Crucified (2 page)

“The Salvi are back?”

“They heard about your
famiglia
falling
and are paying the Landi to force me into marrying Sophia.”

“But, I thought the Landi were your
friends.”

“Apparently, money can buy my best
friend.” I faked a scowl. “I can trust no one now.”

“You can trust me.”

I brushed a strand of hair behind
her ear. “I do, and I’m sorry for threatening you before. I had to do it
because of the Landi soldier.” I frowned. “Forgive me.”

She wrapped her arms around me and
smiled. “There’s nothing to forgive. But, please, get Teodora out of Jagger’s
room.”

“I will talk to him, and try to
get him to see reason.”

“That is all I ask of you.” She
pushed up onto her toes to kiss me.

The front door opened, saving me. Honey
entered with two guards, looking worn out, her eyes red from either crying or exhaustion.

Camila let go of me. “What’s wrong,
Sarah?” she asked, appearing concerned.

Honey screwed up her face, looking
as though she was going to burst into tears. “I couldn’t find Jagger. We looked
everywhere.”

“He’s here,” Camila said, her
sympathetic expression gone in a second.

“He is?!” Honey said, her face
instantly lighting up.

“
S
ì
, he’s upstairs in his room with my niece. He
won’t let her go, and is insisting that she’s his slave.”

“But, why would he do that?” Honey
said, looking shocked.

“Because he’s gone crazy.” Moving
forward, Camila took a hold of Honey’s hands. “Please, get him to release my
niece. Teodora has done nothing to him; he’s delusional.”

Honey nodded. “I will go to him.”
She pulled her hands free from Camila and ran past me, taking to the staircase
two steps at a time.

I went to follow her, not to
Jagger’s room, but wanting to get back to Rita.

Camila grabbed my hand, making me
turn to her.

“What?”

She squeezed my fingers. “Once
Honey sorts Jagger out, spend the night with me.”

“I…”

A shout cut me off, then another
one, Jagger telling Honey to leave. Relieved by the distraction, I pulled free from
Camila and went for the staircase, ascending it fast. I stopped outside
Jagger’s doorway, watching as he yelled at a distraught-looking Honey.

“But why?” she said, her eyes
filled with tears.

“I don’t want you here.”

“But, I love you!”

“Well, I don’t love you.” Jagger’s
gaze moved to me. “Put her back in her cell.”

“No!” Honey yelled. “The Don has freed
me so we can be together.” She rushed for Jagger, making him back up.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” he shouted.

She stopped short. “Why are you
doing this? You told me you loved me and that you wanted to be with me.”

“They were all lies.”

“Why would you lie about that?”

“I was using you to make the other
slave sympathize with me.”

“No, you love me, it was real.”

“Nothing is fucking real! Don’t you
get it? I was training you for someone else. You’re just a job to me, nothing
more.”

“No, you can’t mean that,” she
said, moving forward, reaching for him.

He shot backwards. “I told you not
to touch me!”

She dropped her hands; her choked
“Jagger” affecting me. I was a hard man, but right now even I felt compassion
for her, Jagger’s cruelty over the top.

She turned and ran past me, heading
down the passage.

“That was unnecessary,” I said,
turning back to Jagger. “She nursed you back to health and genuinely cares for
you.”

“Bianca genuinely cared for me, and
looked what happened to her,” Jagger snapped, his eyes filled with pain. “I
didn’t deserve that sort of loyalty, like I don’t deserve Honey’s. Those women
are better off without me.”

“Do you care for any of them?”

“I don’t want them hurt, that is
all. I have no love for them and I most certainly don’t want them touching me.”
He pointed to the unconscious woman on the bed. “And, if you’re thinking of
taking her, think again. I may be indebted to you, but I won’t allow anyone to
walk all over me ever again. I want that woman as payment and I will kill that
bitch downstairs if she dares take her from me.”

“She is to be my wife.”

His lips twitched with disdain.
“Then send me back to New York, because I cannot live in a house run by the
Donatelli.”

“I am the only one running this
house.”

“Once that
troia
gets her
hooks into you, she will take control of everything.” His eyes moved to my
left.

I looked behind me, finding Camila
glaring at Jagger. She stepped inside the room, heading for her niece. He
walked towards her fast, making her back up quickly; the look on his face vicious.

She stopped in her tracks and
shoved his chest. “Don’t you dare touch me!”

Jagger pushed her into the wall,
his hands going to her wrists. “I’ll fucking touch you all I like, but you
troia
can’t touch me.”

“Jagger!” I snapped. “Let her go!”

Without taking his eyes off her, he
let go and backed up. “Remember: don’t turn your back on me.” He grabbed his
crotch. “Because I give a fuck.”

“Jagger!”

He turned to me and gave me a
salute, then headed for the bathroom, closing the door behind him. “If you’re
still in my room when I get out, Camila,” he yelled through the door, “I will
fuck you like the
puttana
you are.”

“No, fuck you, you
bastardo
!”
She rushed towards her niece, giving her a shake. “Wake up, Teodora.” When she
didn’t respond, Camila grabbed her niece under the arms and tried to pull her
off the bed.

I walked over to her and took her
niece out of her hands, swinging the woman back onto the bed. “Leave her; I’ll
make sure Jagger doesn’t do anything.”

“Are you kidding?” she said,
looking at me in bewilderment. “He’s gone crazy. He needs to be locked up in
those cells downstairs, not Teodora.”

“I cannot do that to my cousin, and
he will completely go off the deep end if you take his slave.”

“She’s not a slave!”

“She is to him, so leave now.”

“I’m not leaving until Teodora is
out of here.”

“Then strip and lie down on the
bed, because Jagger
will
fuck you.”

“If you cared for me, you wouldn’t
allow that to happen.”

“I do care for you, which is why
you need to leave.” I turned to the door and held it open for her. “I will stay
and talk some sense into him. For you.”

She hesitated, then nodded at me. “
Grazie.
”

I nodded back, watching as she
finally left. Once she had closed the door, I went and sat down on the bed,
waiting for Jagger to come out.

The shower turned off a few minutes
later, then the bathroom door opened. Jagger walked into the room with a towel
wrapped around his hips, jolting in surprise when he saw me. “What are you still
doing in here?” he asked.

“I need to confide in you. I have
no intention of marrying Camila. It’s a ploy to get her to hand the twins and
Matteo over as well as to get access to her
famiglia’s
bank accounts.”

A grin spread across his face. “For
a moment there, I had thought you’d lost your mind.”

“I had, but I’ve seen sense.” I
breathed out, knowing he wouldn’t be happy with my next words. “You need to
know something else.”

“What?”

“I have taken Rita into my bed,” I
said, keeping the engagement to myself.

His eyes flashed with anger. “She
is
my
slave.”

“I think you know she is no one’s
slave.”

“She is still mine,” he growled.

I stood up. “No, she’s mine, and,
like all those years ago, she wants to be with me.”

He frowned. “What do you mean all
those years ago?”

“When I met her.”

“What are you talking about?”

I frowned. “Don’t you know who she
is?”

“
S
ì
. She’s Rita Kovak, or I should say Sophia
Salvi’s sister.”

“No, Jagger.” I breathed out. “She
is
Sophia.”

My brother kept fawning over the
boy in the van’s backseat, making Matteo continuously tense. Every time Michael
spoke or uttered a sound, our nephew gripped onto the steering wheel, looking like
he was going to rip it out and bludgeon my brother to death with it.

I glanced at Matteo as he turned a
corner onto the stretch of road that led to our destination. He appeared to be
in deep thought. At a guess, he was probably working out all the ways he could murder
Michael. I knew I should kill him to make sure my brother was safe, but Matteo
was one of the very few relatives I cared about. So, I needed to find another
solution to keep my brother alive without harming our nephew.

“There’s a reason why my brother’s
like that,” I said, only loud enough for Matteo to hear. “My uncle tortured him
because he was gay. Cesare tied him up and forced women on him, and even worse,
he used electroshock treatment all in the name of curing ‘the disease of
homosexuality’, his words not mine.” I stared ahead at the road before us,
remembering the time I had found my brother strapped to a chair naked, being
shown images of men and women in various states of undress. Every time a male
image came up, Michael’s hands and genitals were zapped, the electricity making
him cry out in pain. I had flown into a rage, attacking my uncle for it, but he
had been a big man and I had only been seventeen. He’d forcibly removed me from
the house, having his guards make sure I didn’t get back in. The next day I had
slipped past them, wanting to break Michael out. This time I had found him
lying on a table, held down by straps. Material had been stuffed into his mouth
and a wishbone shaped device held to his head, our uncle zapping his temples
with electricity. I had wondered whether it had caused him brain damage,
because after I had gotten him out he was no longer himself, often talking to
thin air.

Matteo threw a glare at me. “That’s
no excuse for what he did to me. It’s sick enough he’s going to force himself
onto that kid, but I’m blood.”

“You’re no different from him. You
have that soldier tied up in the back ready for your own sexual gratification.”

“I
am
different from him,”
Matteo gritted out. “I don’t force myself onto people.”

“Then what’s the soldier for?”

“I’m going to mindfuck him,” he
said, continuing down the long stretch of road, the encroaching night ready to
lay its blanket over the countryside.

I glanced at him. “I’ve been told
you’re one of the best trainers from the House of Whores, that you can turn
straight men gay. How do you do it?”

“They’re not completely straight.
Very few people are completely straight.”

“I am. I have no desire to fuck men.”

He slowed down as a goat ran onto
the road. He swerved around it, and picked up speed. “You must’ve considered fucking
a guy at least once in your life.”

“No, it’s repulsive.”

“So, you’ve never felt an
attraction to a male before, not even just finding someone’s face interesting?”

“No.”

He grinned. “Your tone tells me you
have
found a male attractive.”

“Don’t try to mindfuck me; it won’t
work, because no matter what you say, I do
not
find males attractive.”

“Well, if you were my slave instead
of my uncle, I would find different ways to spark an attraction. For example,
when men are put into jail for a long period of time, a number of them seek out
male beauty, transferring their lust for females onto the prettier males. Now,
my slaves were put into a similar environment, where the only people they saw
were either the rough-looking guards or me—and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m
sexy as fuck.”

“My brother noticed.”

Matteo tensed. “Don’t bring him up
again; I’m barely holding back from murdering him.”

“Point noted. Continue with how you
seduce a straight male.”

Matteo resumed talking. “At the
House of Whores the guards were told to treat the slaves harshly, mainly
roughing them up and in general, scaring them. Then pretty me would walk in,
telling the guards off and treating the slaves as though they mattered. Sooner
or later they developed romantic feelings towards me, or feelings that confused
them. It would all start with a hand on the leg, then end with them fucking me or
getting fucked by me, which depended upon what they were ordered for: whether a
top or a bottom. Though, I much preferred the tops, they’re easier to convert
and much more fun sexually.”

“Have you ever fallen for one of
your slaves?”

“I have once; he was a magnificent
male, but I was unable to talk Grandpa into letting me keep him.”

“It was because he hoped you would
find a female to marry.”

Matteo glanced at me. “But, everyone
knows I’m gay.”

“He had different views of
homosexuality. He thought that every male, even if they were gay, could find
the right women and settle down. He was the one who hired my uncle to convert
Michael, which failed miserably, leaving my brother fucked in the head and my
uncle dead,”
because I killed him for torturing Michael.
“It was why
your grandfather pandered to Michael. Guilt.”

“But, that’s stupid, I’m openly gay,
and so is your freak of a brother.”

“Like with your slaves, your
grandfather thought he could change both your natures. Didn’t you notice the
amount of women he sent to talk to you?”

Matteo went silent for a moment,
looking as though he was thinking. “I never thought about it before, but, yeah,
he did.”

“He was hoping you would find one
to your liking. Plus, you do flirt with women.”

“Only to get them to do my bidding.”

“You were touching Gianna a lot
today. Maybe your sexuality argument from before applies to you, because I’m
thinking that maybe you’re not completely gay.”

“I’m the exception to the rule,
because I’m a hundred percent gay. I
love
rough, brutish men.”

“Then why do you touch women so
much? I’ve seen you do it with others.”

“
It’s in
my nature to be all “touchy feely”, but it doesn’t mean I get off on it.”

“You don’t touch me.”

“Because you would cut my hands
off.”

I smiled. “I wouldn’t do that,
because I know it would be platonic, and we hug.”

“I let you initiate it because straight
males often fear being hugged by a gay man.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re obviously secure in your
sexuality then.”

“I am. I love strong women. They
are fascinating creatures. I cannot understand why any male wouldn’t want to
fuck them. They are so wet and tight, whereas what you fuck is unsanitary.”

“Unsanitary?” Matteo laughed. “That’s
a good one. But it doesn’t really relate to me, because I don’t like
penetrating. Outside of work, I avoid doing it.”

“But penetration is the whole point.”

“Not for me. It doesn’t make me
fully hard. Instead, I love the feeling of being filled.”

“Then how are you going to proceed
with the soldier?”

“I’m going to pretend you’re
forcing me to do things, getting him to think I’m a possible ally. The bandage
on my head and black eye will be enough to work on. Pretty soon, I will have
him worrying about me. Eventually, I will come to him, looking like I’ve been
tortured. Because of it, he will want to comfort me. It all starts with empathy
and touching, and will end in kissing and fucking.”

“It’ll be interesting to see
whether you succeed. My uncle, one of the greatest mindfuck artists ever,
failed in turning my brother to women.”

“You can’t mindfuck a psychotic freak,”
Matteo spat. “His warped nature has already fucked his mind.”

I glanced up at the review mirror, finding
Michael staring at me in the reflection. He looked like he was listening to us,
his expression unhappy. “Maybe
, but he’s my brother
and someone I would die for.”

Michael’s frown disappeared, my
brother rewarding me with a smile for my comment, even though I hadn’t pulled
Matteo up on the insult. Anyway, Michael already knew he was fucked in the head.

Matteo turned the corner and slammed
on the brakes. “Christ Almighty! What the fucking hell is that?” he gasped,
staring through the windscreen in shock.

Pride washed over me at the
magnificent sight before us. Three large crosses stood on top of a small hill,
a fitting serenade to my brother. “It’s my masterpiece,” I said. “What do you
think of it?”

“I have no idea, and how the fuck
did you get those crosses up there and why?”

“The Rossos helped me and you’ll
soon discover the why.” I opened the van door and got out. My brother jumped
out of the back passenger seat, pulling his boy along with him, the skinny
thing looking terrified.

“What in the name of our Heavenly
Father are you up to?” Michael asked, staring at the crosses in horror.

“I’m crucifying the Landi sisters.”

Michael’s gaze shot to me. “That’s blasphemy!”

“No, it’s a punishment for—”

Michael cut me off. “Other than
being Daughters of Eve, they have done nothing that would warrant being
crucified.”

“You didn’t let me finish. It’s not
them I’m punishing, it’s you
.
”

“Why?” Michael asked, looking taken
aback.

“For raping our nephew.”

“I have apologized to you enough,”
he snapped, “and I would never try to hurt you.”

“I’m not the one you need to
apologize to! And you hurt me by hurting Matteo,
so take
the punishment dealt to you
.”

Michael’s clenched his jaw, anger
flashing across his eyes, but instead of going against me, he bowed his head,
something he often did when he knew he deserved what he got. “You’re right,” he
said, though it sounded begrudging. “I will take the punishment.”

“You will also be putting the girls
up on the crosses,” I added.

His head shot up. “
That’s blasphemous! You can’t force a man of the cloth to
partake in such a thing.”

“Regardless, you
will
do
it.”

“No! It’s a sin.”

I leaned my face closer to his. “And
incestuous rape isn’t?”

He flinched. “Satan spoke to me; he
talked me into doing it. I didn’t want to. I told him it was a sin, I did, but
Matteo is such a handsome boy, and Satan said it would be a sin to waste his
beauty on ugly, brutish men—”

“
Stai zitto!
” I yelled,
telling him to shut up.

He jolted, then bowed his head
again. “I still can’t hang those women up there. God will punish me for such a
vile sin.”

Frustrated with his hypocrisy, I
breathed out. “In case you haven’t noticed, you sin constantly, so one more
won’t make a difference. Now, hand the boy over to me and go with Matteo to put
the females up there,” I said, pointing at the crosses.

His grip tightened on Thierry,
making the kid squeak.

“I won’t hurt your
angel
,” I
said, sneering at the last word, my brother’s obsession with beautiful boys
irritating. “So, hand him over.”

“If you even touch him wrong—”

“Of course I won’t. Unlike
you
,
males are only for drinking with,
not
fucking.”

“I meant, if you harm him.”

“I have no interest in hurting even
a hair on his head, so hand him over.”

“No.”

“Michael,” I said, lowering my
voice. “You do know I have the power to take him away from you forever?” I ran
a finger across my throat.

“You will not kill him! He’s mine.”

“Then hand him to me and I will
promise I will keep him safe.” I focused on the boy. “If anything, that little
fairy will like me holding him.”

The boy turned his head into my
brother’s chest, hiding his face from me, his actions telling me that Michael
would have no problems getting the kid to do what he wanted—unlike with Jagger.

Michael bent his head and spoke
into the boy’s ear. “I won’t be gone for long, and if anything happens you can always
call out to me. I’ll come straight back.” He went to move away.

Thierry grabbed him around the
waist. “Don’t leave me with him!”

Michael’s face softened. “He
promised not to hurt you,” he said, hugging him back, making me want to slap my
brother’s distorted sense of romance out of his head. The boy wasn’t doing it
because he wanted to be with him, he was doing it because he was scared
shitless of me.

“But, he murdered my friends,”
Thierry said.

“Which he won’t do to you.” Michael
detached himself from the boy and held him out for me to take. Thierry tried to
turn back, begging to stay with him, causing my brother to look even more
pained.

I grabbed Thierry, wrapping my arms
around him so he couldn’t move. The boy screamed and tried to get free. I tightened
my grip and placed my chin on his shoulder, grinning at my brother. “Hurry,
Michael, before I decided to hurt your sweet angel.”