SWNOVELS The Marriage Debt: Chapter 12
When someone comes into my room, I’m not at all prepared for the fact that it isn’t Luca.
A woman with a big ponytail and a nose ring steps inside, her clothes resembling that of a housekeeper. She pays no attention to me whatsoever even though I’m still hanging from the ceiling.
Naked.
My cheeks have never been more red than they are now, but she keeps her head down as she puts clothes into his drawers and makes up the bed.
“Um … hello?” I say, feeling invisible.
She looks up and smiles. “Hello, Mrs. De Vos.”
Mrs. De Vos.
It sounds so strange and totally unnatural. Like I’m living in a surreal world where fiction has become a reality. A nightmarish world I really wish I could escape.
“I’m Lita, the housekeeper and Luca’s personal cook.” She laughs a little. “How can I help you?”
“Can you get me down, please?” I ask hesitantly.
She stops folding more clothes and looks up. “I’m sorry, Mr. De Vos specifically told me not to intervene.”
I frown. “You know I’m being held captive, right?”
She raises her brow. “You’re his wife, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but … well, it’s complicated.”
“But you chose to get married to him,” she adds. It almost sounds like she’s declaring me insane, and I wouldn’t blame her for thinking that.
Heck, I’m insane for agreeing to any of this.
“That’s … true.” I sigh out loud, but it ends in a cough from my dry throat. I really didn’t help my own case there. “I was only trying to save my sister.”
When she walks off, I say, “Wait! Please.” She glances over her shoulder, so I ask, “I’m really, really hungry and thirsty. Could you please bring me something? Anything?”
She smiles. “Of course! I’ll be back in a minute.”
Then she closes the door, and just like that, I’m left to myself again, dangling from the ceiling like one of those artworks standing all around his house. It’s almost as if he views me as just another piece he managed to buy.
When the door opens again, Lita steps in, holding a plate filled with delicious-looking food. “Luca didn’t tell me what you liked, so I got freaked out and made way too much, so it’s good that you asked.”
“That looks divine,” I respond, my mouth already watering. “But … how am I supposed to eat it?”
She puts down the plate and picks up a chocolate-covered strawberry. “Easy. I’ll feed you.”
My whole body freezes from the shame, but the second she plops it into my mouth, I forget what I was about to say.
“Good?”
“Oh, my God,” I mutter, chewing fast so I can have another one. “You made these yourself?”
“Yup. And his cleaner. And personal shopper. And assistant.” She laughs. “Pretty much everything and anything he needs.”
Wow. Wish I had someone like that.
A slice of pancake is shoved in my mouth, and it’s like a cloud from heaven. “Jesus.”
She smiles broadly. “You like it?”
“This is what I used to eat back in the States before we moved to the Netherlands,” I reply.
“I’ve got more where that came from.”
Lita shoves a perfect piece of bacon into my mouth that is just too delicious.
“Do you have a drink too?” I ask after swallowing.
“Of course!” She shows me a glass of milk and a cup of hot steaming tea. “Didn’t know which one you’d prefer, so I brought both.” She gazes up at the contraption I’m hanging in. “But from the looks of it, I think milk is the better choice with a straw.”
“Can’t you get me down?” I ask, hoping she might change her mind.
“No can do, sorry,” she says, laughing it off like it’s normal. “Luca specifically said no one was allowed to touch you.”
For some reason, that makes me blush even more than the fact that I’m hanging here horizontally from the ceiling, naked.
“Not even you?” I say.
She shakes her head, which tells me enough.
“Fucking asshole,” I say through gritted teeth. But when I see the look on her face, I lighten up a little. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be snappy. He’s the asshole, not you.”
“It’s okay, I understand,” she replies, smiling gently. “I expect that from the woman who married a guy like him.” She adds a wink.
“So you know he’s a part of the mafia, right?”
“Yep,” she says. “But it pays the bills. And he pays loads.” She rolls her eyes. “So much that I sometimes wonder if I should give some of it back.”
Well, she’s a lot more frugal than I’d be if I was working for someone as dangerous as Luca De Vos.
“Anyway, how about that milk?” she says, and she slips a straw into the glass. “This should work.”
My dry throat is grateful. Especially after being ravaged by Luca.
My cheeks immediately turn red again from the memory alone.
“Thanks,” I mutter, willing the blush away.
“If you’re still hungry, let me know,” Lita says. “I can always make more.”
I smile. “You’re really nice.”
She raises a brow. “Something you didn’t expect?” She laughs and glances up at the ropes without exorbitantly gazing at my naked body. “I get it. Luca’s not an easy guy to please, and he has … interesting taste. But he’s a mobster, and what he wants happens. Period.”
Tell me about it.
She leans against the cabinet. “It’s very noble of you that you married him to save your sister. I don’t think I would have done the same, considering the lengths Luca would go to to make you his.”
I frown. “How do you know?”
She pushes herself off the cabinet and folds her arms. “All I’d ever heard him talk about was you. Even when he was planning the wedding with Jasmine, he couldn’t stop talking about the fact that he was never going to stop looking for you.”
I’m stunned by what she says, so much so that I don’t know how to respond.
“Well anyway, if you need me, just call my name. I’m sure one of Luca’s men will hear you as the house is never unguarded.”
Damn. There goes my plan to escape when I’m finally out of this damn rope.
“Thanks for the food. And the talking. I appreciate it,” I say. “Makes me feel less insane.”
“Glad I could help,” she says, and she walks off before I can ask her to please hand me the knife so I can cut myself out of this mess.
She probably wouldn’t have given it to me anyway.
Luca’s rule is law, and people who work for him obey or get the boot.
And who knows what happens to them after that. I’m sure a mobster wouldn’t let someone walk off to go and tell the world what goes on behind closed doors. Our families only succeeded in becoming so powerful because we hid from the public eye for so long.
In fact, he’s out there right now, trying to find the one person I hoped to never involve.
Poor Nick.
My stomach twists from the thought of seeing him hurt.
I shouldn’t have said his name or implicated him.
Now Luca wants nothing more than to destroy him for even looking at me.
All because I had to tell that lie so Luca would stop.
Even though he didn’t until I’d already come ten times.
Fuck.
Sudden stomping in another room pulls me from my thoughts. I recognize the walk. It definitely isn’t a guard. It’s him.
My heart beats faster and faster as he approaches, and I brace myself against the ceiling, hoping I can dish out some kind of jab with my foot even though any kind of movement makes me twirl around.
BANG!
The door is kicked open and thrust into the wall, and Luca stands in the doorway with a sinister look on his face. The smile that slowly creeps onto his lips makes me gulp.
“Miss me, bunny?” he says, his voice so dark it makes goose bumps erupt on my skin.