“Feed her and then send her back to her room,” Stefano commanded as he stood to leave the kitchen. “She didn’t come anywhere near earning a comfort item with her behavior tonight.” It was as if the sight of me made the man sick.
I almost asked for my handcuffs to be removed so I could eat, but the look on Stefano’s face kept me quiet. Thomas was correct. I needed to allow the man to cool down. Eating with handcuffs would be interesting, but I would rather face that than Stefano’s wrath.
Thomas walked over to the refrigerator and started pulling out the fixings to make a sandwich. It felt as if I hadn’t had a meal in days. My mouth watered as he put the plate with a turkey sandwich in front of me.
“Stefano and I aren’t really cooks. We’re too busy. But we’re bringing in our cook from our Naples estate to help with that. She’ll be here by tonight. The meal quality will go up.”
The fact that he felt he had to justify or explain the sandwich made me smile. At least it was an ounce of kindness. In fact, Thomas had been quite loving in many ways, as insane as that was. I wondered if that was how the twins worked. One bad guy, one good guy. I didn’t think Thomas was always the good guy. I could tell that much in just what I had already seen. But maybe that was why the brothers were so powerful. They knew how to offset each other. The yin and yang kept their power grounded and never out of control.
“Thank you very much. I hadn’t realized just how hungry I was. This actually is perfect.”
He nodded and returned my smile. He walked over to a bottle of booze and poured himself a drink. “Hurry and eat. It’s late, and I want to get to bed.”
“I appreciate this.”
He took a long sip of his alcohol before stating, “Don’t misread this. I’m not a kind person. Kindness gets you nowhere in the world we live.”
Ignoring his words for now, I ate bite after bite of pure joy. I temporarily forgot that I was nothing but a captive cuffed, plugged, and captured. For now, I ate.
If I was going to survive this, I had to live one day at a time. One hour, one minute. I couldn’t think about what would come next or risk going completely mad. One day, one hour, one minute… my new life. It was my only choice.
Chapter Eight
Stefano
“You growing soft on me, bro?” I asked as I stood with my arms crossed against my chest as I watched the security monitors. Thomas had just escorted Hailey back to her room, and whether I wanted to admit it or not, I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
“You can be a real ass, you know that?” Thomas said as he fully entered the room and took a seat in front of the screen, propping his feet up on the table. He was settling in as we both did in the evening. Our television viewing before bed had become Hailey.
Fucking Hailey had already consumed far more of our time and our minds than planned.
“Better than be a pussy,” I countered.
“You took that too far. Did you see her eyes? There was real fear there.” Thomas didn’t look at me when he spoke. He just stared at Hailey. “She didn’t deserve to feel the way she did.”
“What the hell are you talking about? She fucking deserved it. She pissed in front of me. Pissed!” I began pacing the room, hating that I was still angry over her action. No one person should control any emotion of mine for so long.
“Yeah, well, I cleaned it up. No big deal.” He leaned back in his chair and entwined his fingers behind his head. “I got her calmed down, but you’re wrong, bro. Sorry to tell ya.”
“It is a big deal! Our goal is to train her to be submissive. To teach her to never cross us. And here she was squatting right in front of me in defiance. And you’re more concerned about the fear in her eyes? Are you fucking kidding me?”
“There’s a difference between discipline and cruelty, and you know it. We have to break her in slowly. You can’t just go in full force and scare the hell out of her like that.”
“Did I hit her? No. Did I lose my shit? No. So, I think I handled that just fine.” I sat down beside him and clenched my jaw as I watched Hailey settle down and curl up on her single blanket. “And I don’t appreciate you criticizing what I do to her. Unless you want me to question every single thing you do to her as well. You do you. I’ll do me.”