My Neighbour's Wife (A Mafia Romance Novel)

8. Susanna's pov

Past

Blue eyes. Hard. Emotionless. Empty. They track me as I emerge from the old, beaten down door of my bedroom, and goosebumps surge up my arms at the attention. He’s the prettiest man my stepmother ever let in here, he might have as well been a statue of cold indifference.

A chill runs down my spine as I close the distance between us, my bare foot skidding across the dirty rug and my brown slip of a dress dragging behind me, catching the oils I spilled across the floors in a hurry to dress up and the puddles of soup and dried piss. His eyes don’t light up like the others do when they sight me in this transparent silk dress. Neither does his pants bulge. I do not think he is impressed by me. I must not have tried hard enough.

Fear tightens around my throat like a vise as my stepmother’s words resound in my head. Mr. Hawke’s a very important man, Susie. Would be a shame if he left…dissatisfied. Disappoint him, and you’ll be working till dawn…with less discerning clientele.

I hide my trembling hands beneath the silk dress as I raise it high, revealing an expanse of smooth thighs, and my smile covers the downward turn of my lips threatening to spill tears. The smile holds all of me together, firmly, much like glued pieces of a fractured pictured frame. Only sixteen and already the best performer.

I fall to my knees by the man’s feet. His shoes are pristine, and I know they’re worth more than everything in this house, including my stepmother’s prized jewelries. I reach for his feet to take off his shoes.

He lets me, all the while watching me with eerie quiet.

My fingers slip on his shoe laces. Thrice. I do not know how they work, and my heart is thundering too hard, my movements almost desperate. Sweat breaks on my forehead when I fail woefully at trying to unlace them.

Cold, yet strong fingers grasp my chin forcefully, tilting my head high until it hurts, until he is all I can stare at. This close, I see that the edges of his face are cut so sharp, I could bruise myself if I caressed them. The candlelight casts a dark shadow that darkens his blonde, sleeked back hair, the strands catching faint light at its edges. “Susanna.”

I breathe in sharply at the unfurling feeling in my stomach. No man has ever looked at me for long enough to make me feel like he’s seen into every corner of my mind, knows it like a maze, and owns it. He tilts my head left and right, flicking his thumb over my skin intimately. “You waste away in this hole, precious.” A light brush over my lips sends tingles down my toes. “Can you read?”

The question startles me, but I nod.

He slaps me. The blow renders me temporarily blind and dumbfounded for the first few seconds. My eyes water as I blink back the white and black splotches staining my vision, and I flinch when Mr. Hawke grabs my shoulders and lifts me into his lap.

I’ve never felt so small. So insignificant. But his hands, they run down my back in soothing lines, caressing until my zipper is undone, until the loosened straps of my dress fall across my arms and my breasts are bare to him.

But he doesn’t look at them. He stares in my eyes as he states with an emptiness that is inhumane, “Never lie to me again.”

How he knew it was a lie, I don’t know, but I swallow and nod, scared of what might leave my lips if I speak. Scared that I might anger him again.

“Good,” he purrs a seductive note that makes me feel things no man ever has, drowning out the hurtful sting in my left cheek and the deafening roar in my ears. His hand leaves my lower back for a second and he delivers a parchment and pen in my bruised fingers. “Sign them.”

I stare from the thick documents filled with letters I can’t read to his face that revealed nothing. “Why? What’s in them—”

Gasping, my eyelids flutter shut as his lips curve over my pulse point. No man has ever kissed me before. They beat me, strip me, grope me, defile me in more ways than one could think possible, but this, the gentle movement of his lips against my neck, this is the first time. I could…I could get used to being kissed like this. The pen rolls from my fingers and a moan slips out when he lowers his head to my chest and digs his nails into my thighs. “Never ask questions, Susanna,” he whispers against my skin. “Never.”

Present

I start awake with a gasp, and run for the bathroom. I barely make it in time before the contents of my stomach make a dive up, coloring the floors and walls. Sobbing, I throw up again, then again, until there’s nothing left.

My nightmares are memories returning to me in bits. Memories I have blocked out or forced my subconscious to get rid of. Memories I want no association with.

Eager to get a breath of fresh air and clear my mind, I grab a fur coat off the top of my almost empty dresser and drape it over my shoulder before heading out. The wind whips at me harshly, and I release a shaky breath as I trudge into the night, hands deep in my pocket, I try to distract my mind from returning to Jaxon, from wondering what he’s doing. If he’s searching for me. If he’s lost his patience. If he’s contacted my stepmother yet.

But my mind keeps traveling back to this afternoon. To the hands that squeezed my butt cheek so hard and fully that his thumb went all the way to my middle. I’ve been harassed and assaulted many times in my life, but none of it hurt as much as Zefiro’s indifference to it. He’d spoken to the blonde like I wasn’t getting groped by one of his men. None of them had even…tried to fight for me.

I do suppose they wouldn’t. I’m the help. Nothing more.

Still, it hurt.

I draw in a slow, cold breath as I walk past a tall, ornate structure that resembles a church. I’ve never been down here before, barely having the time to take walks. There are no guards on this side of the villa and I give in to the curiosity burning into the back of my mind as I stare at the door that’s tilted open, and the flickering lights reflecting through the window slits.

My footfalls are near silent from endless practice. Jaxon was a light sleeper. I learned that the hard way the first time I tried to run from him. Twisting, I slip in through the large door that dwarfs me nearly thrice, and my suspicions are confirmed as my eyes fall over the rows of chairs, the chapel ceiling painting, the altar and the—

A hoarse muffled cry cuts through the silence and my heart leaps in tandem with my head that whips back in search of the sound. It’s two in the morning. Why would someone be in here…no. Why the hell am I in here, alone, at this time?

I whirl in the direction of the door, unsure of what asinine force willed me in here in the first place, when another cry of sheer agony rocks the silence. This time, the words are coherent.

“You won’t last a f*****g day if you touch me. You’d invite the wrath of my whole damn famiglia for some dumb f*****g—” A groan. “Stronzo!”

Against the fear and warnings blaring through my mind, I step on my toes, following the sound, and it takes me to a cracked window at the far end of the hall. My heart thuds heavily as I draw closer, barely making out the outline of men through the small space. There’s a handful of them standing around a fire and two seem to be kneeling.

Shielding myself behind the pillar awfully close to the window, I peer through the crack and my gaze is inadvertently drawn to the tall man in a loose blue robe and baggy black pajamas pants. He reaches for his right sleeve and rolls it up, revealing a toned muscular arm.

My mouth dries as I trail each perfect, proportional arch, and my moment of befuddlement is ended abruptly when elegant fingers close around the arm of the barrel tucked in the back of a guard’s pants.

Zefiro tilts his dark head and his shadows consume the warm glow from the fire. His voice is pure steel as he aims the gun at the second male’s covered head, bobbing it left and right, his finger hanging loosely on the trigger. “Take it off.”

The blindfold is pulled off and I slap a palm over my mouth to keep my gasp from escaping. The male’s face is hardly recognizable, covered in blood and bruises, but I could never forget those eye that leered at me as his hands took my skirt apart. Mauro. I’ve never forgotten the names of the men who assaulted me.

And, I swear I’m in a dream, but it seems…Zefiro didn’t either, and it makes no sense that somehow, both the men who touched me are kneeling at his feet, covered in their own blood, their faces swollen beyond recognition.