Page 199 of Stalking Ginevra

“Stop.” I can’t let her drown in apologies. Not when there’s a chance she can help us escape. “You didn’t do this on purpose, but I need you to look at me.”

She flinches but turns in my direction, unable to meet my eyes. Maybe all those conversations we had about her old man were wishful thinking.

I wait for her to peer at me through her lashes before saying, “This isn’t right. You know that?”

Carla’s eyes flick to the floor, her shoulders curling inward as if she’s bracing herself for a scolding. Picking at the blood drying on her sleeve, she raises her shoulders to her ears.

“Dad was just cranky. He’s usually really nice.”

Frustration wells in my chest. The more I see of her, the more I realize she’s deluded, not devious. I bite back my response, forcing myself to breathe through the frustration. She only knows him as Victor, not Valentino Bossanova, the serial wife murderer.

Pushing too hard will make her retreat. If I dropped the truth about her father, she’d either call me a liar and become defensive, or try to rationalize his behavior. Hell, she might even switch sides and allow him to groom her into becoming his accomplice.

“When did it get like this?” I ask, my voice soft.

Carla chews on the inside of her cheek. “He was the perfect dad for the first year, then I don’t know. When I disappoint him, he loses control. But he has so much on his mind.”

More excuses tumble out, each one bouncing off my patience like bullets on a kevlar vest. He beat the shit out of her, trussed me up like a carcass in a meat locker, and stripped me naked, yet she’s still defending his actions.

Her blind loyalty to him is like a knife to the gut, but I rein in my emotions. I can’t afford to say the wrong thing and upset this tenuous balance.

“Yeah,” I murmur at the first pause. “But it doesn’t have to be like this. No one deserves to be treated this way.”

Her eyes flicker, and I sense a crack in her armor of loyalty. She glances at the bruises on my wrists with a frown.

“I thought Dad wanted to save you,” she whispers, her voice breaking. “He told me Mr. Montesano was an abusive husband who would eventually cut you into pieces.”

A lump forms in my throat. She must have come home every day, reporting back our interactions. A manipulative asshole like Valentino Bossanova would know exactly what to say to make her think I was an abused wife.

I huff a laugh.

What do you call a man who sends a murderer after a woman’s mother, breaks into her home in disguise to demand sexual favors, and then manufactures loan sharks who threaten to sell her into a life of sexual slavery?

An abuser.

I, Ginevra Di Marco, am also a victim of abuse.

My gaze drops to Carla’s and I meet her watery brown eyes with compassion.

“We’re not so different,” I murmur. “My dad attacked me when I refused to break my engagement with my childhood sweetheart.”

Her eyes widen, her bruised features finally reflecting a flicker of outrage. “Why?”

“Because he was part of a conspiracy to murder his father, steal their family assets, and he needed to betroth me to the son of his accomplice.”

“Did you forgive him?”

I shake my head. “My new fiancé was a monster.”

“What did he do?”

“It wasn’t so different from what I saw your dad do to you.” I pause, studying her reaction, the way her lips press into a thin line. From the way she bows her head and slumps her shoulders, my words are sinking through the mental gymnastics.

“I don’t want to traumatize you with all the details, but I wanted to escape. Both my dad and fiancé saw me as nothing but a tool, and all I wanted was peace.”

Tears trickle down her cheeks, slipping onto the folds of her room service shirt. “Did either of them ever change?”

“Their actions lead to them being murdered in brutal ways. The same could have happened to me, but I wasn’t standing by them when they were killed.”

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