Page 25 of Ruthless Sinner

Adalina’s delicate features morph into disgust as she lets out a sharp, guttural noise, like a snort mixed with a scoff. “We’re friends because their fathers are friends with my father. Annaliese is around fairly often, but she and I are very different people. She thinks I should be softer, more submissive,” Adalina says with a roll of her eyes. “Anna thinks if I bow to my father’s demands, he’ll go easier on me. But she lives a charmed existence. Her father doesn’t even yell at her, let alone hit her. She thinks it’s because she’s daddy’s perfect little girl, but the truth is her father just isn’t that kind of guy.”

“Some men are, some men aren’t,” I add with a nod of my head. “My father was like that for a while.”

It’s her first glimpse into my life, and she tries to maintain a facade of nonchalance. “What happened?”

I struggle with the decision to open up to her. Can I trust her with my secrets? After all, she only has Enzo and me to talk to, and I know he won’t betray my confidence. In the end, that’s the deciding factor. “My father yelled at me a lot when I was growing up—the in-your-face, spittle-flying kind of yelling. Often because I was too loud or too dirty, but I was a little kid, ya know? I broke my arm once when I was six or seven. I was climbing a tree, and a limb broke under my weight. Mother wanted to take me to the emergency room, but she had to wait until my father drained his energy screaming in my face about what a stupid, impulsive little boy I was.”

Adalina’s gaze hardens as she listens intently to my story of abuse, her expression unflinching. She nods firmly, acknowledging my pain and suffering as if it were her own. We speak as one abuse victim to another, and we understand each other on a level that no one else can get to. “You said he was like that for a while. When did it stop?”

“When Lucia was born.”

Adalina’s face falls. “He stopped because he had a daughter,” she concludes.

I realize that I have to tell her the whole story. I can see the confusion on her face. She’s thinking about how her father’s rage was incensed by having a daughter instead of the opposite. “No, he didn’t. In fact, my mother spent the last two months of her pregnancy on bedrest with the twins because my father knocked her around so badly one night that he nearly detached the placenta or something. I remember her telling me in dumbed-down words why I needed to care for Niccolo and Salvatore. She explained very gently that I needed to look out for them because children incited my father’s anger. She couldn’t protect us because she had to protect the twins.”

She looks at me with rapt intent, her eyes large and questioning.

“I am eight years older than Lucia and Luciano. So when my baby sister was born, I knew what she had to look forward to. I knew that my father would scream at the twins the same way he screamed at me and my brothers. He never put his hands on us, but he put his hands on our mother. I could only imagine that he’d get worse one day. He had to, right? Abuse begets abuse.”

That’s the story I told myself. I was eight, trying to construct a picture-perfect family out of shards and rubble. I had to do something to protect my mother, my brothers, and myself.

“Every day, Lucia grew a little more. She was a loud baby. Where Luciano slept through the night after four months, Lucia wanted to be awake and moving all the time. I loved her, though, because she was the baby of the family and my only sister. And every day, I worried for her future. One day, she’d live in fear of pissing off our father like the rest of us. I couldn’t live like that. I was only eight, and I felt like an old man. I grew up years before I was ready to.” My lips curl upwards into a small, pained smile. It isn’t easy to retell this story, especially to someone who wasn’t there.

“You made him stop,” Adalina accurately guesses in the silence.

I nod. “I had no other choice. My mother wasn’t going to stand up to him. Niccolo was five. Sal was three. I was the only one who could do anything.”

I stabbed my father in the belly the day I turned nine. I watched him crumple to the floor, bleeding out on the expensive marble that made up our kitchen. A metallic smell lingered in the air, like pennies and rust.

For years, Father had been instilling in me the value of family and the importance of protecting those you love. Little did he know that one day, his lessons would come back to haunt him.

“So I get it. You could have been the best daughter in the world, but it wouldn’t have changed your father. You did what you had to do to survive. For some, like Anna, that means being meek and mild and winning daddy’s affection. But that’s not who you are.” I meet Adalina’s gaze. “You are strength and sass and fire. You might not have stabbed your father at age nine, but you found your own way to fight back. That’s rare in this world.”

I see a little bit of myself in Adalina. Perhaps that’s why she’s being granted indulgence rather than imprisonment in the dark confines of the dungeon where prisoners rightfully belong.

Chapter 27

Dante

After dodging my requests for a week, Tommaso Martinelli finally agrees to meet me. However, he refuses to return to my home.

Instead, he secures a room at Nico’s Italian restaurant and fills it with his goons. As we make our way through the front door, a concerned waitress approaches me, her eyes darting toward the back of the restaurant where a burly man stands guard. She warns us about what we’re walking into, and I thank her. I can feel the steely gaze of Tommaso’s security guard watching us as we make our way to the back room.

I send my brother, Salvatore, a text before we enter. He won’t bust in and cause a scene, but he’ll ensure men are waiting outside for us when this is over.

Enzo follows with Adalina dutifully trailing behind him. Her appearance is a stark contrast to his, dressed in a demure sundress that hugs her curves and the provocative collar adorned with the word “CUMSLUT” in bold letters. She walks with her chin tilted towards the ground, eyes downcast in what appears to be shame and submission, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s doing it to hide the label branded on her neck.

Since we are not the first to arrive, Tommaso has already made himself at home in the private room. There are no additional chairs for the three of us, only eleven seats taken by ten smug bodyguards and Tommaso. “And here I was thinking it was the new generation who had bad manners,” I smile.

“They ran out of chairs,” he replies with a shrug. “You don’t mind standing, do you? I have bad knees.”

“Not as bad as they’re going to be if I don’t get the first installment of the money you owe me, Martinelli.” I stand my ground, refusing to be cowed by the likes of Tommaso. He may be a powerful man in his own right, with connections and influence that have kept him safe, but he doesn’t phase me.

Tommaso’s lips curl up in a mocking smile, his cronies snickering and sneering as they join him. The sound is harsh and grating, like nails on a chalkboard. “You can’t possibly think I’m going to pay you a dime until you hand over my daughter.”

It’s my turn to laugh—acerbic and unfeeling. “And you can’t possibly think I’m going to hand over my only leverage in hopes that you come to your senses and finally pay off your quarter of a million dollar debt.”

“It’s cute that you call my daughter leverage. Some people might call her by her name instead of stripping her of her identity, but you do you.”

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