Page 27

Emilia

When Peter called me two days ago and told me I needed to come to his home to help Bia because she had been through hell.

I was livid.

But when he told me Cillian being a fucking hotheaded idiot, well, my anger went to a whole new level.

I talked to Julietta, and we decided it would be best for Bia if she could work on herself without Cillian hovering around her like a damn mother hen.

That’s when we enlisted in the help of our men and had them gas the psych ward so that we could take Bia with us to Italy.

I wish I could have taken her while she was conscious, but I couldn’t just pick her up, and after what she has been through, seeing a bunch of masked men grabbing her would have scared the shit out of her.

And the last thing I wanted to do was traumatize her more.

I made Peter promise me he wouldn’t tell anyone that it was me who grabbed Bia.

He didn’t question it at that moment, but I’m sure he will later.

While they were bringing her to Italy, Julietta went shopping to stock her room.

Once she gets settled, I will get her things she enjoys, but for now, she has a tablet and a five-hundred-dollar gift card she can use.

I’m not sure if she is a reader if not, I’m sure Gabriella can give her some good recommendations for some dirty books.

I also got Maya to fly out to us, if she can break through my walls, no doubt she can break through Bia’s.

That sweet girl needs time to heal and grieve.

My heart breaks for her; having someone on top of you beating your stomach with no way of protecting your child…I can’t even imagine.

I’m currently walking through the halls of the O’Sullivan mansion searching for the dumb fuck who needs a lesson on how to treat his precious wife.

“Cillian.

Oh, Cillian, where are you?”

I sing as I toss my knife into the air. I pop my head into the kitchen.

“Not in here,”

I say as I keep walking, checking the dining room and sitting room next.

“Draco, where could that Irish asshole be?”

I ask, petting my favorite pet’s head, where he is wrapped around my neck.

“Cillian. Where are thou, Cillian?”

“Uh…Emilia?”

I turn around and see my favorite Irish redhead.

“Kayleigh bug!”

I say pocketing my knife before bringing her into a hug. I pull away from her and hold her at arm’s length. I stare at her face. “Have you been sleeping?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

she sasses me.

“Sassy brat, but you look better.”

“I am overall, except finding out my brother is a stupid jackass and Bia is missing.”

“That’s why I’m here. Do you know where he is?”

I pet Draco some more.

“He was in his office, but he may be talking to Daidí. I see you found Draco.”

“Of course. I did. I even brought him some toys. I’ll have to show you later. I’m going to see what they need my help with. Oh, be warned, I brought Alessia with me and she is extremely excited to see you. She is with Molly in the garden.”

“Aww, I miss little sassy. I’ll go see her and maybe take her on a ride.”

“She would love that, be warned, she is a speed demon in the saddle.”

“Noted. See you later.”

She waves me off as she heads towards the garden. I walk towards the stairs where the offices are.

“Cillian. Oh, Cillian. I have a bone to pick with you!”

I say louder as I approach the offices.

“What the- FUCKING HELL!”

he yells as I aim my knife at his shoulder.

“What the fuck, Emilia?”

he says, gripping his shoulder. I shrug my shoulders but from the smirk on my face, he knows he is fucked.

“I told you, I have a bone to pick with you.”

“I don’t have time for this shit.”

“Oh, but you do. I have heard about everything poor Bia has went through, and if I didn’t love your family so much, I would put a bullet between your eyes.”

“You think I don’t know how badly I fucked up? I’m fucking aware, and you can be pissed with me all you want, but I don’t have time to waste because she is fucking missing. I need to find her.”

“That’s why I’m here to help. Now get your ass in Peter’s office so I can get up to speed with what’s going on.”

“Fucking psycho,”

he mumbles under his breath.

“Heard that and thank you, I didn’t know you cared about me so much,”

I say as I walk through the door.

“HONEY, I’M HOME!”

I say loudly. Peter looks up from talking to Julietta and a few other men. Peter chuckles as he stands up but stops when he sees his son holding his shoulder with my knife sticking out from it. Peter eyes me.

“What did you do?”

“Oh, that’s a taste of what he is going to experience from my lesson about how to treat Bia.”

Julietta chuckles, “Poor sucker.”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

one of the men ask.

“When she taught my cousin Vincenzo a lesson after he ignored his fiancée, who was abused right under his roof and he had no idea, he left the warehouse with new holes in his body.”

“Anyway… what do we know about Bia missing?”

I ask, plopping myself in a chair across from Peter’s desk. I grab Draco and put him in my lap. I stroke the top of his head while he curls up.

“Are we going to ignore that she is walking around here with a snake around her neck?”

the same man from earlier asks.

“It’s not a snake, it’s my baby, Draco,”

I say with pride.

“My sister-in-law is a bit crazy, but sometimes it's best not to question the craziness.”

Julietta says. I grab the stapler off Peter’s desk and throw it at her.

“Bitch!”

“Okay, children. Behave,”

Peter tells us.

“If I must,”

I sigh and Peter chuckles.

“Anyway, the psych ward was gassed; everyone was knocked out. Whoever did this is no amateur, they were able to scrub the footage starting thirty minutes before the place was gassed and brought it back on after Bia was taken. They even scrubbed traffic cams in the area,”

he says. I fake concern.

“Oh shit. Any ideas who might have done it?”

“Leonidas, do you think your Grandfather could have his hands in it?”

Peter asks, I look across the room and see Bia’s older brother leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, but then Peter’s office phone rings. He sighs and picks it up.

“Hello.”

“Yes, we are in my office, send him up.”

Then he hangs up the phone; and apologizes for the interruption. Leonidas nods his head and begins to talk.

“I haven’t heard anything, but he doesn’t tell me everything either. Especially when it comes to Bia. He knows I will purposely sabotage any plans he has if she could get hurt.”

“Okay, so maybe not his Grandfather. Enemies? Pissed off fathers because Cillian married Bia instead of their precious daughters?” I ask.

“Here, I’ve made a list of options,”

Peter says handing me a piece of paper. I read down the list six possible pissed off fathers and two enemies they have had feuds with, including some members of their council.

I look up when the door opens, and I see a livid Marcello walking into the office. He strides over to Julietta, throws her over his shoulder, and marches out of the office while she is yelling at him to put her down and quit being a fucking caveman.

“Alrighty then, I will reach out to Fabio and see what he can find on these families. Now, dear Cillian, let’s go take a walk.”

He sighs and follows me out of Peter’s office. I walk all the way down to their basement. You could cut the tension between us with a knife. I walk inside the room and wait until Cillian walks in behind me.

I watch him as he stands a few feet away from me. He is dejected, the guilt and sorrow are seeping off him. Well, that’s good at least.

I grab a chair and sit down.

“Tell me, Cillian, how can you be so blind?”

“Because my first wife fucked me over more than anyone knows.”

“Explain.”

“The only reason I married Meredith is because of her older brother.”

“Do you have a hard on for her brother or something?”

“What? No. I did him a favor because she got herself into trouble.”

“What kind of trouble are you talking about?”

“Messing with the wrong crowd and they had a hit out for her. Neal has raised Meredith on his own, their parents liked the idea of having kids but never wanted to put the work in.”

“Okay, so because of shitty parents she was acting out.”

“Yes, and she had mental health issues.”

“What kind of mental health issues?”

“Bipolar disorder.”

I blow out my breath.

“Shit, that’s a deadly combination.”

He nods his head.

“It was. I agreed to marry her because everyone knows killing my wife would be a death sentence.”

I nod my head and continue to listen. “I tried to get her help, but she hated taking the medicine, fought me when I would take her to her appointments.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t, plus, she wasn’t a pleasant person to deal with even when she was on meds. I knew she was unfaithful, but honestly, I had no emotional connection to her.”

He sighs runs and his hand through his hair. “When we found out she was pregnant, I have never been so happy in my life to that point, but being pregnant meant she couldn’t take a lot of her meds, and I dealt with it knowing in the end, I would get to my son. One day she came to me with this psycho evil grin on her face that remembering still makes me shiver to this day. She pointed the gun at her stomach, shot Dillion then she shot herself. Her last words to me were that she would never let my evil spawn come into this world. Those words still haunt me to this day.”

I stare at him and see the mental exhaustion in his face.

“Does anyone in your family know all of this?”

“Besides the fact she was pregnant and had anger episodes no.”

“Did you ever tell Bia?”

He shakes his head.

“I did everything I could not to get emotionally close with her. I knew the moment I saw her she would be the one to destroy me, and I refused to let another woman do that to me. But all I did was leave her open to be attacked.”

I nod standing up. “You did, you fucked up. Honestly, saying you fucked up doesn’t even cover it.”

“I know, I wish I could take it all back. I wasn’t there; I could have protected her and Lucas.”

“Lucas?”

“It’s what I named him, unless Bia wants to change it to something else. It means light, and I thought it was fitting for him.”

“That’s a good name.”

“Thanks, I didn’t want to bury him without a name.”

“Have you buried him yet?”

He shakes his head.

“No, I’m going to wait for Bia. We will bury him together, next to his older brother.”

“Is Meredith buried by Dillion?”

“Fuck no. After she killed him, she doesn’t deserve to be buried by him. She is in her family plot, and Dillion is with mine.”

I nod, at least that was smart.

“My heart does break for you, Cillian, it really does but then, when I think of everything Bia went through because of you being fucking stupid, I get angry and start feeling twitchy,”

I say as I let a bullet hit his thigh.

He stumbles a few steps. “Motherfucker,”

he grumbles.

“See? Twitchy. No one likes a twitchy Emilia; things tend to get bloody when I feel twitchy.”

I see the rest of the O’Sullivan men, Marcello, and Julietta have snuck in here while we were talking. I can see the anger and devastation on their faces.

“Oscar and Aiden, can you help me put his wrists in the chains? Raise him until he is only on his toes.”

They nod, mummering, “sorry”

and “you are a dumb fucking idiot.”

Once he is in place, I turn to his brothers.

“Anyone want to use him as a punching bag?”

“Fuck yes,”

Keenan says, stepping up, the cocky little shit. He winds his arm back and lands a sucker punch to Cillian’s gut.

Cillian wheezes out, “Fucking asshole.”

Then the rest of the brothers join in on beating on him for a few minutes.

Peter comes up next to me, and I wrap one of my arms around his waist and lean my head on his chest. I love my unofficial father.

He whispers in my ear, “How is she?”

“She needs time, but between Gabriella and Maya she is in great hands.”

“Thanks.”

“How long do we make him worry about her?”

“For a bit. I’ll let you know when I feel like he has been punished enough to know she is safe.”

“Sounds good.”

I turn my attention to the O’Sullivan brothers. “Alright, boys, it’s my turn.”

“Oh fuck,”

Cillian wheezes out. I look at the damage they did to Cillian. His face is swollen, his lip is busted, blood is dripping down from his eyebrow. Guess one of them cut his face with their rings. And that’s the damage I can see. I’m sure he is covered in bruises all over his chest and stomach.

I pick up the hose and spray him in the face. He sputters as he chokes on the water. I turn it off for a moment to let him catch his breath only to turn it right back on. I keep this on for two minutes.

I hear a sigh of relief when I set the hose down, and I see Peter hair looking disheveled from running his hands through it.

“Sorry, I know he deserves it, but it doesn’t make it easy to watch.”

I give him a sympathetic smile.

“I know, if it’s too much you can leave.”

He shakes his head.

“I have to see this through.”

I turn my attention back to Cillian.

“Anything you want to say, Cillian?”

He continues to cough while shaking his head.

“No, what I need to say needs to be said to Bia. Those words are for her and her only.”

“That’s fine,”

I tell him, but I’m not done with him. I hand a knife to Julietta, but she shakes her head. “This is all you.”

She is always cautious about who sees her torture someone because she has a hard time controlling herself. Only Marcello, though he doesn’t know everything she is capable of, our men, Esmeralda, and I have seen her get her hands dirty. Plus, we have to be careful how much we reveal to others.

I slice his shirt down the middle and see his chest is an open canvas.

“Do you have a nick name for Bia?”

He smiles, “Yeah, she is my little lamb?”

“Little lamb? That’s unique but fits her perfectly.”

“It does. Sweet, innocent…perfect,”

he says with a smile. The smile disappears the moment my knife digs into his stomach.

He closes his eyes and grunts in pain. I pull the knife down before moving it to the left making the L in little.

“You won’t be able to forget her now,”

I say as I start the I. I decide to make her name in caps to show the importance of her in his life.

“I could never,”

he grunts as the knife continues to cut through his skin.

“Are you ready to treat her with the respect she deserves?”

“Yes.”

“Support her as she heals from the trauma she has gone through,”

I say, finishing the T.

“Yes.”

“Even if that means she needs space?”

“She can have her own room until she is ready, but we will be living in our wing together here.”

“Why haven’t you been living at the mansion?”

“Cause I’m a fucking dick and put us in separate penthouses.”

I push the knife a little deeper as I carve the second L in his stomach.

“Fuck!”

“Hush it, don’t tempt me to hurt you worse. Now, back to my questions. Are you going to be the one to protect her from anything and everything evil from now on?”

“Yes.”

“Good,”

I say as I finish carving the E.

“Now this one I don’t want an answer for. I just want you to think about it. Could you ever love her the way she deserves to be loved?”

I watch as the thought crosses his mind.

It only takes me a few minutes to finish carving lamb across his stomach. After I’m done, I have Peter call down their doctor, and within minutes the doctor is here, patching Cillian up. While he is doing that, I ask Julietta for the noise cancellation headphones and blindfold. This last part will fuck with Cillian; it will give him nightmares for months, if not years.

She hands them to me; this is a little thing I had Fabio help me put together. He was able to take audio of her being attacked.

After the doctor finishes up, I walk up to Cillian and blindfold him.

“Do you remember my warning the first time I met Bia?”

“Yeah.”

“This will make sure you never hurt her again,”

I say, putting the headphones on him. I hit play and immediately see him start fighting in the chains.

“BIA!”

He yells out in agony.

“Come on, this part is the hardest and none of you want to watch him while he has to listen to Bia being attacked on repeat for hours.”