15. Gigi

15

GIGI

"Randazzo liked to tattoo his girls," Franco says as another man, this one carrying a medical case, comes forward. "But people can remove tattoos. I prefer something permanent."

Something permanent?

I thrash around, kicking and trying to break free. I slip on the leather sofa, but strong hands hold my arms, and the fist in my hair jerks and pulls me up to sit. Pain shoots around my skull, and I gasp against the hand reeking of old cigarettes.

"Gag her." Franco glares down at me, his mouth pulled into a cruel smirk. "Hold still, amorina , or my hand might slip."

I close my eyes, not wanting to see what comes next. The grip on my mouth loosens, and I scream on instinct. It's hardly a wail before a fist punches me in the gut, followed by another hitting my ribcage.

I double over in agony. The grips on my arms don't slacken, and my shoulders strain painfully. Winded, I drop back on the sofa but can't breathe. Pain radiates with every attempt to move.

When the hand slips from my mouth, I only manage desperate pulls of air that don't seem to reach my lungs. A leather belt scratches the sides of my open lips as it forces my mouth open and tightens.

Weight comes down on my mound, pressing on my sex through the fabric of this frivolous summer dress. I glance up through my tears at Franco. He has dropped his knee to my crotch, pinning me down.

"Sorry, amorina , but you had that coming. Work with us now, so we can all go to bed."

He's not sorry at all. And I've seen his hands. I know how this goes. If I'm pulp, I can't help Carla. If I ever see her again.

I go limp like a rag doll, quivering uncontrollably. This could have been my baby sister. Somehow, the thought calms me. It's me, not Carla. She left with Vincenzo and Papa. Her bodyguard waited for her. He will protect her. I'm doing this so she doesn't have to. My body stills, even if it's only superficial.

Franco senses my capitulation, because he lifts his weight off me, and his goons loosen their grip.

"Tie her up in any case. I don't need her jerking around."

I don't know what's coming, but it's going to hurt. Instead of looking, I close my eyes and feel how they manipulate my body. Arms tied above my head, attached to something keeping me immobile. I force myself to breathe through my nose, deep breaths that are supposed to be calming, but my heart is a battering ram in my chest, my blood stormwater through my veins. Somewhere, something flips open, the lid of the medical case, the clang of metal against metal. The callused hand on my knees, opening me up, tells me only one thing. Franco is going to go there .

He glides his hand up my inner thigh, and when a thumb strokes over my sex, I want to curl away from his touch, but I can't, held in place by restraints circling my ankles.

"We'll keep this for later," he says softly as he rides his thumb up and down my slit. "You have no piercings now, but we'll go slowly, one at a time. What we're doing tonight is more important, and it needs more time to heal."

His hand slips higher then, tugging the band of my panties lower, exposing my sex.

"Very pretty," he mutters, but he doesn't pull them farther down to bare me completely.

I shudder when the medicinal alcohol's scent floats past my nose, the cold wipe swiping close to my loin, just above my mound. There's pressure then, a pen drawing.

"I'm really good at this," Franco says, pride in his voice. "But it hurts, so hold still."

As if I have a choice. Now someone is holding me down on my stomach, too. I have no idea what he's doing, but the first slice into my flesh makes me want to jolt up. The goons who're pinning me down knew this was coming, because they intensify the pressure on every part of my body.

Tears flow freely now, and Franco, without missing a beat, says, "Should've had that drink, hmm?"

I don't know how long it takes, only that the warm trickle of blood sliding down my groin and to my sex puddles in my panties where Franco's pulled them down.

What feels like hours later, there's a dab of something cold, a wipe over my mutilated skin.

"We'll look at this tomorrow to see how it heals," Franco says as he stands.

I blink up at him. At his hands, in blue surgical gloves, stained with my blood. He drops the scalpel into a metal bowl with a clang, and as if on cue, a goon hands him another whiskey.

There will be no tomorrow for me and this man. I will never see him again. This is a vow I make to myself, and I'd rather die than break it. Somehow, I came ready for this—a part of me knew and has been waiting for years. Monsters are rising …

He takes a sip of his drink then looks down at his handiwork. "I get better all the time. It's a pity I didn't keep count of the number of cunts from the beginning."

Chuckles run through the room. The other men have been remarkably quiet, probably in deference. Franco Fiore is a sadistic maniac, and I'm supposed to get married to him.

We'll leave tonight and disappear forever.

He pulls off his surgical gloves, one by one, and drops them in the bowl with the scalpel. He picks up his whiskey glass again, but it has my blood on the sides where he held it before. He brings the glass to his lips and licks the blood off with his tongue. When he slides and rolls it along the edge, bile rises to my throat.

With a wink, he looks down at me. "I like the taste of you already, amorina ."

I turn my face away from his madman's gaze as my stomach churns.

"Put the tracker in her arm, and bandage my work so it heals properly," he says, and someone grunts.

That wasn't it? In panic, I glance around. With my arms tied as they are, I can't see much more than the ceiling and another man, the one who looked like an executioner, stepping in, his face upside down from where I'm lying.

He runs a finger down one inner arm, and then down the other. "What hand do you use to write?"

I flex my fingers of my right hand, and he nods.

I watch on in horror as he pulls on surgical gloves and wipes my left arm down with alcohol.

"This is quick." He disappears out of view, but when he comes back, he has an ear-piercing gun in one hand and a scalpel in the other.

Except it isn't an ear-piercing gun. It's a tool I've never seen before.

"Just a small cut," he says as he slices into me.

I grimace as I brace myself. In comparison, there's much less pain than what I had down there. He angles the tool, but instead of pulling the trigger, he shoves a lever. I can feel the thing forced under my skin, and now, I'm going to vomit. My body convulses, primed for this since that first cut. I can't sit up, I can't lean forward, but it surges up my throat.

"Fuck," the executioner hisses. "Don't choke on your own fucking sick."

The tension in my arms and legs is gone, and I'm forced up as I spew vomit that just gets blocked by the belt gagging me. It has nowhere to go, and my eyes tear as I choke. I'm being roughhoused as the belt gets ripped from my face, and hard slaps on my back make the floodgates open. Sitting up has brought my skirts down, and my vomit catches in the bowl between my legs formed by the fabric. I heave, blinking at the blood seeping from my arm.

"Ah, fuck . " Franco groans from where he took a seat in a wingback. "You had to? Things were going so well, so clean."

I shiver as my body still convulses, but I watch him from under my lashes, my vision blurry with tears.

"What the fuck did you expect," I snarl when I'm eventually done.

He stands and drops his thick-bottomed whiskey glass onto a side table, and the clang echoes through the room.

"I expect my wife to stomach more than that. Best you work on it, amorina ." He waves at the executioner. "Finish her up and take her to her room. Guard her at all times."

I follow every step as Franco leaves the library and blink in the direction of the grandfather clock. Time stood still for me, but it's already past one in the morning.

"I must cover this," the executioner says, and he takes my arm to wipe at the blood still running from my latest incision. A flat, pill-shaped object is nestled under my skin. He cuts some Steri-strips and closes me up, but I can already see it's a botched job. This cut needs stitches.

Vomit stench is rife, and the executioner is affected like any other human being, looking a bit green. He steps away from me as soon as he's done. The other men in the room avoid the circle of stench. To think vomit is going to be my saving grace.

"I'll deal with it." I gather my skirts, toe on my ballet flats, and pick up my tote where it I dropped it by the sofa earlier. As I stand, I keep the vomit neatly contained in my skirt. "You can wait outside my room. It's on the villa's third floor."

It sounds as if there's nowhere for me to go from there, except there is. I'm one step ahead of the game here. There's no chance in hell these men have been at this house before. They can have no clue about the layout and the hidden passages.

The question really is if I can maintain my advantage.