Page 49 of The Wicked
“Ten percent.”
Dion pressed kisses down my neck, rough stubble scratching my skin, while his hand caressed my waist before slipping between my thighs. I felt the press of his hard cock on my leg, and my skin crawled.
“Five percent.”
I can’t do this sober.
His other hand moved to my breast, and he squeezed as his tongue licked my neck, sucking hard enough to leave a hickey.
Fuck this.
I swallowed the pill.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Elio
With one bag of late-night greasy food in my left hand, I filtered through the bundle of keys in my right, inserting the correct one and twisting until I heard a click.
As always, I looked left and right down the hallway and then at the security cameras before pushing the door open, entering the room, and kicking the door closed behind me.
I was at a washed-up motel a few miles out of town, away from protection and my last name.
The first time I had come here, I thought it would serve as a breath of fresh air, but it didn’t. It never did. Because he was here. The man currently sitting in a rocking chair facing the window was none other than Ricardo Marino—the former boss of the Marino empire.
My father.
“You opened the windows again. Were you missing the outside world?” I asked, shrugging off my suit jacket before dumping the keys on the small wall shelf by the side of the door.
He didn’t respond.
I kicked off my shoes, stretching my neck from left to right before walking to stand beside him. The wind that blew in from the netted window was chilling, and it made me let out a breath. “I see why. It’s peaceful out there.”
I moved to sit at the windowsill, outstretching the food bag to him, which he eagerly collected. “Slow down; you haven’t eaten in a day. I can’t afford you choking yourself to death—as much as I’d love to see it.”
I studied the starved man in front of me. His pale skin, chapped lips, and red-rimmed eyes. He looked so much older than his age. The wrinkles on his face and the sagging of his skin had worsened. He looked like a dead man with life. It was irritating, but it pleased me.
Despite my warning about him rushing his food, he still gobbled it, and I shook my head, watching with pity.
He had stopped fighting me years ago, now he just… complied. If defeat were a person, it would be him.
“Not long now, Father. Everything is going according to plan. It would have been sooner, but there was a bit of a holdup.”
Dread smeared his face, and a whimper escaped him.
“I know, it’s infuriating,” I said with a sigh of distress. “Elia showed up with this band of thieves. The foolish boy has been in Italy for years, can you imagine that? He’s been committing petty crimes just for the fun of it. I wouldn’t say he did it because he was hungry and needed the money. All the legal funds of the Marino empire will be going to his name. I had his entire life planned for him. He was settled, and all that remained was Casmiro and Angelo because they had worked so hard to be left with nothing. But then—Elia showed up; I can’t burn it all with him in it. It makes all these years of planning useless.”
My father whined. It was scratchy and irritating to hear when he spoke. “Just—kill me.”
I sighed. “Have you heard a word I’ve been saying, old man? I can’t do it yet—I kill you, and I kill me too, and I can’t die until I am sure everyone else won’t be affected by it. I need to make sure Elia is happy and away—far, far away from Italy. When that is done, you and I, we’re going to have a lot of fun,” I told him.
“You—you need help, Elio—please get help,” he said. His eyes drained as he looked at me with pity, shaking his head slowly like he actually cared.
An image of me wrapping my hands around his throat, squeezing until I killed his body and his fucking soul becauseit didn’t deserve to be judged, popped into my head. His soul deserved to rot as his flesh would.
Instead of putting my thoughts into action, I nodded. “You should have told my mother to get help. She needed it more. Who knows, maybe we wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t have to watch everything our predecessors have worked so hard for—”
“Kill me, boy.” He jerked from the rocking chair. “I don’t want to see it—I refuse to see you destroy my name—our legacy. Just kill me and be done with it, isn’t that what you want?”
