Page 32

PSYCHO

I watch her sleeping peacefully, or at least that’s how it appears, until she starts crying. Eyes still closed, tears run down her cheeks, as she calls the name I’ve heard before.

“Michael!” she sobs.

“No! Michael, please.”

She opens her eyes and stares in confusion, likely wondering how she ended up down here. Rolling from her side to her back, she winces from the pain with a hiss.

I walk over to her, and gaze at her perplexed expression.

“Easy, little lamb.”

“Did you beat me?”

I reach down to brush the hair from her face, and she flinches.

“Oh my God. You did.”

Pointing to the Advil, and a glass of water, on the bedside table, I answer her question.

“I did not fucking beat you.”

I’m annoyed that she would think I would beat a woman, but then, I realize, in her mind, it’s probably not a far stretch from the things I’ve done. The things I will likely continue to do.

I help her sit up, and she glances down at her bare breasts and squeals.

“You pierced my nipples.”

She glares at them, like she can somehow make them disappear.

“You pierced my fucking nipples,” she repeats, with something that sounds like disbelief.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I shrug my shoulders, and admit it.

“It seemed best for you to get it all done at the same time. Less pain.”

She grabs the pain medication, takes it, and is quiet for a few minutes, while she sits with the glass on her lap. It’s almost as if she doesn’t want to ask.

“If you didn’t beat me, why does my back hurt, Massimo?”

I bite down on my lip, stifling the laugh, and then give her the answer.

“That’s from the tattoo, little lamb.”

“Tat-?”

She doesn’t finish her word. Instead, Anastasia lifts her gaze to mine, and her eyes widen, as her cheeks flush bright red. I could dodge the glass that comes hurtling toward me, but I don’t. I’ll give her this. It hits me in the stomach with a hard thud, causing me to grunt, before crashing to the floor, and shattering.

“You cannot tattoo someone against their will.”

Rising off the chair, she stomps over to me, with fists balled tight.

“You cannot pierce someone against their will. Do you fucking understand me?”

Fuck, she’s adorable like this. I enjoy her angry side. The victim behavior does not do it for me, but this. Fuck, it’s beautiful.

I drag my fingers through my beard, as I tilt my head at her, with a smirk on my lips.

“I think I do. You’re saying that I cannot pierce, and tattoo, someone against their will, correct?”

“Yes!” she screams, the anger radiating from her.

“I understand your words, but you’re wrong, little lamb, because I just did.”

She steps on the broken glass to get to me, and punches me, as she screams in pain. I growl, “Goddamn it.”

Quickly, I sweep her into my arms and rush her to the bathroom. Setting her on the counter, I grab tweezers from the cabinet, and pull out the pieces of glass, while my blood boils.

“So careless. You threw the damn glass, and shattered it.”

I inspect her foot, making sure it’s not deep enough to require stitches.

“Who’s Michael?”

She darts her eyes to the wall, as she hangs her head down, with a sadness I don’t think I’ve ever seen on her face.

“He was my son.”

“What happened?” I ask, as I clean her skin, to make sure she doesn’t end up with an infection.

Her bottom lip quivers as more tears fall from her eyes. I know what it was like for my brother and Bella to lose a child, so this time her tears don’t do anything for me. I don’t like it, and wish for a moment to be the kind of man that could make things better for her, but I’m not.

“My ex-husband, Carlo, killed him in front of me, to teach me a lesson in obedience.”

I place a bandage on her foot, covering the three cuts, and lift her off the counter.

“Was the child not his?”

To me, the question makes perfect sense: what kind of a man would kill his flesh and blood? For her, it doesn’t, and she gets angry all over again.

“Of course Michael was his, you asshole.”

Normally, I’d scold her for calling me names, but not right now, because I want to keep her talking. Suddenly, I want to know everything there is to know about her life.

“How old was he?”

“Three,” she answers, as my head spins. He murdered a goddamn toddler? Because she was disobedient? I make a mental note to find this guy, and kill him. What kind of a piece of shit does this, to not only a child, but his own child?

“He hit you, didn’t he?”

She nods, with a laugh that doesn’t reach her eyes. Then she shakes her head no, as if taking it back.

“No, he didn’t hit me, Massimo. He attacked me, brutally, as often as he could.”

I stroke my fingers down her arm, and she lets me.

“I’m sorry. He won’t be serving out his prison time. I’ll take care of him.”

She shakes her head, and rolls her eyes at me.

“Always with the violence.”

I smirk at her. “Always.”

Anastasia may think, since he’s in prison, that I can’t get to him, but she’d be wrong. I’ll have to call in favors, but it’s not a problem. Not by a long shot.

I grab the robe hanging in the bathroom, and help her into it.

“What’s on my back?”

I pull out my phone, and show her the picture I took, after I finished last night, and show it to her. She stares at the knife covering her lower back with my name on it.

“I have a knife on my back permanently. And knives in my nipples. This is unbelievable, Massimo.”

Flashing her a grin, I say, “Don’t forget the knife in your sweet pussy.”

I bend down and scoop her into my arms, and she puts her arms around my neck.

“What are you doing?”

Arching a brow at her, I sigh heavily.

“You have cuts on your foot. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

She buries her face into my chest, and laughs maniacally.

“Nobody causes more pain than you, and you’re worried about a little cut on my foot?”

“Even Carlo?” I ask, as we head upstairs.

Pulling her head back, she gasps.

“No. He cost me my identity, and my son. He took everything from me.”

Her words rattle around in my head, as I carry her to my kitchen, and set her on the counter beside my stainless steel refrigerator.