THE ROSSETTI HEIRESS HAS STOPPED BEGGING

CHAPTER SIX

I didn’t even make it to the blue room. It happened so fast.

The hallway light hit the landing and there he was. Arthur. Coat still on. Phone in one hand. Fresh off the flight like Singapore had spat him back early just to ruin the one thing I had left tonight.

He looked at me standing outside Leo’s door and something ugly settled in his face.

“What did I tell you?”

I froze with my bandaged hand on the handle. “I just wanted to see him.”

“You were told to stay away.”

Eleanor’s voice floated from the stairs behind him. The cousins were still there. Toria too, already drifting closer like she’d been waiting for this exact moment. The whole dinner party had followed the noise of his arrival.

“Arthur,” I said, low. “He’s my son.”

He moved so fast I didn’t have time to step back.

The first hit snapped my head to the side. The second put me against the wall. My bandaged cheek exploded with heat. I tasted blood immediately.

“You don’t listen,” he said, and hit me again. “You never listen.”

Someone laughed under their breath. One of the cousins. Eleanor didn’t stop him. She just watched with that same cold look she wore at dinner, like this was housekeeping.

I tried to cover my face. He knocked my hands down and struck me across the mouth. My lip split. Blood ran warm down my chin and onto the black dress.

“Arthur, please—” Toria’s voice cracked on cue. Soft. Shaking. She even reached for his arm like she was trying to pull him back. “Don’t. She’s already hurt. Please, you’ll regret it—”

It sounded like mercy.

It wasn’t.

His jaw tightened like her tears were proof I had gone too far. He shoved her gently behind him, the protective husband, then turned on me harder.

“You made her beg for you,” he snarled. “You stand there looking like a mess and you still can’t follow a simple order.”

Another blow. My vision went white. I hit the floor on my hands and knees and coughed. Blood spotted the runner. Thick. Bright.

“Mama!”

Leo’s door was open.

He stood there in his pajamas, dinosaur clutched to his chest, face crumpling as he saw me on the floor. The nanny tried to pull him back. He twisted free and took two steps into the hall.

“Mama! Papa stop!”

Arthur didn’t even look at him.

“Get that child out of here.”

Leo screamed my name again. High. Broken. The kind of sound that lives in your bones. They dragged him back. His little feet kicked. I reached toward the doorway and Arthur’s shoe caught my ribs and I folded, coughing harder, blood on my tongue, blood on the floor, the relatives standing there like this was a show they hadn’t paid for but were happy to watch.

Toria was crying prettily into her hands.

“Arthur, enough,” she whispered. “Please. For the boy.”

He heard the boy. He heard her. He heard everything except me.

He grabbed my arm and hauled me up. My legs wouldn’t hold. My face felt swollen already, tight and hot, one eye starting to close. He dragged me down the hall toward the windowless room while Eleanor’s voice followed, calm as tea.

“Some women only understand consequence.”

The door opened. He threw me in.

I landed on the same cold floor as before. The burns under the bandages screamed. New pain layered over old. I tried to push up and coughed again, a wet sound that scared even me.

Arthur stood in the doorway, breathing hard, knuckles marked.

“You stay here until I decide otherwise. No doctor. No one comes in. You want to act like an animal, you can bleed like one.”

“Leo—” I rasped.

“The boy is not your concern tonight.”

The door shut. The lock turned.

Silence.

I lay there with my cheek against the floor and let the dark press in. Blood dripped from my mouth onto the wood. My face throbbed in time with my pulse. Every swallow hurt. I didn’t call for help. There was no point. This house had already chosen who got to be human.

I don’t know how long it was before the door eased open a crack.

No footsteps from the hall. No nanny. Just a small shape slipping through like he’d practiced being quiet his whole short life.

“Mama?”

Leo.

He padded over and dropped to his knees beside me. His hands were cold when they touched my hair. He leaned down until I could see his face in the thin line of light from the corridor.

His eyes were red. His mouth wobbled.

“Mama bleeding.”

“I know, baby.” My voice came out ruined. “It’s okay. You shouldn’t be here.”

He shook his head hard. “Papa hit Mama.”

I tried to sit up and failed. He scooted closer anyway, small body curling against my uninjured side like he could hold me together if he just stayed still enough.

For a long time he didn’t speak. Then, very softly, like he’d been turning the question over since the hallway:

“Why Papa don’t like Mama?”

The words sat in the dark between us.

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came.

What was I supposed to say? That his father married a contract? That love was never part of the deal? That Toria cried on purpose and Arthur believed her because believing her was easier than looking at me? That tomorrow the divorce papers would still be waiting and they wanted to keep him and throw me away?

He waited. Three years old. Patient in the way children are when they already know the answer is going to hurt.

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

It was the only true thing I had.

He pressed his face into my shoulder, careful of the bandages, and I felt his tears soak through the fabric.

“I like Mama,” he said.

My throat closed.

“I like you too,” I managed. “More than anything. You hear me? More than this house. More than him.”

He nodded against me, small and fierce.

Outside, somewhere far down the hall, Toria’s laugh floated past like the night had already moved on. Arthur’s voice followed, low, discussing flights and lawyers and timing.

The divorce was still coming.

They could lock the door.

They could leave me here to bleed.

They could make my son watch.

But he had found me in the dark anyway.

And for the first time since the water, since the bedroom, since dinner, I held him and I did not beg.

I just stayed quiet, tasting blood, and let him fall asleep against my side while I stared at the ceiling and counted every reason I was going to take this family apart.