Page 111 of The Serpent's Bride
I stood up. The door splintered beneath my shoulder with a violent crack, the lock ripping clean out of the frame. Marble echoed with the impact as the bathroom door slammed inward against the wall.
Chiara gasped. She was curled beside the bathtub in a pile of white silk sheets and tangled blonde hair, knees pulled tightly to her chest. Mascara streaked beneath swollen blue eyes. She looked so small like this. Too small for all the grief she carried inside her.
Fear flashed across her face when she saw me storming toward her. “Leo, no.”
I dropped to my knees in front of her before she could retreat farther. Then I pulled her into my arms. She froze. I expected fighting. Expected panic. Instead, the second my hand slid into her hair and held her against my chest, she broke apart completely. A sob tore out of her so violently it shook her entire body.
“Shh,” I muttered instinctively, cradling the back of her head. “Enough. Enough.”
“I hate that you saw me like this,” she cried against my chest.
“I know.”
“I hate crying,” she whispered. “I hate being weak.”
“I know.”
Her fingers twisted weakly into my shoulders while I held her tighter against me. Water from the still-running sink dripped softly somewhere behind us, but the rest of the penthouse had gone dead silent. I stroked her hair slowly. And for the first time in my fucking life, I questioned myself.
Not my decisions. Not my power. My fucking feelings. I looked down at the trembling girl in my arms and thought about the word she couldn’t survive hearing from me. Love.
Did I love her?
The thought should have disgusted me. Instead, it terrified me. Because I’d never felt anything remotely close to this before. Not obsession alone. Not lust. Not possessiveness. This hurt. Seeing her cry hurt.
Hearing about that monster she called a father made something murderous and protective wake up inside me. Something vicious enough that I felt profoundly glad Lorenzo Ventura was already dying. Slowly. Painfully. I didn’t tell her that. I just kept stroking her hair while she cried into my chest.
“My father used my mother too,” I said quietly after a long silence. Chiara stilled slightly against me. I kept my eyes fixed on the marble floor.
“She wasn’t important to him,” I continued. “Not really. She was beautiful. Well connected. Capable of producing an heir.” My jaw tightened. “That was all he cared about.”
Chiara looked up at me slightly through wet lashes.
“She died giving birth to me.” The words came out flat. Emotionless. Practiced. But something ugly still moved underneath them.
“I don’t remember her,” I admitted. “I only know what Sergio told me afterward. She screamed for hours while my father sat outside the room smoking cigars and talking business.”
Chiara’s expression crumpled softly.
“When they handed me to him afterward,” I continued quietly, “he apparently looked at me for less than a minute before asking whether I was healthy enough to inherit.”
Silence settled heavily between us.
“My father believed weakness should be burned out early,” I said. “He thought softness ruined men.”
I laughed once under my breath.
“He liked poisons. Experiments. Tests.” My fingers tightened unconsciously in her hair. “When I was a child, he started feeding me tiny amounts.”
Chiara stared at me. “What?”
“He wanted me resistant,” I said calmly. “At first it just made me sick. Violently sick.” My mouth twisted bitterly. “I spent more time vomiting blood than playing like other children.”
Her hand slowly tightened against my chest.
“He’d sit there watching me choke on it,” I continued. “Then tell me if I survived, I was becoming stronger.”
“Leo…” she whispered brokenly.
