Broken Princess (The Bianchi Chronicles Book 1), page 3
“Yes, but it’s best if you don’t.”
“That’s such bullshit, Sin. I’m not some delicate fucking flower that needs protecting.”
I consider her words, and what she’s risking helping us before answering, “It was Massimo De Luca.”
Her face crumples in shock, looking crushed by the revelation.
“You’d better make the fucker pay,” she declares, refusing to meet my eye as she fiddles with the electrode placements. “Grab the scissors from the crash cart. I need this hoodie off to assess the injuries and figure out where the fuck to start with this knife. I’m promoting you from Enzo’s Bitch to mine.”
I smile at her coarseness; it’s one of my favourite things about her. Emergency or not, she’s always got the warmth of an ice cube. It’s familiar and reassuring, especially in a crisis. I need that right now. My control is hanging by a thread.
She snatches the scissors, cutting away the hoodie carefully, exposing the knife wound. My breath catches at the marred terrain across her collarbones and arms.
Dozens of tiny angry slashes obscure her skin. But that’s only the beginning. Doc Em cuts away her tank and I’m shocked by the extent of the bruising. Angry dark red and purple contusions cast dark shadows over fading blue-green bruises. From out of her upper abdomen, the knife handle stands proud. It’s lower than I’d thought.
“I wish we could x-ray this,” Doc Em mumbles to herself. Turning to me, she adds, “It’s low enough that it looks like it missed the heart and lungs, and the angle looks like we may have got lucky; it doesn’t appear to have nicked anything vital. Have you got any O-neg on hand?”
I nod, heading to the refrigerator at the back of the room and return with what she needs. She puts in multiple lines, hooking up the blood first, then fluids, and injects what I assume are antibiotics and painkillers. Palpating the area around the knife with great care, she takes a deep breath, collecting herself before removing it swiftly with the precision of a surgeon. There’s bleeding, but it looks minimal.
“That was an enormous risk,” I bite out through gritted teeth.
“Oh, exactly when did you attend med school? I know what I’m doing, Sin. Wind your neck in, right now.”
Seizing instruments from the top of the crash cart, Doc Em studies the wound, grabbing a suture needle and thread and throwing in stitches where needed. It looks like Aurora was lucky, but then I shake my head in disgust. There’s nothing about her condition that could be called lucky. It’s a fucking tragedy.
“How are her vitals? Are they normal? Her pulse has been consistent since the warehouse, but honest to God, I can’t figure out how. Look at the state of her.”
“Her pulse is good, but her oxygen is low, and her respiration is poor. I was concerned she had a collapsed lung, but from what I can see and hear, the knife hasn’t penetrated the lungs. She has multiple broken ribs, though. I’ll know more when I can get x-rays. How did you find her?”
“She was unconscious, tied to a chair. She regained consciousness once in the van but then passed straight out.”
“You’re right that she’s not exhibiting typical symptoms of shock,” she says in a hushed tone and a sorrowful look on her face. “What she endured, Sin. This wasn’t just a beating. Half these injuries appear to have occurred over days, if not weeks. And the scars… I can’t even begin to guess what’s been done to her. This is more than shock, Sin. I think she’s in a dissociative state. She’s completely shut down.”
I gaze down at Aurora as she lies motionless, the reassuring beep of the monitor the only clue that she’s still with us. “What can I do?”
Doc Em takes another deep breath and starts cutting away Aurora’s jeans, exposing more bruises, lacerations and scars. “We clean and treat every wound. You use butterfly strips for the small ones and leave the stitches to me. We get her as comfortable as possible and then I need a portable x-ray and an ultrasound machine. I don’t care how—you guys can steal them for all I care, but I need to know what’s going on internally. She’s not stable enough to move, but you need to understand this is a patch job. She’ll need extensive treatment over the coming weeks, preferably in a hospital.”
“Understood.”
It takes hours to tend to Aurora’s injuries. With every cut I clean, and butterfly-strip I apply, my rage grows. A molten fury I don’t think I’ve ever experienced before. Because next to every fresh cut is an existing scar. Cuts. Some deep, some shallow. Burns, some cigarette sized, others wide and gnarled like from a cigar. They run the entire length of her body, back and front, from her ankles to her wrists to her collarbone. The only places unscarred from injuries are places not easily concealed under clothes.
I look up at Doc Em—the most stoic person I know—and notice the tears trailing down her cheeks. Her shoulders betray her as a hitch runs through them, chasing the soft sob that escapes her. Being witness to what Aurora has endured is heart-rending.
“I’ll be back as often as I can without raising suspicion, but I need you to change the dressings on the deeper wounds daily, keep them clean and dry. You need to keep a close eye on her. Call me if anything changes. But I’m hopeful she’ll recover well.” She’s heading towards the door and turns back to look at me, adding quietly, “Sin… when she wakes up, I’ve got no idea what state she’ll be in… mentally. She’s going to need help. More help than I think you and your brothers can give her. What she’s been through…”
“I know. I understand what you’re saying,” I whisper.
She closes the door, her retreat marked by the soft footfalls up the stairs. Shuffling, exhausted, shell-shocked by what she’s seen. I call Enzo, putting him on speaker as I clean up the discarded packaging. We used nearly our whole stock of bandages and sutures. He picks up on the second ring.
“Boss, Doc Em’s got a shopping list for you, and we need to restock our supplies. I’ll text you the details, but we need it before she comes back. She said she didn’t care who you had to steal from—just get it.”
“I’ll get it done,” he replies solemnly. “What’s the update?”
“Shit, boss, it’s bad. What he did to her… it’s not like the other guy we found. It must have taken days.” I pause because I don’t know if I should say the rest. “That’s not all we found, Zo. He’s been doing this, judging by the scars, for years.” I’m met with a stony silence. “Are you guys done?” I prompt, attempting to divert his focus to something else.
“Just finished the BBQ, we’ll grab the supplies she needs and any additional stuff we need to stay at the safe house, and then we’ll be with you. What tech do you need from home to investigate this clusterfuck?”
“I have a lot here, but I’ll text you what I’m missing.” I take a moment and then add. “Grab as many pairs of sweats and T-shirts as you can from the house. She’ll need clothes she can wear over her bandages.”
“I’ll sort it, Sin,” he says before ending the call.
I grab the stool and pull it across the floor on its wheels. Taking up sentry at her shoulder, waiting for so many things. For Enzo to return, for her to wake up, and for my heart to stop pounding so loudly in my ears. My adrenaline is wearing off and an exhausted crash is inevitable.
I stare down, hypnotised by the rhythm of her shallow breaths. I hum to distract myself, which turns into a low tenor as I sink into a trance, zoning out as I sing the words my mother sang to me as a boy. In the background, the steady beep of the monitors reassures me she’s okay, and the longer I sing, the more pronounced the rise and fall of her breathing becomes.
As the song ends, I hear her sigh. One of her eyelids flutters open and she seizes my gaze.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. And drifts back into a sea of unconsciousness.
CHAPTER THREE
AURORA
This doesn’t feel the same as the other times I’ve drifted away. Normally I feel cold, and alone, and lost—right now I feel warm, and safe, and protected. It’s different, and in my experience, different is never good. You can’t trust different.
I can hear music. It’s soothing, but it moves, floating away only to return moments later. I wish it would stay. The low rumbling tones feel like they’re swaddling me. Protecting me from what always comes.
When I wake up, he’s always there, leering down at me. Marvelling at the tapestry of destruction he’s woven on me. Something was different this time, though. I know this time I’m not supposed to wake up. So why am I still here, trapped in my personal purgatory, tortured by my own thoughts?
I felt the knife go in. The searing agony wasn’t different from any other he’s inflicted, but the look in his eyes was like a goodbye.
One that pained him.
You could spend an eternity trying to figure out what goes on inside Max’s head and you’d still be no closer to understanding him. He’s a straight up psychopath. Or maybe I mean sociopath, because he can mask himself so well only I know the true depth of his depravity.
That’s why I retreat here. A place in my mind that protects me while he ravages my body.
When I dissociate, I’m numb except for occasional flashes—barrages of forced awareness. Memories that surface no matter how much I will them to the darkest recesses of my mind. When I’m here, I’m forced to face my fears and contemplate my cowardice. But it’s better than whatever reality Max is usually presenting me with.
I open the front door and step inside, finding him waiting for me in the entryway. With just one glance at his vacant eyes, I know what’s coming. He pounces, grabbing my hair and wrenching me inside while kicking the front door closed behind me. I’m hurled down on our unforgiving tile floor, and for a moment, I’m stunned, completely overwhelmed by the pain throbbing in my temple. He lurches forward and grabs my right ankle, dragging me towards the basement door.
Behind the basement door is where Max unleashes his beast. Something he hides from the rest of the world. The persona he presents is that of a ruthless Cosa Nostra prince. Maybe some would be afraid of that, but I grew up around plenty of monsters. When you think about it, I am my very own monster. I grew up tough. My father made sure I was strong enough to handle a life like this. Strong enough to run my own crew. And after my sister died, he was determined I would be indestructible.
I am a force to be reckoned with, in my own right—trained in multiple martial arts to varying degrees. There are very few people I can’t fend off and many I can leave in a ruined heap on the floor.
I used to fight. I used to kick and scream and bite. Hurting him—while satisfying my need for retribution—never stopped him. Screaming didn’t work, as no one ever heard me. And my cries only fuelled him. Strengthened him.
But the type of monster Max turned out to be, that’s an extraordinary beast. Despite my talents, every ounce of strength I have—I need it just to survive him.
I learned quickly that if I wanted to survive Max, I’d have to fight differently; protect myself. So, I hid in plain sight—floating away where he couldn’t reach me. The problem was, he discovered he enjoyed that more. Pushing me to a point of catatonia left him with a truly blank canvas. One he could play with for hours. Something on which he could hone his skills, improve his techniques. It was his ultimate pleasure and greatest reward.
Another memory forces its way to the front of my subconscious.
I’m strapped to the table, staring up at the bright surgeon’s light he had installed. From here I can see hundreds of tiny reflections of me, rivulets of crimson trailing down the sides of my body where the barbed wire has cut into my thighs and torso. He whispers in my ear how much he enjoys using me as his canvas, how he found the perfect doll, and how he’s never letting me go.
I can feel his icy fingers stroke a featherlight touch around my ankle, caressing the cuts. He brings them to his mouth and slides them past his lips. Groaning in satisfaction as he savours my blood, his dick straining at his fly as he does.
I was eighteen years old when I was told I was to marry Max. The prince and the princess, what a fairytale. My youthful naïveté had me thinking I was the luckiest woman on earth. This sophisticated older man, gorgeous by anyone’s standards, was going to be mine. I’d had a schoolgirl crush on him for years. Yes, he was once the enemy, but who wouldn’t find the forbidden enticing? Impossibly tall, with sun-kissed skin, dark blond hair topped with piercing blue eyes. Although you rarely saw both his eyes since his impeccably styled hair was long on top and fell forward across his face. I thought it made him look mysterious.
Things that seemed so attractive before, now remind me of every sinister aspect of him. His voice, which I once thought was commanding, now sounds like a venomous sneer. Just the rasp of it makes me shrink away with dread. I used to gaze into his eyes, finding depths of the Mediterranean Sea, but all I see now are the faded hues of icy barren glaciers. The curtain of hair that swept across his face, once so alluring and mysterious, now looks like a mask he hides his monster behind.
Max De Luca has been controlling my life for so long that this haven within me is the only place I have any agency over… anything.
I’m chained to the wall by the heavy iron collar, eyes covered with a blindfold. I can hear him pacing at the back of the room. There’s the occasional hitch in his step. Like he’s jumping. Like a prize fighter pumping himself up before a bout. There’s a quick shuffle before his icy claw is wrenching me down to the floor. His knee pins my chest to the ground while he unlocks the collar and releases me. I try to take my first full breath in hours, but it’s stolen from me as he grasps me by the neck and drags me across to his workbench, throwing me down. The edge of the table cutting into my hip.
I’m bent over, my hands pulled forwards and strapped to the table with thick, rough leather cuffs. Ripping the blindfold from my face, he grabs my chin, wrenching my head back so I’m forced to meet his eyes.
“You never cease to impress me, wife. No one has ever withstood me. You truly are the best gift I’ve ever received.”
He releases my chin, and my eyes take in the view of his neatly hung tools on the back wall. I hear the clink as he undoes his belt. That’s one of my cues to leave, to slip away. But before I’ve fully checked out, I hear…
“Not only are you the perfect toy, but you are also such a dutiful wife. You will be the most spectacular mother. Breeding you, principessa, is my fucking pleasure…”
I feel the first ruthless thrust and then I withdraw to my haven.
Once introduced, our parents afforded us a long engagement—for an arranged marriage. Partially because I lost my mind at the suggestion of giving up my newly formed crew, but mostly because agreeing the terms of a merger this size takes a long damn time. Merging the two largest Cosa Nostra families on the East Coast was an involved process. Trying to agree the terms of truces, carve out territories for different business interests and solidifying hierarchies for our crews was an arduous task and stressed the already tenuous partnership.
If they’d invited just one woman to mediate the negotiations, they’d have resolved it in half the time. But I wasn’t about to point that out. I needed the extra time. Leading a crew had been my dream for years.
They let me live my dream until the day I got married.
We were engaged for three years, and we dated. Hell, I even believed I was in love. The only problem is, I fell in love with an illusion. And by the time I knew who I was married to, it was too late.
“Did you think you could keep this from me, principessa?”
He throws the pregnancy test across the room. I hear it ricochet off the wall then skitter across the floor. I stay silent. Any answer will be the wrong answer. He walks around the chair I’m bound to, pacing back and forth.
“You know, my father has insisted for so many years that your only worth is as a vessel to further our lineage. He promised that the moment this happened it would fill me with a pride beyond anything I could imagine; bringing another De Luca into the world.” He pauses, like he’s thinking about this. He tracks a hand down my neck, through the valley between my breasts, and stops at my navel, stroking it thoughtfully.
“I did so enjoy breeding you, princess.” His eyes flick to mine. “But my father overestimated my attachment to the De Luca name. He was wrong. Nothing compares to the pleasure you give me… and I will not share you. Not with anyone.”
Without warning, he strikes my stomach hard. Balling his fists, he lands blow after blow as I drift further and further away.
I’ve been married for four years. That’s forty-eight months he’s owned me. Two hundred and eight weeks he’s experimented on his favourite toy. For one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight days, I’ve wondered what will trigger the beast today. And every minute of every day I’ve fought with every fibre of my being to make sure I can do enough to make sure I always wake when he’s finished with me.
I’ve asked myself a million different times in an infinite number of ways. Why do you stay?
The answer is simply—for the greater good. My abominable marriage is the keystone of an unstable bridge between two warring territories. Without it, everything crumbles. If I left, Massimo De Luca would burn down the world. Not out of an all-consuming love for me, but driven by a burning hellfire of pure evil.
One day I’ll figure out what I need to destroy him, not simply survive him.
For now, the soft, deep melody has returned, and it pushes my consciousness out of my safe space.
I try to resist.
I need to stay here where I can protect myself, but it’s no use. I’m forced out of my head and lulled into a deep and restful sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR
ENZO
Iopen the med-room door and find Sinclair slumped over the bed, snoring. Head lying on the bed at Aurora’s side with one arm outstretched, holding her hand. I wheel in the equipment Doc Em requested and leave Sin as he is. Standing on the other side of the bed, I study Aurora.
