Page 17 of Auctioned To Her Dad's Mafia Enemies

Alexis starts the recording again and Aemelia focuses on the camera.

“Please, Papa. Please. Don’t let them hurt me. Don’t let them breakme.Pleeaaase, Papa. Please come back before they…”

I jerk her head again, and she gasps.

“Enough.”

Alexis stops filming, his grin wide and pleased. “An Oscar-winningperformance.”

I don’t let go of our little spitfire. “See, that wasn’t so hard, wasit?”

The hatred in her eyes turns the warm coffee depths to midnight black.“I hate my father,” she says. “But you…”

“Ah, princess.” I press my hand over my heart. “What have I done tomake you hate me?”

“Touched me.”

“You liked it.”

She grimaces. “Made me kiss your filthy feet.”

“There is nothing filthy about me, except my mind.”

“You made me kneel.”

“Why would you hate that? Is it so hard to submit to the will ofanother? Have I not cared for you? Fed you? Put a roof over your head? Clotheson your back? Are you not warm?”

Her eyes are murderous. “I don’t want any of it.”

“I could kill you now,” I hiss. “Snap your pretty neck like a chickenbone. Let your father come back for the pieces of your body, but I’m not acruel man, at least not to those who don’t deserve it.”

She lowers her eyes like looking at me is too hard. I bring my indexfinger to my mouth and savor her flavor, the heady scent and taste filling mymind with desperate urges, then I swipe my thumb over her bottom lip, smearingthe red lipstick. I bring it to my mouth and taste that too, watching her.

“Pussy and cherries?”

Her face twists. She has no idea how sweet she is.

“What do you want from me?” Her voice is a whisper. Alexis and Antoniowait, as still as the statues that once decorated the Colosseum.

“Obedience,” I say. “Understand. You do what I say when I say it.Don’t make this hard on yourself.”

I turn to my brothers. “Take her back to her room.”

They approach, eating up the distance between us with long strides.They take an arm each, lifting Aemelia to her feet and frog-marching her away.

I watch her go and ask fate to make CarloLambrettisee sense quickly, because the longer Aemelia is in this penthouse, the lesslikely I am to resist doing to her all the things she fears the most.

7

AEMELIA

MONSTERS AND MEN

I don't know how much time has passed sincethey took the video. Minutes? Hours? Time feels strange here suspended betweenterror and exhaustion, blurred by the dull ache in my arms from being tied uptoo long. My wrists burn from the zip tie, my shoulders stiff from the forcedstillness.

They sent my face out like a calling card.AemeliaLambretti, bound and helpless. A message to aghost—a father who vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but a lastname and a target on my back.

I should be furious. I should be screaming.But I just feel hollow.

---