you the moment you tried to strangle me in Boston. Everything since then has been borrowed time."

"Time you spent fucking our enemy."

I don't answer. I'm getting tired of this.

He climbs the stairs. The door slams. The lock engages.

Alone again with the dripping water and the dancing shadows. My fingers throb. My face feels like tenderized meat. Every breath sends fire through potentially cracked ribs.

But I didn't break.

Didn't give him anything he could use against Pietro.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX