Page 111 of Mafia King
I don’t want to get hit again. I really don’t, but I can’t just hand over the ring. Not now that I know why Santino told me not to.
“Come get it.”
The ease of getting me face down on the floor proves I never had a chance. He was playing with me from the beginning. This time, my left arm isn’t under me. The ring’s stone is inside my fist.
“Open it,” he demands.
On the floor in front of me, three Furies dance on a carved seashell.
“No.”
“I’ll cut your fucking hand off.” He digs his fingertips into the seam between the heel of my hand and my knuckles, peeling open my fist.
It doesn’t hurt, but I scream from the effort it takes to fight him.
“Fuck, you’re a fucking bitch.” He tries to get the ring off, but I won’t uncurl the knuckles.
“You wanted the fun way.” I’m all growls now, watching the Furies frozen in time, knowing I’m going to lose.
“So do you,” he says, bending the entire finger back.
The pain sends a shock from my hand to my heart. My scream goes from effort to agony, and thinking he’s won, Damiano shifts. I snatch the Furies with my right hand, twist, and ram the pin deep into the first exposed body part I find—his wrist.
His eyes go wide. He leans back, the shell and gold oval flapping in the hinge. “Bitch.”
He’s more mad than in pain, and I’m fucked. I pull out the brooch before he has a chance to do it, and without wasting a second or holding back the force of my entire body, I jam the entire pin into his eye. He screams with the cameo covering his impaled eye, half his gaze covered by the fury of women.
I run out of the room and slam the door closed, snapping the deadbolt Santino used to trap me in that room a million years ago. I’m safe, but I press my back against the opposite wall and slide along it, afraid to turn my back on him.
With a loudpop, the door cracks at the seam. He’s shot out the lock. The deadbolt holds, but the wood around it is shattered. I run and almost make it down the hall, accompanied by the sound of cracking wood behind me. Right before the stairs, my feet are yanked out from under me, and I land on my hands and chest.
“Where you going, little girl?”
I’m dragged back by the ankles. My shirt crawls over my bra as I try to grab for the hall table and miss. My hand drags over the long, splintered bullet hole I shot into the floor. Twisting, I look behind me at my assailant. Damiano’s facing forward, pulling my legs like a plow horse.
“Stop,” I say weakly. I don’t expect him to obey me, but I have to object. “Stop!”
He ignores me and pulls me into my room. I grab the doorjamb just for the sake of resisting. He pulls me hard, but I hold.
“You’re cute,” he says, dropping my ankles.
Whatever he’s about to do next is lost in the sharp beep of the front door opening.
I scrabble up. Damiano grabs me by the back of the neck and pushes me against the wall next to the doorframe.
“Violetta!” Santino calls. The keys slap on the front table.
“Scream,” Damiano hisses, pointing his gun at the place Santino will appear when he follows the sound of my voice. “Do it.”
“You,” I snarl, fighting his entire weight. I can’t see much now, and I realize the eye that isn’t being pushed against the wall is swollen shut.
“Forzetta,” Santino calls from the kitchen casually, as if he expects me to be at the airport, but he’s checking anyway.
“Oh, that’s cute,” Damiano says. “Now, let him know his wife’s waiting for him in the bedroom.”
“He knows you’re here.” I strain against him.
“No, he doesn’t.”
