Page 13 of Tortured Hearts (Marchesi Empire #2)

BECCA

Montclair, New Jersey

I wake with a groan, fighting the fog that’s trying to pull me under.

Jesus, what the hell happened?

Blinking feels like dragging razors across my corneas, but I grit my teeth and do it anyway. When the haze finally clears, the first thing I notice is concrete. The more I blink, the more it surrounds me, the floor beneath my cheek a cold reminder of the bleak gray stone walls.

I search for my glasses, but they’re nowhere to be found. Great. I’m groggy and blind.

Another hoarse groan breaks the silence as I fight for memories against a wave of nausea.

I remember standing in my living room. There was darkness …

loneliness … a need to shower away all the sickening red.

I close my eyes, my pulse jumping as I feel a cloth slam over my mouth, and then I’m assaulted by a sw eet, musty smell, like pennies wrapped in a damp paper towel.

Chloroform.

I cringe, the revolting stench still trapped in my lungs.

It sparks a memory of a familiar man’s heavy frame pinning me to the floor, but I can’t draw his face from the shadows.

Then, everything goes black. My stomach roils as I push myself up, ignoring how my arm shakes under my weight.

Little by little, my eyes adjust to reveal my new, sadistic reality.

No windows. No sound. No one to hear me scream.

This is more than a basement. It’s a prison that can only belong to one person.

Marcello Marchesi.

My father warned me about him, and now I’m here, alone.

I want to be devastated. Instead, all I am is angry.

I think of the years I kept myself hidden behind a glass only to wind up shattered.

All I’ve ever done is try to help people, and where did it get me?

Knocked out, kidnapped, and dumped in a basement.

Emotions I’ve kept locked away far too long come spewing out, and I let out a shrill scream. Ignoring the protest from my body, I climb to my feet, and after multiple unsuccessful attempts at prying open the locked door, I pace the room until madness sets in.

What am I doing here? What’s going to happen to me?

Overwhelmed, I press the heels of my palms to my forehead, only for a searing burn to shoot down my arm. Letting out a strangled cry, I pull them away, bile crawling up my throat, as I stare at the inside of my right wrist and the rose and dagger tattoo drawn in harsh black ink.

I can’t breathe. The jagged, angry lines blur as the walls close in.

“Doc.”

I spin around to see Gianni standing at the top of the small staircase. Even with his face half-covered by shadows and my vision distorted, I know it’s him. My gut reaction is to run into his arms, but I only take one step before my stomach plummets. “Why aren’t you in Providence?”

He doesn’t answer. Instead, only heavy silence greets me. He stares. I stare. His palm presses leisurely against the wall, and mine curls tightly by my side.

Suspicion wraps a tight coil around my fear. “Say something.”

“It’s a long story.” He descends the stairs, moving with lethal calmness until he’s standing in front of me. I shiver as he drags his stoic gaze down my body. “You’re hurt.”

I glance down to see a scratch running down my arm caked in dried blood. I don’t bother being concerned. A few missing layers of skin is the least of my worries. “Maybe that’s because I survived nearly being burned alive only to be chloroformed and dumped in a basement.”

His eyes darken, and I catch a glimmer of something that stutters my heart.

Conflict? Regret? Before I can label it, it’s gone, and he’s on me, his hands digging into my hair as he crashes his lips to mine.

I fall into the kiss willingly and helplessly, cupping his cheeks before slamming back into reality.

Pressing my palms against his chest, I push him away, then swing, landing a satisfying slap across his face.

“You lied to me again .” Gianni doesn’t recoil.

He simply stands there, his gaze never leaving me.

“Did you know I was in danger?” I hurl one heated accusation after another, anger winning out over self-preservation. “Are you the reason I’m here?”

“Yes.” A one-word confirmation is all he offers before drawing me into a demanding kiss.

Once again, I relent. My head knows I should resist, but my heart doesn’t listen.

It grasps onto the familiarity of his scent, that heady blend of burnt pine and desire that seeps into my veins and blots out all the danger.

I’m not safe. He’s not safe.

But something about being in his arms makes even obvious wrongs feel right. It’s a craving. A blindness. A desperation that turns a person inside out, robbing them of all rational thought. Instead of fighting it, I sink into it, meeting every lash of his tongue.

He walks me backward and presses me against the wall, drowning me as he draws me into his fiery control. I close my eyes, my heart slamming against my chest as he drags his lips down my throat, his teeth grazing my skin. “Tell me to stop.”

I can’t. My mind is too busy imploding from the feel of his hand sliding down my hip toward my thigh.

He pulls his lips away from my throat, the hand at the back of my neck moving forward to grip my jaw. “Answer me.”

I stare into his hooded eyes. “No.”

The damp air between us thickens. I know what I’m doing, and so does he. This is the crux of who we are—submission and defiance. It’s why we fit so well together. We’re two opposite ends of the spectrum that lock in the middle, like yin and yang.

There’s a pause, then the line I’ve been pushing against severs as the hand on my thigh dives under my dress.

My eyes roll back in my head. “Shit…”

Gianni slides his finger through my folds and thrusts it inside with a second, and my body goes into overdrive.

But it’s when he curls them toward my front wall that he claims all control.

When the orgasm hits, it’s so powerful my body feels like it’s being tossed from cliff to cliff, then dragged down a canyon.

“Last chance, Doc.” I feel his hand working between us at his pants, his hard cock pressing against me. “The moment I’m inside you, I’m breaking both of us apart.”

I don’t stop him. This is what I want. It absorbs all the chaos, stoking a fire that incinerates all the fear. “ Finish what you started, Johnny Malone.”

Those two words are his breaking point. Hitching my leg around his waist, he yanks my panties to the side and drives into me so violently I slam my head back into the wall.

Self-preservation screams at me to close my eyes, but I don’t.

I look for the cold hate the confused part of me expects to see.

Only, there is none. What I find is far more dangerous …

a word that scares me way more than prison walls.

I don’t know if he sees it on my face, but something snaps in Gianni. His grip tightens, and he fucks me like the world’s ending. My body shakes as he pushes me down another spiral. “Who…?” Slam. “Do you…?” Slam. “Belong to…?” Slam.

There’s only one answer. “The Devil.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I come. My walls contract, squeezing his cock. Gianni curses, thrusting harder and harder until his body stiffens, and he erupts inside me. And like every time before, the moment it’s over, both our walls come crashing down.

He says nothing, his lips flattening as he pulls out of me. Avoiding his eyes, I smooth my dress while pretending I don’t have cum running down my thighs. The tension from before returns with a vengeance, the distance between us widening as he steps back and tucks himself back into his pants.

That’s when I’m shoved back into reality and my concrete prison. As always, we’re two steps forward and five steps back. Unfortunately, sex isn’t a fix-all. It doesn’t change where I am and how I got here.

He couldn’t have done this. I couldn’t have been this willfully ignorant .

I brush a shaking hand over my swollen lips, the awkwardness setting in. “Tell me you’re not responsible for me being here, Gianni.” My stomach knots as I hold up my wrist branded with the mark of my mother’s killer. “ Tell me you’re not responsible for this .”

His jaw tightens. “You ask this after letting me inside you?”

“Just answer the question.”

He’s silent for a moment, his hands clenching at his side. “I’m not responsible for any of it, cara mia .”

“Why should I believe you?”

“You shouldn’t.”

It’s the first honest thing he’s said since we met.

I stumble backward, the rage that fueled me earlier now draining me. “I gave you an alibi. I lied to the police, and now, I’m here…”

“Because of Henry,” he snaps, his expression darkening.

“Henry?” My stomach drops. “Oh my God, what happened to Henry? Is he?—?”

“Lying face down under a bus? I hope the fuck so. You would, too, if you knew how dirty that bastard turned out to be.”

The room spins as the final moments in my condo play out like a movie in my head. I feel the heavy arm swinging in front of my face and the familiar voice in my ear.

“Going somewhere?”

I raise a shaking hand to my mouth. Christ, does everyone pull a gun once my back turns?

For someone who reads people for a living, I’ve done a shit job of it, personally.

I gesture around my musty prison, all the fight in me evaporating.

“Why bother saving me if this was always going to be the result?”

“I told you I’d never hurt you.”

“Then open the door and let me walk out.” When he doesn’t budge, the crack in my heart widens. “You know what makes me feel most stupid? I defended you when my father claimed I was just another spoke in the Marchesi wheel.”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he winced. “You don’t know what you’ re talking about.”

I offer a slow, bitter smile. “I know a lot more than you ever wanted me to.”