“So … you just thought you’d come and waltz in here all by yourself,” Molly says, narrowing her eyes at me. “I can’t believe my daughter would do something so stupid.” She flicks her finger against my forehead.
It stings, but I won’t let that show. “I came here to save Marcello.”
She snorts. “You love him so much you just can’t stay away. Why?” She cocks her head. “What did that man offer to you? Besides buying you from a fucking auction?”
“Love. Affection. The feeling of being wanted.”
“Everything I tried to give you as a mother …” she hisses.
“You weren’t even there,” I retort.
“Because of that fucking man,” she says through gritted teeth. “Because he had the audacity to steal you away from me.”
“He saved me from that fire,” I rebuke. “I would’ve been dead without him.”
“Well, I’m alive too now, aren’t I?”
That’s true. She and Frank did make it out. But at what cost?
“But your father … he’s not. He can’t ever walk again because of what you did to him.”
“He is not my father,” I hiss. “And he got what he had coming to him.”
She slaps me. Hard. The pain fizzles slowly, reminding me of the ever-burning hatred she feels for me.
“You should’ve known better.”
“I did what I had to do,” I quip.
She doesn’t even look like the woman I remember. “You let yourself be seduced by the devil. By that motherfucker who doesn’t even deserve you. And then you got him to knock you up too?”
She looks down at my belly and then back up at my eyes, which fill with tears.
“You should’ve stayed where you were. At least then you wouldn’t have gotten in my way.”
Even though I hate her, her words hurt me. “I didn’t ask for any of the shit that happened to me,” I say. “But I fought. Hard. And when I found out you were part of the Mafia. That you were trying to kill the only man who has ever fought for me? I can’t accept that.”
A wicked smile forms on her lips. “You can’t accept that? But you will accept a man who tried to kill your own damn mother?”
“You … have never been a mother to me,” I retort with an icy cold voice.
It douses the fire in her eyes until there is nothing left but frigid darkness.
“I was contemplating on maybe allowing you to beg for forgiveness and make yourself useful again, but…” She turns her head and yells, “Guard!”
The door slams open, and in walks a burly man.
“Take her.”
My eyes widen as he approaches, and I get ready to fight. One punch to the gut doesn’t even faze the guy as he picks me up with ease and slaps me over his shoulder like a wet rag.
“Let go of me!” I yell as he marches out the door. “What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”
My mother laughs as she follows us.
“Put me down!” I bark, ramming my fist onto his back, but to no avail. It’s like this guy is made of stone.
“Sure we will, darling,” the guard jokes, snorting to himself as he marches through the corridor.
But while I’m pounding his back, I stop midway as a familiar face behind a cell door makes me do a double-take. Melanie is sitting there, chained to a chair, black mascara running down her cheeks.
Oh no.
Did Stefan put her there to punish her?
Did he find out about her texts?
I don’t even get the chance to ask or say a word before the guard takes another step and makes her disappear from my view as if I never even saw her, like she never existed.
But I know she is in there. I know what I saw.
And I won’t rest until she’s freed from this hell too.
The guard puts me down near a grimy door, locking my arms in place behind my back so I can’t try anything on him or Molly.
“You love Marcello so much, and you’re willing to sacrifice everything for him,” Molly says, flicking her fingers, and the door in front of us opens up. “Enjoy your last day with him.”
My last day?
Death?
Would she actually … have me murdered?
No, no way.
No way would she do that.
But before I can say a word, the guard shoves me inside and slams the door shut behind me.
And all the words I had wanted to say vanish from my mind.
Because right in front of me is Marcello.
Harper
I immediately rush over to Marcello, who is chained to a little bed in the corner. I don’t know how long he’s been here or what they’ve been doing to him, but he is badly bruised and covered in cuts and wounds all over.
“Oh my God …” I mutter as I sit down beside him and try to touch him.
“Harper,” he says, blinking a couple of times. “Are you really here?”