Chapter 19

Sitting in my sister”s favorite cafe on nineteenth street, she stares at me with disgust as I take a bite of my blueberry muffin. Instantly, I push it away when I notice her arched eyebrow. She sits drinking a black coffee, not because she likes it that way but because she doesn’t consume sugar. None. When we were twelve, she eliminated sugar from her diet. I’ve never understood how she did it. Everything seems to have some kind of sweetener in it. Nicole, mostly, eats chicken and vegetables for dinner and one egg for breakfast. I’ve never wondered why she’s so much thinner than I am. It’s always been clear as day.

“You are what you eat, Natalia. If you eat like a pig, you look like one.”

“This pig saved your life. Are you aware of that?”

She takes a sip of her bitter coffee and sets it on the table, eyeing me suspiciously as if she has no clue what I’m talking about. “What?”

Rolling my eyes at her, I say, “Did you think the brothers let you go for no reason? You stole from them. What were you thinking?”

Nicole doesn’t respond. She simply stares into her coffee like it’s going to answer all her life”s problems. Of course, it won’t.

“When did you begin using drugs?”

She shrugs like it’s not a big deal when it very much is. Clearly, my sister has never been a good person, but a drug addict? It completely blindsided me. I”m not sure if she”s addicted to anything, but she must be, right? Unless you were completely addicted and in desperate need, I can”t fathom risking your life by stealing from the De Luca brothers. I personally wouldn’t take that decision lightly.

“After you were attacked. Remember the pills they gave you that you were too good to take?”

I sigh heavily because I wasn’t too good at taking them. In fact, I took two of them but stopped because I didn’t like the way they made me feel. Groggy, lightheaded, and completely out of it. I noticed the bottle had disappeared from the nightstand, but I said nothing because I assumed my mom probably disposed of them after realizing I wasn’t taking them. Obviously, I was wrong.

“You’ve been taking pills for that long?”

She shakes her head, “No. You don’t just stay on painkillers. It escalates.”

Her words confuse me even more than I already was. If she didn’t steal pills from them, then what was it?

“What did you steal from them?”

Nicole sits across from me in blue jeans and a white blouse, looking like a model, not a junkie. This isn’t what I picture a drug user looking like. Her blonde hair hangs past her shoulders, straightened perfectly, her makeup flawless as always. That’s how I’ve always seen her. Flawless. Perfect. Everything I’ll never be.

“Meth and heroin,” she answers, as I instantly gasp. She continues, “I didn’t steal from the brothers. It was some low-level dealer.”

I shake my head in disgust as I sip my sweet coffee. “He couldn’t have been that low level if he works for the De Luca family.”

She doesn’t argue for once. “Yeah, well, I didn’t know that. Obviously. Anyway, how exactly did you save my life?”

When I tell her how I’ve had to give myself to the two brothers until they are done using me like I’m a literal sex doll, her expression is filled with disbelief.

“That can’t be. It makes no sense whatsoever. They could’ve had me,” she says as she flips her hair behind her shoulder like she’s as perfect as I almost believe her to be. Then she laughs like someone told the funniest joke she’s ever heard.

“Seriously. What do they really want?”

I’m not sure if it pisses me off more that she got me into this mess or the fact that she thinks it’s preposterous that any man could ever find me attractive, let alone two. As much as it annoys me, I agree with her even though I won’t admit it to her. The biggest reason is because my experience has always been that men are into me until they see my sister. So them having the choice to have her, but choosing me instead is different.

Okay, they didn’t really choose me.

It’s not as if they are in love with me, I know that. Still, they fucked me instead of Nicole. That’s a first and I’ll take it even though I don’t understand it.

“So you fucked them both?”

I nod with a giggle, “Yeah, I did.”

My sister, who will ?fuck anything that moves, looks at me with disapproval, “Pig and slut,” she says under her breath, knowing full well I can hear her.

Her dark gaze stares at me suspiciously. “What do they want, though? I don’t get it.”

I shrug because I don’t know why, either. “Me, I guess.”

Nicole leans forward as if she’s going to tell me a secret. “No. That can’t be it. There’s something you”re missing. That can’t possibly be the reason.”

Any normal person would say my sister is a bitch and disregard everything she says to me. That would be the logical reaction. I’ve always been far more emotional than logical. So her words hit me in the heart. She’s right, there has to be a reason. They had Nicole after they took her. Guaranteed, she would’ve fucked them because this is Nicole, after all. I know they didn’t do anything with her because had they, my sister would be happy to throw it in my face. The bigger question is, why do I care? Drake made it clear that they’d fuck me until they were done. When will they be done? And will I survive it?

* * *

Drake

We mostly trust Natalia to do as she’s told, but that didn’t stop us from having eyes on her when she met with her sister for breakfast. My guy has followed her all day long. She took one bite of a muffin and then pushed it away. She ate nothing for lunch. I won’t ignore the fact that she’s not taking care of herself. She’ll be punished. And fed. After I feed her my cock, she’ll eat food for nourishment.

After meeting with her sister, she went to a pharmacy and purchased several items. I don’t have a problem with most of her shopping spree. All of them were fine except for one.

Razor blades.Sneaky little girl.

That will bring an even harsher punishment than not eating. The punishment I will administer isn’t one of shaming her or making her feel worse than she already does. The pain I’ll deliver is exactly what Natalia needs. My pretty little pain slut.

I pull up to the club where she’s performing tonight. Dante was called to help Damian and Domenic with a shipment issue, so I’m on my own with our girl. Not exactly a hardship. I walk into Bellissima, the club Domenic bought a little over a year ago. People might think that’s how Natalia got this job, because of her connection to my brother”s wife, but it’s not. Our sweet girl is talented in her own right. She doesn’t need the De Luca family to pull any strings for her. While I know enough about her, I’m aware playing the piano and singing was not her dream. She’s made the best of it. She’d prefer to be dancing across a stage with a ballet company. Her injury broke her heart. Natalia is resilient. She may have been knocked down, but she picked herself back up. She’s stronger than she knows. By the time we”re done with her, she will be a fierce woman who knows her worth. We’ll leave our girl better than we found her.

Walking into the club, I nod at the doormen. Normally, there’s a cover charge? however, as a De Luca brother, of course, I won’t pay one. I walk through the set of double leather doors and make my way to my table. Most of the club is decorated in dark blue. To my right is a black bar with matching tall leather chairs. There are about two hundred round black tables. Each one has a hurricane candle as the lone decoration. Domenic wanted to keep things simple and elegant. My favorite part of this entire establishment is the shiny black grand piano where my girl will sit and play for the packed club. I glance at my watch as I take my seat at my small table and see that she’ll be out in approximately two minutes. Under normal circumstances, I have incredible patience. Nothing rattles me. Yet waiting for her does. I haven’t seen her since she left this morning. I’ve had eyes on her, but it’s not the same. My nerves of steel are long gone by the time she makes her way to the piano. Like the planets have finally aligned, I can breathe a sigh of relief when I have her in my sights.