And I was glad about it.
I kissed him back with ferocity. With hunger.
It was not a healthy or normal reaction to what had almost happened to me. And if it were any other man on the planet, I wouldn’t be letting this happen. But Cristian wasn’t any other man on the planet. He did not make me feel healthy or normal, he just made me feel like ... me. Which was what I needed after what that asshole had almost taken.
I needed to feel like me.
So I kissed Cristian back.
Enthusiastically. I would’ve gone a lot further had he not stopped, face lingering inches from mine.
“You are my queen, Sienna,” he murmured.
The husky, melty tone in which he said that sentence made it impossible to think. To remember that I was meant to be fighting this. Fighting him.
Because in that moment, I felt like I was his queen.
“And I will punish anyone who tries to touch my queen,” he vowed.
An oath.
What did one wear to an amputation?
My fingers trailed along all of the silks, velvet and leather in the walk-in closet. My walk-in closet, I supposed. It was odd that everything felt so familiar yet so strange. That I didn’t miss any of my clothes, any of my possessions still sitting in my apartment, untouched. I’d arrived here with only the clothes on my back. Nothing else. Cristian could’ve had my things brought here to make me feel more comfortable. But I would’ve bet every dollar I’d ever earned that he hadn’t wanted me to feel comfortable, be reminded of the life I used to have.
I could’ve gone back to the apartment. It wasn’t like Cristian had banned me from going there, hadn’t banned me from going anywhere There were no rules, as far as I could tell. Apart from not refusing his marriage proposal or going to the police.
But I didn’t want to go back to my place. I didn’t want my old clothes. I didn’t want any of the things I’d spent years collecting, things I’d assigned so much value to.
For my outfit, I settled on black. It seemed to be the uniform around here, maybe because it didn’t show blood as much. I’d taken to wearing blood red lately because I liked the way Cristian’s eyes flared as they ran over my body. But perhaps that was a bit too obvious for this particular occasion.
The leather skirt I chose clung to me like a second skin, skimming down my hips and finishing just below my knee. I paired it with a corset, strapless and tight enough so my boobs almost spilled out of the top. The lace let some of my skin show through, hinting that I wore no bra underneath. I paired the look with a pair of black stilettos with blood red soles. Though it wasn’t something I normally did, I wore my makeup dark and heavy. There was no covering the bruise on my cheek that was only getting more swollen and angrier, but I wasn’t trying to cover it. It was evidence, I supposed. I did work hard on the rest of my face, though. Winged black liner and red lips. My hair was bouncy, thick, curls tumbling over my shoulders.
I wasn’t sure what a mafia wife was supposed to look like, but I sure felt like one as I descended the stairs.
Though I wasn’t experienced in witnessing a punishment that included severing a hand, I didn’t think there would be a grand audience. I figured it would be Cristian, Felix. Maybe Vincentius. Though I couldn’t imagine a father would want to see his son get his hand cut off for trying to rape his successor’s fiancée. But this was a different world.
Evidenced by the large collection of bodies filling the space when I descended the stairs and found my way into the sitting room.
Live bodies. I thought I needed to make that distinction.
There were a lot more people around than I’d ever seen at the house before. The air felt peculiar. Thick. Most of those in the well-dressed crowd were men of varying ages and builds. There were the cliché looking mafia guys I’d previously assumed some movie exec had dreamed up, with the slicked back hair, the gold jewelry, the gaudy suits, dark Italian features. Then there were the overweight men who would’ve breathed heavily after walking up one flight of stairs but you knew had twentysomething-year-old wives with boob jobs and hair out to there because of their money and position. There were also a handful of very attractive men. Most of them looked about my age. One was tall, muscled to the point it would’ve been ridiculous if he didn’t wear it so well. His ebony skin was smooth except for the scar running through the middle of his face, diagonally. It was jagged and deep and looked like someone had tried to split him in two.