Owned: A Mafia Menage Romance(49)

Oh well, what are you gonna do?

“Yeah, well… Roman can be a little hard to read.”

She rolls her eyes, clearly not believing me.

“If you're confused, just ask me,” I whisper, dipping my head to run my nose along her hairline. She has this feral smell underneath everything, this small mammal smell. “I always know what he’s thinking. I can tell you.”

“Well, is he really… What he says he is?” she asks me in a small voice.

“What does he say he is?”

Blinking, she stares at me for long seconds before answering. “A monster, Alek. He says he's a monster.”

“Ah, that. Well, yes. Of course he is. But now he is your monster, Marie. All yours.”





CHAPTER 13


MARIE

I've officially lost my mind.

If you would have asked me two weeks ago what I would be doing today, I would probably have told you something like reorganizing my closet… Trying to get Gianna to hang out with me when she wasn't studying… Stashing a little money here and there for my great plan to escape this life and start something new.

Would I have said married? No. Would I have said shacking up with a Russian hitman… Make that two Russian mob guys? Two??

No. I would never have said that. I would never have guessed this.

My life went from tolerably boring, confined, slightly aggravating to batshit crazytown overnight. Utterly bananas. I thought I had it bad before, but I really had no idea, absolutely no idea what Daddy had in store for me.

And now I can't get out of it. I'm stuck.

Even as Alek and Roman were moving their crap into my house, shoving my furniture around like it was all part of a doll house or something, tracking their filthy footprints on every rug and floorboard in the entire place, my brain was on fire. I was in absolute panic mode, trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to do next.

I mean, this is insanity, right? Who does this?

And yet, I can barely look away. It's like a train wreck in slow motion. There goes my life, exploding in billows of fire and smoke and flying shrapnel everywhere. And I have no idea what to do about it.

Before, I could kind of convince myself that I had my secret plan. I sort of held it close, petting it and stroking it and thinking about the tiny details of it when I needed something to comfort me, when everything seemed hopeless.

If Daddy was all over me about what I was doing and where I was going and who I was hanging out with, I could just silently think about my escape route and instantly feel a little better, like there was a breath of fresh air pouring into my prison cell.

But that's totally gone. Smashed to bits like all of those little cameras and microphones and stuff that Alek was so thrilled about finding all over my house.

He doesn't even know, can’t even begin to understand how that makes me feel. Every private moment that I ever thought I had is a lie now. Everything is ruined. Splintered and crushed like that tiny transmitter he stomped under his muddy heel.

And knowing that I can't leave, that even if I tried I'd be snatched back just like last time… It's too much. It's too much to think about. I can't get my head around it.

I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I've got all this pointless anger bubbling around inside me and nowhere to put it. I can't just call Daddy and accuse him of watching over me like I was his prisoner, right? I can't just call Gianna and complain that my escape plan failed miserably just like she said it would, right? And I certainly can't tell her that now that I'm stuck here, married off, end of the chapter, close the book… I can't just tell her that this supposed marriage is what it is, right?

Crazytown. Absolute crazytown. Population: three.

And the only people who seem to understand just how crazy this is are me and Roman. Alek keeps wandering around my house looking like he just got an all access pass to Disneyland. He's grinning and bouncing around like an absolute jackass, and he is really getting on my nerves. Every time he sees me, he gives me this long, simmering look, like I'm just gonna fall into his arms and play house, just like that.

Well, I have got news for him.

But Roman, I think he gets the picture. He's barely muttered a word since he dumped his crappy cardboard boxes in the middle of my nice, white bench in my bedroom. My bedroom. Mine. If he thinks he is sleeping up there, then I don't know what. I'll sleep on the couch. That's it. I’ll lock myself in the basement.

Oh my God. Can I really spend my whole life like this?

I keep thinking that somebody's going to come in and save me. But then there's nobody. At first, I couldn't believe that Alek was telling me the truth. Nuncio was just gone? Just like that? But apparently he was right. I guess when the priest said man and wife, Daddy figured he was done with me.