Page 38 of Merciless Queen
“I want my whore, or I will kill everyone you care about, bitch.”
“No. She belongs to me.” I disconnected the line, and screamed. He was going to die a very painful fucking death.
Once I calmed down enough, Malachi, Alexi, and three more of my men walked into my office. “Make arrangements for Angel. Closed casket. I don’t know what that pig did with her body. She deserves to be put to rest.” Malachi nodded. “He killed one of my people. This means war.”
“Boss,” Malachi started, “this is exactly what he wants. If you aren’t focused, he is going to strike. He wants you to be distracted and angry.”
I glared daggers into him. “I’ve been fucking angry since he raped and murdered my mother.”
“Focus. We’ll double protection on the girls. No private dances. We won’t let them get hurt.”
“Close the hotel. I can’t risk my girls. Fuck the loss of profit. We’ll use it to house victims of Vincenzo until he is fuckingdead. I want men everywhere. His shipments. His men. No more playing these games.”
There was a soft knock on my office door before Tommaso opened the door, letting Harlow in. Her eyes were red and puffy, and I could see tears still falling from her dark eyes. Each breath she took was still heavy and ragged as she looked at me. Blood was still staining her hands and chest where she frantically wiped the blood from her hands.
Everyone but Malachi and Alexi left the room, and I could see Harlow visibly deflate. My men would never hurt a woman, and if they did, I would castrate them with a dull steak knife and leave them bleeding out before shooting them in the head. They participated in rough sex and shared women from time to time, but they understood boundaries and consent.
“You can give me back to him,” she said softly. “I’m the one he wants. No one needs to die for me. I survived ten years, what’s a few more?”
“No,” I snapped, making her jump. “You’re mine.”
She looked at me with intensity in her eyes. “No, I’m not. This ring and your name are both a façade to help you.”
“It doesn’t matter. You aren’t going back to him.”
“Why do you care?” she yelled, her voice breaking. Malachi shifted uncomfortably. “I’m nothing to you. Not really. Going back to Vincenzo will be worth it if it means no one else dies because of me.”
“What about you? Huh?” I raised my voice, closing the space between us. “The moment you’re back in Vincenzo’s grasp,youwill die. Do you really think Vincenzo will let you live? That whore house you’re so fucking terrified of will be your new home.” She flinched. “Then you’ll really be a whore. Is that what you want? To die just like your mother did?!”
I regretted the words the moment they flew from my mouth, but instead of responding, Harlow lifted her hand, smacking meacross my cheek, leaving a stinging sensation in its wake. Fresh tears streamed from her eyes as she stormed out of my office, leaving me completely dumbfounded and my men, too. I was stunned, but at the same time, I was extremely proud of her. She was gaining her strength. The girl I took just weeks ago would have cowered in fear before standing up to someone stronger than her.
“That was a bit harsh,” Malachi piped up, closing the door after she disappeared down the hallway.
“Fuck off. She is not going back to him.”
I promised her I’d protect her from Vincenzo, and if that meant being the beast to her beauty and trapping her in my house, so fucking be it.
CHAPTER 30
Harlow
My mind wasa pandemonium of emotions and thoughts within me. In the three days since the engagement party, my brain had become an asylum of screaming demons and guilt. I was drowning. All of my emotions were engulfing me, trying to pull me deeper and deeper into a dark abyss. They were winning.
To think I believed for the scarcest second that I could enjoy freedom without the repercussions of Vincenzo Mancini controlling every fiber of my being. I was fucking stupid to believe that I would ever be free from his merciless grasp. My spiral had intensified, the demons teasing me with mind-numbing silence.
“I heard something happened at the engagement party?” Serena asked, and I shuddered at the memory. Those once beautiful eyes, dead, lifeless—scared—baring into my soul.
I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Vincenzo killed a girl. He decapitated her and sent her head to Caterina and I. I don’t know what he did to her while she was alive, but I’m sure she suffered. Vincenzo makes all his victims suffer before killing them. It’s his signature.”
“How do you know that?”
“This is what happens to whores who disobey me.” His voice echoed in my ears as the frail girl screamed in agony. Caylie stabbed one of the men who bought her, killing him. She couldn’t escape in time, and Vincenzo brought her to his torture chamber. He brought me here when he wanted to scare me. I was sixteen; anything this man did scared me. The moment I met him in my house, his eyes scarred my soul permanently.
The girl was strapped to something that stretched her arms and legs while men cut her clothes from her body, the blade not sparing her skin. By the time she was naked, she was bleeding from different cuts, screaming and begging them not to hurt her.
My mind went blank. I couldn’t watch this brutality. I’d learned to dissociate at times when I couldn’t handle what was happening to others around me. All I saw was her eyes. The pretty sea blue was filled with pain and misery. There was nothing left of the girl she once was. I knew her when she was brought here. She had fight. All the new girls fought, but Vincenzo and his men were good at breaking them.
I was snapped from my void when Vincenzo gripped my inner thighs so hard, he drew blood. She was not screaming anymore. She was not alive. She wasn’t even whole anymore. I felt my stomach roll seeing her limbs in various pieces. I leaned forward and vomited. It was more dry heaving and stomach acid than anything. Her severed head was perched on the table, looking directly at me, her eyes lifeless.
