Page 24 of The Beast Who Broke Me
CHAPTER 10
CALIGULA
It’s almostas terrifying for me to step back into that basement as it was to be dangled into space five flights up. I didn’t realize how badly it affected me, being kept down here—both in the dark and in the light, so I could see the mockery of my heritage—until right now.
I knew I never wanted to come back down here again. But I also knew I’d have to, if I wanted to bring Damiano Orsini to heel. The dinner was a soft leash, seeing if I could make him sit, eat, play nice in front of the household.
Now it’s time to test how strong my hold is.
He’s staring at me after my announcement, surprise on his face, though he tries to hide it. “What did you say?”
“I want you,” I say slowly, “to put that collar around my neck and lock it shut.”
I cross to the bed, sheets still crumpled and stale from when I became feverish. I take a seat on the bed and wait with an air of patience.
This whole place is a curious juxtaposition to the man himself. The intricacy of it—the stolen heritage, the photographs, the look-but-don’t-touch torture of being chained to a bed and unable to reach the set piece… It all suggests a capacity for psychological cruelty that doesn’t match Damiano’s usual approach to pain. He prefers action over thought. He’d rather hit something than lash it with his tongue.
But that’s where the longer-term cruelties lie; I learned that lesson from my grandfather. He only ever hit me once. Much worse was the way he used to pour scorn and derision all over me in every conversation. There was a day when I was eleven, and my father and Nonna Mellie were out, when he reduced me to tears with insults alone.
“Run away and cry,” he’d sneered at me.
I did. But it was the last time I cried until Nonna Mellie died, and even then, I did it in secret. At my father’s funeral I was too shellshocked to even feel anything.
“How did you come up with all this?” I ask as Dami finally arrives next to the bed.
He’s looking down at me. I have to tilt my head back to meet his eyes, which hold that unsettling hunger I’ve been seeing since the warehouse.
Hunger for me? Or for my death?
Either way, it’s something I can use.
“Come up with what?” he growls.
“This place.” I wave my hand around the room. “What made you think of doing it in the first place?”
I’m not really expecting an answer. But I get one. “When I was seventeen, your grandfather sold off his watch collection.” He shifts his weight, and I’m keenly aware of the sheer mass of him: the width of his shoulders blocking the light, his shadow falling across me. “I went to the auction even though I wasn’t a buyer. I just wanted to know how much they’d go for. If the Clemenza name would add any value.”
“And how did that lead to this?” I nod around the room again.
“Showed me how much money I’d need to go after your father. Gave me a goal to work toward. And then one time, some architectural magazine did a piece on that townhouse of yours.”
He still hasn’t sat down. And he hasn’t talked this much since…maybe ever. But I suppose everyone likes to talk about their personal obsessions.
I remember the magazine he means. Nonna Mellie refused to participate, so one of my cousins was brought in to stand beside Nonno Lou and play the part of adoring granddaughter. Dad and Nonna Mellie took me to Coney Island, where I ate too much ice cream.
It was a good day. It always was when it was just the three of us.
“I saw all that money,” Damiano goes on in a low voice. “All that money built on betrayal and blood. And I thought—why shouldtheyhave everything? Why shouldn’t I have it instead?” His hands, those massive, tattooed, dangerous hands, twitch like he wants to grab me.
“And now you do have everything we once had,” I say calmly. “But it wasn’t really about money, Dami. Was it?”
An ugly look passes over his face. I need to be careful here. Careful he doesn’t forget the stakes.
“Put the collar on me,” I tell him. He picks it up easily enough, but he doesn’t come any closer to me. The chain clinks and shifts on the floor. “Put it on me,” I repeat.
“Why? So you can tell the Morellis I been treating you bad?”
“This is not a trick. I want you to put that collar on me and lock it.”
