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She tried to stall. “My father isn’t worried about the proof I have?”
“Oh, he was,” Maeve said. She tsked. “I was a little disappointed. It was so easy to find. A lockbox, daughter-in-law?”
Beatrice still felt too numb to react. “My father is willing to kill his blood,” she tried. “Do you really think he’ll honor an alliance?”
Maeve smiled at her. “She makes a good point, Father.”
“We’ve discussed this already,” Liam said, his voice back to soothing.
Montrell’s mother nodded, her eyes on Beatrice. “See? My father discusses things with me.”
“How much discussion did he have before he married you off?” Beatrice asked. She kept her eyes on the daughter, even when Liam O’Connell’s hands became fists in her periphery.
“That’s another good point,” Maeve said softly.
O’Connell stepped closer. “There’s no need to talk to this woman. We promised her father her head.”
“My father knew exactly what the man he married me to was like,” Beatrice continued.
Maeve was already nodding. “See? Monty is just like his father.”
“Not Montrell,” Beatrice snapped, causing his mother’s eyebrows to draw together. She swallowed. “I was married to one of the Albanians first. I crawled back to my father broken, and he called the Albanian to come and get me.”
“That’s horrible.” Maeve frowned as she looked at her own father. “Mine wouldn’t have done that.”
“Of course not,” Liam said, but his eyes didn’t meet his daughter’s. “You’re my blood, Maeve.”
“Then do as I said and leave!” Maeve suddenly screamed, spittle at the edge of her mouth.
Beatrice started considering that she had been wrong. While the weakness had been a feigned manipulation, Montrell’s mother was indeed out of her mind, and the Irish mob boss seemed to be aware of that. The door clicked shut behind his swift retreat.
“That’s better,” Maeve said in a singsong, pulling her feet up under her as she sat back more comfortably. She nodded toward the cup and saucer Beatrice had set aside. “You should drink. Things will go easier on you that way.”
Beatrice’s fingers flexed, but she reached for the drink she had no intention of sipping.
“Tell me more about how you were hurt.” The avid expression in the woman’s eyes made Beatrice dry-swallow. She doubted Montrell’s mother wanted to commiserate. No, the woman got off on inflicting pain, and talking about the past had always been painful for Beatrice, even when she was opening up to Montrell.
It was difficult to allow her expression to fall, to make it reflect the fear and humiliation she had bottled away so carefully. “There were beatings, sometimes with a belt or whip. My husband raped me almost every night.”
Maeve leaned forward, her hands grasping the cushion below her. “Did he choke you while he did it?” She sighed, her eyes going distant. “I miss being choked.”
Beatrice’s body stiffened.
“Monty’s father thought he was hurting me when he raped me. In the beginning, I squeezed out some tears, but he figured out pretty early on it was all an act.” Her smile spread as she refocused. “It made him try to hurt me more, but he was often the one who left frustrated. My only regret was when my body bloated with his baby.”
Beatrice didn’t bother pretending to sip her tea. She stared into the woman’s narrowed eyes.
“I tried a fall down the stairs to get rid of it.” Maeve’s smile fell as her slash of a mouth almost disappeared behind pressed together lips. “That’s when Coronella began locking me up and ordered that stupid woman to keep an eye on me. I was glad they cut the baby out instead of making me deliver it.”
Listening to the woman talk in that deadened voice made Beatrice realize how much of a miracle it was that Montrell had been born at all. Thinking about him made her heart pound. How long would her father keep him alive?
“I think they believed holding it would change my mind, but when the damn thing wouldn’t stop crying, I tried to shake it. Everyone knows that kills them, but that stupid woman interfered, snatching the thing from me.” Maeve shrugged, settling back again as she frowned. “What was that woman’s name?”
“Giulia?” Beatrice asked.
Maeve snapped her fingers. “That was it!” She stared at her hand, repeating the sound as if distracted. Then she rubbed the tips of her fingers together. “I should have asked Monty to bring her as well. I would have liked to kill her.”
Beatrice’s cup rattled as she set it down on the saucer. Maeve’s eyes shot to her, the expression in them cold. Then her gaze slid down toward the cup, and her mouth dropped open.
