Page 4 of Merciless Queen
Walking into my office, I stripped out of the bloody clothes, leaving a trail behind me as I walked into my bathroom.Moira is going to kill me, I thought as I looked behind at the mess I was leaving. I arrived into the smaller bathroom I had installed for reasons like this. I took a deep breath, stretching my sore muscles. Torture took a lot out of a person, and I was rusty.
After thirty minutes of scrubbing, the blood was finally cleaned from my skin. Wrapping my body in a towel, I stepped back into my office. Sometime between me entering my office and my shower, someone delivered another vase filled with a dozen long-stemmed roses. I grabbed one of the delicate flowers,growling as I crushed it in my hand. Albert Barone’s son wanted my hand in marriage. Another Italian heir worried about marriage, alliances, and babies. These men didn’t take no for a goddamn answer, and it was pissing me off.
“Malachi!” I screamed for my capo. Malachi rushed to my office, his eyes instantly going to my cleavage where the towel was tucked in. “Goddamn men. Malachi, my eyes are here.”
“Caterina, are you okay?”
I raised my hand, putting my bloody finger against his lips. “You are not my father. You know better than to call me that.”
“Sorry, Cat.”
“I swear to God, why can’t men take no for a goddamn answer? Do I need to send him a video of me fucking his mom?”
“Boss, breathe. Respectfully, and don’t kick me in the balls for this,” Malachi started, shifting his weight to one side. “You’re hot, dominating, and slightly scary. I see why men want to marry you.”
“My father is tired of this, too.”
Alexander Moretti. Once Don of the Moretti family, he stepped down because he wasn’t coping with my mother’s death. He didn’t give a shit about old mafia traditional values, including me marrying some dumbass mafia son to have special babies with a different last name than Moretti.Thank God.The Morettis have been around for ages.
“I don’t care how many dons send me flowers. I am not marrying their sons, and I am not creating alliances by being in someone’s bed. Just because I am a woman in the fucking mafia doesn’t mean I am a damn doormat.”
“I know, boss.”
I sigh. “Now that some Don pissed in my Cheerios, what do we have?”
“Word on the street is that Vincenzo is getting married.”
I looked at him, shocked. Vincenzo Mancini was walking filth. That monster broke into our house when my father was gone and killed our guards before finding my mom. He wanted me, too, but my mom made me promise to stay hidden. I listened to him rape her before he stabbed her over and over until she died. Once he was out of the house, I held my mom’s mutilated body until my father came home and peeled me away from her, kicking and screaming.
Something in me clicked, listening to this development in my office.
That day, I made a promise that I would kill that man. Taking from him what he once stole from my father would be the ultimate revenge.
His future wife.
She had to be just as bad as he was if she was marrying the sick fuck.
“I want someone watching him to confirm, and then I want her.”
Vincenzo Mancini would pay for daring to cross the Moretti family.
CHAPTER 3
Harlow
I hated Tuesday nights.It was the busiest night of the week and the night most of the regulars decided to play. Didn’t people work during the week? Why were they all here tonight? Hopefully when they were done, Vincenzo would leave me alone so I could sob in peace, but he seldom did. He always wanted me when I was done for the night. Sometimes just in his office, but other nights he wanted me in his bed. Those nights were the worst. He wanted me to remember who owned me, who could take my pain and life away. I was his, even if he used me for my father’s debt.
“Harlow!” Xavier shouted. He was Vincenzo’s capo, his second-in-command and the bane of my existence. He was vile and cruel, but not nearly as monstrous as Vincenzo. “You need to change.”
I glanced down at my outfit with a frown. Vincenzo always wanted lace babydolls because they made me look‘hot’.The crotchless thongs were the final nail in the coffin that signified my body not being mine. Clothes were such a basic human necessity that taking that choice away made me feel less human. Tonight, the babydoll was black because that was what theyliked. His highest buyers liked it because my blood didn’t show up on black like it did the other colors. White was my least favorite because that meant the sadists wanted me. They liked the pattern of blood on the white material. It made me sick when Vincenzo brought me white.
“W-Why?” I expected a back hand to the face for questioning his authority, but he laughed, which made me jump. I hated that my body reacted to them all like this.
“Because the boss wants you in this.” He threw a pure white mini dress at me.White.“Keep those heels on and remove your thong.” His lips curled as his eyes lingered on my body. I went to turn, but Xavier grabbed my forearm.
A basic thing felt so dehumanizing.
I just wanted a moment of privacy to change without lingering eyes on my body. It shouldn’t have bugged me…not anymore. My body hadn’t been mine since I was taken.
