Page 46 of The Kingpin’s Bride

I realized, with a quiet and terrifying clarity, that I was going to miss him.

***

I tried to write the next entry the way he ordered. My hand shook so hard the pen scratched nonsense. I closed my eyes and a photograph rose behind them the way it always did when the room went still.

Camilla on a bare floor. Thinner than the last picture. Holding a half-eaten apple. Eyes flat. The red shirt I had never seen before. The stuffed animal that looked clean and expensive while she looked like she was disappearing.

Dario’s voice echoed in my mind, calm and pleased.

She’s still breathing. That’s the only update you get until the numbers improve.

I had danced for those numbers. I had handed over every bill. I had let him show me the photos like treats for a dog that performed correctly. And now I was here, collared, filled, scheduled, being bred by a man who paid a fortune for the right to use my body while my sister was still somewhere in the same city, still under the same man’s control, still waiting for a savior who had promised she would never let this happen.

The diary page blurred. I pressed the heel of my hand against my mouth so the first sound would not escape. I was supposed to be strong enough to survive long enough to get her back. Instead I was lying in a stranger’s bed with his claim leaking out of me, writing entries about how little I slept and how much my body ached, while Camilla was getting thinner in rooms I could not find.

Tears soaked the open pages. The gold pen rolled off the bed. I could not stop. I did not want to stop. The guilt and the fear and the helpless rage finally had room, and they took all of it.

I hated him for buying me.

I hated myself more for the tiny, shameful part that had started to want the man who bought me. And underneath both hates lived the only truth that still mattered: Camilla was still out of my reach.

And I was still here, breaking exactly the way the world had always planned.

Hours passed slowly. I tried to stay busy. Eating. Watching TV. The seconds ticket by so painfully, I began to resent the silence. I realized I was waiting for him.

I wrote a lot in the journal despite my initial fight. Maybe it helped a little, but the bitterness of knowing he’d read every word soured everything.

He didn’t come home before bedtime, and I sulkily crawled into bed with a packet of cookies I found in a pristine marble cupboard. I must have fallen asleep at some point, because when I woke up, it was morning, and I was no longer alone.

Matteo was fully dressed in black, sleeves rolled to the elbows the way he always wore them, but I could see the ink that lived under the fabric now, burned into my eyelids. Dense black roses and skulls curved across his chest in my memory from the nights he had taken his shirt off. A swallow sat low on his stomach. Pin-up girls and strange monsters crawled down both arms.

His dark hair was pushed back and messy, the undercut sharp against the longer top. A cigarette rested between his lips, unlit, the filter held loosely like he had forgotten it was there. Cold. Beautiful. Dangerous in the quiet way that made my stomach drop and my thighs press together.

I was terrified of him. I was also so wet it was humiliating. I wasn’t sure if it had been a wet dream that prompted it.

I glared at him. “Back so soon?”

“Oh yes,” he smirked. “Couldn’t wait for the next entry in your journal.”

I glared harder, pulled the sheets higher and fought the urge to hiss. Then, I grabbed the diary off the nightstand and tossed it at him. #Have at it.”

He opened the book without much of a reaction. As I watched him leaf through it, I realized how many pages I’d filled with my stupid ramblings. My heart sped into overdrive when his gray eyes finally met my own.

“Who is Camilla?”

My bottom lip wobbled. “She’s… I…”

He was listening, but I couldn’t get the words out.

“I can’t,” I choked out between sobs. “I can’t do this. Please.”

“You can. You will, because you don’t have a choice.”He caught my chin again. Fingers firm. Thumb pressing just under my lip so I had no choice but to meet those dark eyes. I did. My own eyes felt swollen and red. My mouth trembled. I hated that even in collapse he looked at me like something he had decided to keep forever.

“Why are you falling apart?” he asked, quiet and sharp. You need to answer my questions, so I can help you. So tell me what this is.”

I opened my mouth and almost said her name.

Camilla.