Revenge Vows: A Forced Marriage Mafia Romance (Ruthless Mafia Sinners)
Chapter 9

I open my eyes, expecting to see the same deep darkness I have stared at for the past three days. Instead, I see a large figure hunched over me.

I want to move, but my legs feel like a dead weight attached to my body. When I can fully open my eyes, the rays of sunlight replace their way into my pupils, and I shut my eyes at the stinging pain.

I am grateful for the sweet sensation of the warm sun falling on my skin, however.

“You’re awake,” says a voice that sends shivers up my spine. It’s a deep voice, and it sounds concerned. I sit up quickly and clutch the covers closer to my body as I realize that the voice belongs to Antonio and that he is the one leaning over me in bed.

He’s naked from the waist up. His legs are encased in joggers. This time I’m not tied up in the dark, so I can admire his ripped body and broad back. He smiles at me, and the center of my body clenches with want.

For just a moment, he’s not my captor, he’s just a devilishly handsome man who is half-naked in my room.

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t ever wake up,” he says.

I refuse to meet his eyes. I look away so that I can keep the secret of my attraction to him to myself.

“I made herbal tea for you. You should have some,” he says, even though I am looking away.

He sits on the bed. The soft smell of chamomile hits my nostrils.

“I hear that it’s good for your nerves,” he says. I still don’t look at him.

He sighs, grabs my chin, and makes me face him. The aggressive man who hates to be thwarted is back. “Do you want me to force the damn tea down your throat?” he snaps.

This is the man I know—the brute who locked me up after subjecting me to a mockery of a marriage to spite his enemy.

I move my chin away from his grip and take the cup of tea from him. As I drink the cup of tea thirstily, I realize how dehydrated I am.

“Good girl,” he says, retrieving the cup from me when it’s empty again. I look away.

He sighs. “It’s going to be hard being married if you refuse to look at me,” he says.

“I don’t want to be married to you,” I mutter under my breath as tears gather in my eyes. “Maybe if I don’t look at you, I can pretend the marriage never happened.”

He laughs. “Finally, she speaks. That’s progress, and I’ll take it,” he says.

His sudden joviality has to be a trap. The last thing I remember is being taken out of my prison by strange men. I also remember an old woman wiping down my body with a washcloth, the smell of lavender soap, and being taken into the main quarters of the mansion with Antonio and the other two men.

My memory grows foggy from there. As soon as I sat down, everything went dark, and then I woke up here. He disappears through a door on the other side of the bed, and this gives me the time to scan the room. I start by looking down.

I’m lying on a huge king-sized bed with patterned white sheets that match the curtains. I sweep my gaze around the rest of the space.

It’s a big room, yet it’s sparsely decorated. Apart from a few paintings hanging on the walls, there is no other decoration in sight. The room feels basic, military in nature almost. It’s also cold and uninviting, just like the man who sleeps here.

As if on cue, he appears again, poking his head around the door. “I have prepared your bath,” he says.

I look down at myself and slide my hands into my hair, feeling immediately that it is greasy. But I still hesitate. What are his true intentions? Why is he suddenly being kind to me?

“Are you coming, or do I have to carry you?” he asks. That hovering threat is back in his voice, and it makes me want to punch him in the face.

Maybe my reply comes too slowly because he mumbles something inaudible and strides across the room. Before I can resist, he scoops me up and carries me in his arms.

My body tenses up, and I fight not to relax against his bare upper body. That changes nothing. His rock-hard chest presses against me despite my resistance. Just like when he smashed cake down my throat, I notice that he smells good.

Antonio Russo’s presence in my life is becoming a tangled mass of heart-stopping attraction and humiliating degradation. And I’m not even sure that I mind.

He lets me down in front of the door and points into the bathroom.

I walk through the door without a word and am greeted by the biggest bathroom I have ever seen. A bathtub filled with water sits in the middle of the huge room, surrounded by mirrors.

“Get in,” he says behind me.

I sigh, and I begin to strip down.

“Aren’t you going to tell me to leave?” he asks as I pull the shirt I have had on for the past four days over my head.

I ignore him and strip off my skirt, and then my panties. Finally, I slip off my worn bra.

For the first time in days, I feel my skin come into contact with fresh air. Without warning, he strides over to me and grabs my shoulders.

“I am really trying to be patient with you, but this business of ignoring me is starting to piss me off,” he says between his teeth.

His body is so close to mine that my nipples are only a breath away from being pressed to his chest.

I shove his hands away. “I have nothing to say to you,” I reply.

“Answer when I speak to you,” he says.

Fair enough, I suppose. “You spoke to me. I noticed. Happy?” I shoot back, not looking at him. I look down at the water and slip my hands into it to gauge the temperature. It’s just perfect.

I step into the tub and let myself relax in the water. It’s the most refreshing feeling.

“There are towels on the rack. Let me know when you’re done,” he says, turning to leave.

“I need help washing my hair,” I say quietly.

He turns to me slowly, visibly taken aback. “What?” he asks.

“Could you please help me wash my hair?” I ask again. “My hands have been tied up for days. They feel like they belong to a corpse.”

He clears his throat as if this fact bothers him and walks up to the racks lined with plastic bottles in the shower.

He picks up a shampoo bottle and walks over to me. Without a word, he squeezes some of the contents of the bottle into his hands and begins to massage it into my hair.

As he washes my hair, I run the soap over other parts of my body, washing away the dust and grime. Each curl of his fingers makes my body tingle with pleasure, despite my desire to remain strong. The gentle way he’s caring for me right now makes a confusing counterpoint to all of the rough treatment he has offered me, but my body seems to be excited by the juxtaposition.

Several more passes with the soap leave me squeaky clean. He vanishes and comes back to the bathroom with a fresh pair of silk pajamas and places some ointment for my bruises before he disappears.

I get out of the bath, ignoring the pajamas and looking at myself in the mirror. I look battered, and skinny, but my eyes are still alive with the desire to live, to escape. I ponder how to do that. There are guards everywhere on this property and Antonio seems to have eyes in the back of his head.

I look down at my body, slowly reaching up to cup the soft fullness of my breasts. A thought occurs to me, and a zing of excitement chases from my pussy through my body. I’ve seen the way he still looks at me. Even when he’s angry he wants me. Maybe I can use that to my advantage. Maybe I can even use it to trick him into trusting me.

By now, the sun has set, and the evening is giving way to the night. I might be able to get started on my plan right now.

“Did you replace…” His voice trails off as he walks back into the bathroom. He stares at me standing before the mirror, cupping my breasts.

I turn toward him, running my fingers over my nipples a little, making them rise to attention. I grab my lower lip in my teeth, trying to suppress the urge to moan. I don’t quite know what I’m doing, but I have watched enough porn to have some idea of how these kinds of crazy scenarios are supposed to work.

“You’ll be returning to the basement tonight. You look so much better already,” he says, staring mesmerized at me.

I slowly break out into a smile. “But I don’t want to.” I sashay toward him, ignoring the aches and pains that the movement causes my battered body.

He scoffs. “You seem to think that you have a choice.”

I shake my head. “No, I don’t have a choice. That’s what I like the most about this situation,” I say, realizing that it’s not entirely a lie.

For the first time, I see Antonio Russo disoriented, and I know that my plan is foolproof.

“You were the first man to have me and to take me as your own,” I whisper as seductively as I know how.

His dark eyes register something like surprise. Maybe he hadn’t been entirely sure that I was a virgin when we fucked in his office. His lips curve in a slightly tense smile. “What if I told you that virgins don’t interest me?”

I shrug. “I seemed to be interesting enough just the other day in your office.” I grip my breasts harder, pushing them together in front of me.

“You’re playing with fire, Alyssa.”

“Take me right here on the bathroom floor, or send me back to the basement,” I say to him, my voice throaty. “My fate is entirely up to you.”

Under my confident facade, I mutter a silent prayer. Underneath my bravado and the desire rampaging through my body is a sharp note of fear that I won’t be able to pull this off, that I’ll panic, or that he’ll hurt me badly. But there’s no other way to secure my freedom, and I remind myself to be brave as I lean my body against his.