Page 70 of Curse

A low chuckle cuts through the dim smoky room, chilling me to my core. I jerk my head toward the sound, but it’s toodark to make anything out at first.

A faint glow appears in the shadows, the smoldering cherry tip of a cigar. A puff of smoke drifts lazily toward me, the smell sharp and pungent.

“So,” a deep, gravelly voice murmurs in Italian, “Questa é la troia di Matteo.”This is Matteo’s slut.

Why is he speaking to me in Italian? Does he know I speak Italian? And he knows Matti?

“I’ve been curious to meet you,piccolina.” Little one? Irritation overcomes my sheer terror for just a moment. I’m 32 years old, and I’m naked, so it’s pretty fucking obvious that I’m not little by any definition.

The man steps out of the haze of cigar smoke, and my stomach turns. He’s massive in every way: towering over six-and-a-half feet tall, easily 350 pounds, with a big round bald head that gleams in the firelight. His fingers are thick and stubby, like the cigar that almost disappears between them, and his lips smack noisily around it, the sound sloppy and wet.

Slowly, he trails the slobbery, unlit end of the cigar from my knee up my leg. My muscles tense as he pauses before moving to the inside of my thigh, then angles the cigar and pushes into the apex, breaching my entrance with its cold damp tip.

A sick grin spreads across his face. “Hmm. The way you are tied limits access, no? We will have to fix that.”

He laughs as I squirm, squeezing my thighs together tightly. Jerking the cigar out from between my legs, he slaps the side of my ass hard and puts the cigar back in his mouth. “Mmm,piccolina. You taste good. Our Matteo has good taste.”

Bile rises in my throat as my mind races. I didn’t recognize him at first without the toupee he wore in the video, but hishooked nose, bushy eyebrows, and pockmarked cheeks with a jagged scar carved across it give him away.

This must be Aurelio, the boss Matti works for, the one who Olivia complains about. But what the fuck does he want with me?

Aurelio moves out of my line of sight, and the room’s scent hits me: leather, polished wood, and cigar smoke amid the faint warmth of a crackling fire.

It’s not as stark or terrifying as the Edge. There are no shackles on the walls or ominous drains in the floor, just a tufted leather couch against the far wall by the door and the edge of a table or desk to my right.

But the fact that I’m naked, gagged, and tied to a plank makes it much more terrifying than the Edge ever was.

For a moment, I wish I was back there. I try to imagine myself wrapped up in the sheets with Matti or laughing with Olivia while she reads smut out loud.

The man’s grating voice pulls me back. “You know who I am. You know I am Aurelio Demonio.”

It’s not a question, and I don’t attempt to nod or communicate through whatever is gagging me.

“You are a Bellamorte, no?” he continues, his voice deadpan, flat, as he paces back into view. “Your family has always been a thorn in my side. Your father, your grandfather before him, your brother. Even your sister. And now you. Did you know your grandfather?” He waves a hand dismissively. “No, probably not, I think. You’re too young.”

I glare at him, trying to focus on what he’s saying and not on the feel of the plank, the rope ties, the air against my bare skin.

The Bellamorte name, my name, my family’s history. I’venever known too much about it other than the whispers of power long faded that felt more like a fairy tale than anything else when I was growing up in the New Jersey suburbs.

Aurelio pauses, watching my face carefully, squinting his eyes and looking down at me over his bulbous nose. “Did you know I killed my father? I did. I killed my father because he servedyourgrandfather, served the Bellamortes. Disgusting. To serve a family that did not deserve the power they had in New York, for what? Why? They are nothing.”

My heart is beating faster, and I’m starting to sweat. I don’t know where he’s going with this, but his cold, flat voice sends what feels like hot and cold lightning bolts of panic through my veins.

“Yes, I kill my father. Then….” He takes a long drag of his cigar, exhaling smoke into the air as if savoring the memory. “Then, I killyourfather.”

My blood turns to ice, and I stop breathing. My father? That can’t be true. My father died in a car accident when I was eight. That’s what I’ve always been told. He can’t mean…

Aurelio steps closer, watching my reaction carefully. “Yes,piccolina. I kill him, and then I become the king. I have the power.” He sighs piteously. “But even kings have their problems. Your family has been a constant one, despite the fact that I keep killing you. More of you rise up to take the last one’s place. And some just won’t stay down.”

The way his gaze scrapes over my body almost feels like a cold razor blade dragging over my skin. Goosebumps pop up, despite the fire crackling in the fireplace. My body shakes, my mind a storm of rage and disbelief.

He’s lying. He has to be lying. But his voice is so matter-of-fact, practically indifferent, that a fiery ball of ragebegins to roil in my chest.

“… my own fault that I am still plagued by the Bellamortescarafaggi.”

I bristle at him calling my family cockroaches and try to pull against my ties, but the more I move, the more the rough ropes cut into my skin and the splinters from the plank dig into my back.

He squints his eyes in my direction. “You know the wordscarafaggi, eh,piccolina? Hmm. Well, you should know I tried to keep it from coming to this. I buried the Bellamorte name for decades, until that Mikey goes and marries a Bellamorte—and not just any Bellamorte! No, he marries the heir to the throne.”

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