Married to the mafia boss Series

Arabella

They don’t wait until morning to interrogate and kill Leonardo.

After my confession we all leave Carmelo’s apartment to head over to Rocco’s. Antonio called Rocco, who said Leonardo is patiently waiting. He thinks I’m coming back home to him. He’s probably thinking about how he’ll punish me as soon as I get into my room. Have his way with me.

No more. No longer do I have to fear his touch.

Antonio drives while my father murmurs curses under his breath in the passenger seat. Carmelo secretly holds my hand in the back seat as I can’t stop myself from trembling with anxiety.

The elevator ride up the penthouse is most nerve wrecking. Confronting my demons. I’m anxious to see the look on Leonardo’s face as my father relays what I told him. I know he will deny everything. I just hope he doesn’t manipulate my father or Antonio into thinking I was lying.

When the elevator opens, Rocco is leaning against the wall that is behind the couch Leonardo was sitting on but is now standing. Leonardo wears a fake-concerned expression.

“Thank God she’s safe,” he strides over, but my father steps in between us and punches him directly in the face.

I look behind me wanting to escape this room. Everything is making me dizzy and full of panic. I can’t deal with this entire situation. I need to leave. The elevator door shuts behind us, I take a deep shuddering inhale to ease my nervousness.

Carmelo and Antonio both step in front of me, pushing me behind them as if to shield me.

“What was that for?” Leonardo’s eyes are black with rage. He touches the fresh, bloody cut on his bottom lip.

“For touching what isn’t yours,” my father growls. “Tie him up.”

Rocco grabs him from behind and forces him into the kitchen. While Leonardo is a strong man, tall too, all the men in the room are bigger and Rocco easily overpowers him. He must’ve had everything ready because he pulls duct tape from his back pocket, my father helps him by grabbing rope placed in the storage closet.

“You don’t want to see this,” Carmelo says while trying to guide me out of the room.

“Like hell I don’t!” I shrug out of his grip. “I want to watch him suffer like I did.”

I have always found myself to be a very empathetic and sympathetic person but for this, I know I won’t feel an ounce of regret or remorse. He deserves to die a thousand times over and I want to watch his soul leave his body.

Antonio, Rocco, and my father work together to restrain Leonardo, who is now fighting for his life. “She’s lying!” He chants as if it’ll save his ass. As if they’ll believe him.

I hope they don’t believe him.

“Shut up,” my father spits in his face.

Leonardo growls and turns his head left and right in a fit. I watch as his muscles strain against the rope and his body tenses trying to break his restraints. His fists clench and unclench trying to remove the strong duct tape on his wrists that are holding his arms to the arms of the chair. He slumps in defeat or from a loss of energy. He’s not going anywhere.

“You’re going to tell me everything,” my father says, pulling his gun out of his gun holster on his chest. He sets it in the table next to him and I relish in the fear that flashes briefly across his face. Next my father pulls out his knife and starts to polish it. From across the room I can see just how sharp the silver blade is.

“There’s nothing to tell! I didn’t do anything!” He argues.

“Strike number one,” my father takes his knife and chops off his pinky finger. “What did you do to my daughter?”

“Nothing!” He screams and begins to breathe loudly and wince from pain.

“Strike two,” he chops off the ring finger next what’s left of the pinky stub. “You have eight more chances to tell me the truth, if not, you’ll be missing all your fingers and I’ll be forced to move onto your toes.”

Leonardo’s eyes widen and he starts shaking his head madly again. “I didn’t do shit!”

“Strike three,” the middle finger is gone.

I look over at Antonio and Rocco, who are nearby just in case, and are thoroughly enjoying watching his torture. I even begin to notice I’m sporting my own grin, enjoying my revenge. I don’t look at Carmelo who is next to me and tense. I know he wants to shield me from this and he’s monitoring me, making sure I don’t wince myself or cower in fear.

I refuse to cower in fear at the hands of a man ever again.

It takes three more fingers for Leonardo to talk. Or should I say lie. “The whore wanted it!” His teeth are clenched together and his breathing unsteady. His groans are muffled with indescribable pain at the loss of his limbs.

“My underage daughter wanted it?” My father raises a suspicious eyebrow.

“Yes!” Leonardo says with slight excitement. The prick believes my father believes him.

My father’s lips curl into a smile you’d see the devil wear. “Wrong answer,” he cuts off two more fingers.

“Fuck!” Leonardo screams at the top of his lungs.

“What did you do to my daughter?”

“I didn’t fuck her!”

Well, he’s technically not lying.

“I didn’t ask what you didn’t do,” my father’s patience is starting to wear thin.

“Fine! I touched her!” Leonardo breathes harshly through his nose. “She never said no.”Content property of NôvelDra/ma.Org.

“She didn’t have to not say no!” My father backhands across the face. “She was fourteen! A fourteen year old can’t give consent to a man in his thirties! I trusted you to protect my daughter! Now you’ll pay in blood.”

For the first since the whole torture started I have to look away. My father is acting savage with his knife as he carves into his skin going directly for his eyeballs and other places most men would consider precious areas. I may have turned away and closed my eyes but Leonardo’s screams are music to my ears.

“Come on. Let’s go in the other room,” Carmelo says softly in my ear.

“No,” I shake my head. “Wait!” I call out and everyone freezes. “I want to know why.” I turn back around and stride toward Leonardo who has blood pooling down his empty eye sockets like tears. “Why did you do it? Why me?”

“Because I could,” he struggles to get out. His breathing is shallow and energy fully gone. He’s on the verge of passing out-that much is clear. “Because you were innocent and I could get to you. Because you were the people pleaser compared to Christina.”

“Kill him,” I give the order which my father obeys.

I walk away and don’t look back as I head upstairs to my room. I think of how nice a hot shower will feel.

Because you were the people pleaser compared to Christina.

Christina is three years older than me. He was both our bodyguard at the same time for only a year until Christina was forced to marry her now-husband. Christina fought my father on her arranged marriage, she always had a fire in her that made her want to have her own life apart from the mob. Me, I always conformed and did what was always expected of me. Marrying Vinny, marrying Luca…I never fought.

I have always respected the mafia, respected the oath and the life that comes with being born in blood. I would do anything to help benefit the Outfit or to benefit my father himself. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t fight my father on marrying Luca, even though Liliana tried her damndest to get me out of it. I’ll always love her for that.

Leonardo is right, I have always been a people pleaser. I didn’t tell anyone because as a daughter of a mobster we are expected to be untouched and I felt tainted. I didn’t want to embarrass my father by telling him I wasn’t as pure anymore. I didn’t want to be called a liar and think I was framing a Man of Honor and turning my back against the mob. I didn’t want the drama and that why I never told. I always knew my place in the mob is to be an object for the men.

I turn the shower on when I reach the bathroom and strip my clothes bare. I step in and feel the hot spray soothe my aching body. It has been aching from tension and from the thorough fucking Carmelo and I did all day. I try to let the shower take my mind off the filth of today but my mind keeps wandering to why me.

People pleaser.

If I wasn’t such a people pleaser than I never would have been…

No. I can’t blame myself. Blaming the victim is the most inhumane thing a person could do. A girl is sexually assaulted and yet the world looks at what she did wrong to deserve it. No one deserves it. I didn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it. No matter my personality, my willingness to please, it is not a pass nor an invitation to take what they want.

It was my body. My underaged body and I didn’t want it. I didn’t want it.

The whore wanted it.

A knock on the door thrusts me back into reality, out of the downward spiral that was sending me back into the place I was years ago when I put scars on my wrists.

“What?” I shout over the running water.

“Are you okay?” Carmelo’s voice rings on the opposite side of the bathroom door.

I open my mouth to say yes, but I can’t. I can’t lie. “No.”

The door creaks open and I pull back the shower curtain. Carmelo is standing there. We both stare for a long time. There’s no need for any words to be exchanged because he knows just how to make me forget. He takes off his shirt first revealing tan skin and tight muscles. His pants come off next and then his boxer briefs hit the floor and I give him a shy smile.

I have always appreciated the male body and it’s beautiful form. I soak in the sight of him and pull the curtain back more for him to join me. He silently accepts and steps in. Water hits his chest and beads down his body. I want to lick him but he turns me around and I hear the sound of a shampoo bottle opening.

Carmelo washes my hair and I close my eyes enjoying the feel of his fingertips massaging my scalp. I let out of soft moan and realizing a small fact, I ask, “Where have my father, Antonio and Rocco gone?”

“They called someone to clean up Leonardo’s body and they left to take care of other business. They asked me to watch you.”

“So we’re alone?” I look at him over my shoulder and smirk.

“Haven’t you had enough?” He chuckles softly. “I’m here to make sure you’re okay.” He continues his focus on cleaning my hair. “You’ve had a long day.”

His voice sounds like a lullaby, between that and the feel of his fingers running through my strand of hair, I suddenly feel exhausted. I start to yawn when Carmelo rinses the soap out of my hair and shuts the water off.

He grabs a towel to wrap around his waist and grabs another to rub me dry. He wraps it around my body and then picks me up to bring me out of the bathroom and onto the edge of my bed. He pulls out a bed shirt and sweatpants and tosses them next to me.

Mindlessly I pull on the fresh pair of clothes and nearly purr at the soft cotton feel of them. I lay on my bed and the pillow beneath my head feels like a cloud. I don’t think I’ve been so exhausted in my life. For the first time in days I feel a weight lifted off my shoulder. Leonardo is dead. He’s gone.

Carmelo pulls the blanket over me and kisses my forehead. The light goes out seconds later and my eyes close while I enter an entire world of dreams.