My Masters' Nightmare, Season 1 / Episode 14 (10 page)

“
No, nothing like that. She used
to strap me so hard I was left with welts and bruises. She also
hated me being around and would constantly tell me how useless and
pathetic I was.”

Her eyes widened. “Your own
mother?”

“
Sì
.”

“
But, what about your
father? Why didn’t
he stop it?”

“
He didn’t know. He was always
away with work. She would also make sure my injuries could be
hidden under clothes, and because I was so scared of her, I never
told him. Though, school discovered it once. I got a huge strapping
because of it.”

“
Why d
idn’t the school take it to the
authorities?’

“
Because we’re
mafia.”

“
True. I remember many of the
teachers treated us with kid gloves. I think they were scared of
us.”

I nodded, having experienced
it
. “Though,
my auntie Concetta found out about the abuse. She almost killed my
mother over it. I think she only stopped when she saw me by the
stairs watching. I still remember what she said to my mother. It
was the weirdest thing. She told her that she would pay for hurting
her baby boy.”

Camila frowned.
“
Her
baby
boy?”

I nodded. “My auntie always
told me she wished she could raise me instead of my awful mother.
She was so nice to me. She often called me
baby boy
, though it was the first time she’d
called me hers. But in the end, my auntie wasn’t able to take
revenge. The next day your
famiglia
shot my parents dead.”

“
I thought another
famiglia
was
responsible.”

“
They were set up. If anything,
the
Padre
probably ordered the hit.”

“
But, I was told he met you when
you moved here.”

“
No. The first time I saw him
was at Sunday mass. I still remember him telling my mother that she
was truly blessed by God to have an angel in her presence. A few
days later her and my father were gunned down, and I was sent to my
uncle’s house. Then your uncle came over to console me, pretending
he was there to help me get through my parents’ deaths. Not long
after that, he was helping himself to me.”

Camila stared at me, her eyes
sorrowful. “You’ve never known happiness, have you?”

“
I had moments of
happiness with my father.”

“
You said he was hardly
around.”

“
When he was, I treasured
those moments.”

“
And since he
died?”

I grimaced.

“
Not even one
moment of
happiness?”

“
I’d thought
I had it with Sophia, but she
deceived me.”

Her face hardened. “That woman
is a
troia
; she doesn’t deserve you.”

I smiled sadly. “Who deserves me and my
craziness, then?”

She raised her chin. “I don’t, but I want
to.”

“
You hardly know me, Camila,
a
nd when you
do, you’ll either become obsessed with me or you’ll find a stronger
man and cheat on me. That’s what women do.”

“
How many have cheated on
you?”

“
Just Sophia.”

“
You shouldn’t judge all
wo
men
because of one cheat.”

“
The other option isn’t good
either. All the rest became obsessed with me, ending up dead or
sold into slavery, or in Bianca’s case, beaten to a
pulp.”

She grimaced at Bianca’s
name.
“So,
you don’t believe you’ll ever find someone who will
stay?”

“
No. I’ll probably end up in
a
mental
asylum. Anyway, I’m getting cold.” I headed for the wardrobe,
stopping at the sound of footsteps behind me. I turned around,
finding Camila staring at me strangely. “What?”

“
I want to look after
you.”

“
I don’t need looking
after.”

“
You just said you’ll
probably end up in
an asylum, which means you need looking after. I want to do
that.”

“
Why?”

“
I want to fix
you.”

“
You can’t fix me;
I’m completely
broken.”

“
Let me try.”

“
Only the other week
you couldn’t stand
me. Why the sudden change?”

“
You couldn’t stand me
either. And it’s because I actually got to know you.”

I frowned. “Are
you becoming
obsessed with me?”

“
No, you’re just fascinating,
not to mention I’m widely attracted to you. And,” she smiled,
“you’re fantastic in bed.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Guess I’ll take
that as a compliment.”

“
You should
. And I’ll tell you another
reason why I want you: I love bad boys.”

I laughed. “Are you serious?”

“
Sì.
You’re even badder than
Frano.”

“
And
you’re delusional. Guess my craziness
is contagious.”

She moved in closer, wrapping
her arms around my waist. “
Sì
, you’ve infected me, which means we have to stick
together.” She pushed up and kissed my lips.

Wrapping my arms around her, I kissed her
back, pulling her hard against me. She let out a startled cry. I
released her, wondering what I’d done wrong. She went to say
something, then she dropped to her knees, taking my cock into her
mouth. I looked down at her, confused by her strange behavior. My
brain clicked over, remembering she’d mentioned that the soldier
had tried to rape her.

I ran a hand over her still wet
hair
.
“Camila, stop.”

She removed my cock from her mouth and
looked up at me. “Don’t you like it?”

“
I do.
I just don’t want you to feel
obligated, especially after what the soldier did to
you.”

“
Don’t mention him again.
I just want to
forget what he did.”

“
You sure you don’t want to talk
about it? It could help.”

“
Do you want to talk about
the
Padre
and Alberto?”

“
They raped me, not
attempted to.”

She pushed to her feet. “The soldier raped
me twice.”

My eyes widened. “You just
said—”

“
Words spewed out of my mouth
yesterday. I was still in shock.”

Anger shot through
me
. “The
fucking
bastardo!
You should’ve told me. I would’ve fucking killed him for
you.”

“
He threatened your life
as well as Frano’s
and Andriena’s. I didn’t think I had a choice.”

“
Andriena wasn’t here
yesterday.”

“
She was here the first time he
raped me.”

Noise came from outside, the sound of
footsteps approaching the room. A knock resounded against the door.
“Jagger, we need to talk to you.”

“
Let me get dressed.” I grabbed
some pants and jumped into them. “Put on your clothes,” I said to
Camila.

Once we were both dressed, I went to the
door. One of the Landi soldiers was standing on the other side with
a stern expression. “What’s wrong?” I asked, wishing I could rip
into him. But what had happened to Camila wasn’t his fault, so I
kept my temper in check. Plus, I didn’t have a chance against him.
He was at least a head taller, while his shoulders were monstrous,
the man nothing but muscle.

“
My colleagues and I have to
leave,” the soldier said.

“
Why?” I asked, happy we were
finally being released.

“
My Don needs all his soldiers
to return for something that doesn’t concern you.” His eyes moved
to Camila. “And now we know the Donatelli woman isn’t with Frano,
she can come with us.’

“
No, she’s
mine.”

The soldier returned his gaze
to me. “First she was Frano’s, now she’s yours. I think your
famiglia
are playing my Don
for a fool.”

“
She’s in my bedroom, isn’t
she?”

“
Fucking is one
thing—”

“
It’s more than sex.
S
he’s mine,
so she can’t go with you.”

“
My Don only refrained from
killing her because of his friendship with Frano. You, Jagger, are
not his friend.” He pushed past me, heading for Camila.

She ran for the bathroom, slamming the
door on him, her voice crying for me to save her.

I stormed over to the man. “Leave
now!”

“
Find someone else to
fuck,
puttano
,” he said, not bothering to face me, as though I wasn’t
even a threat. He kicked the door open. Camila let out a high
pitched scream in response.

I went for my bedside cabinet and grabbed
my gun.

He turned around with
a struggling Camila
in his arms. “Put that down, Jagger, or my colleague will kill
you.” His eyes moved past me.

I looked over my shoulder at the soldier
in the doorway, his gun pointed at me. I threw the weapon on the
bed and held up my hands. “I can make it worth your time to let me
keep her. How much money do you want?”

“
Our Don has given us an order
to bring her in, so we will do just that.”

“
He will kill her and my unborn
child.”

“
First it was Frano’s
child—”

“
I know, we fucking lied and for
good reason. No one cares about me, therefore Frano said what he
thought would keep Camila alive for my sake. So, please leave her
be. You can’t take both my woman and child from me.”

“
An order is an
order.”

“
Then take me with you. I will
talk to Pedro myself.”

“
If you come with us, you’ll
only see her die like her
sister Ghita. She will be executed along with
another Donatelli we captured.”

“
Who is it?” Camila cried
out.

“
Your brother Nino.”

Camila’s
eyes went wide with horror.
Then all hell broke loose. She let out the biggest scream I’d ever
heard. She rammed her fist back into the soldier’s groin. The man
let go of her and stumbled back in agony. My eyes shot to the other
solider in the doorway. Realizing he was going to shoot Camila, I
launched myself at her, knocking her down as the man fired off a
shot. I looked to my side, seeing the soldier Camila had attacked
fall to the floor, the bullet hitting him by mistake. I grabbed the
gun he’d dropped and slid it under me, still keeping my body
covering Camila’s.

“
Get off her, Jagger!”
the other soldier
yelled.

I gripped onto the gun, then whipped
around, aiming it at the soldier. He had his gun pointed at my
face.

“
Put the gun down, Jagger,
or I’ll shoot you,” he said.

I fired
off a shot, not caring if he
did.

8

CAMILA

I screamed as a gun fired,
terrified that Jagger had been shot. I looked up,
beyond relieved to
see him still alive and well, the smoking gun in his hand. My eyes
moved to the soldier, his shot out face horrifying. Jagger yanked
me to my feet, then swung around as Teodora appeared in the
doorway, pointing his gun at her. She screamed and took
off.

“
Teodora!” I yelled, pulling
free from Jagger.

He grabbed my arm.
“Let the
stupid
troia
go,” he said, yanking me over to the door.

“
No, I need
to—”

“—
do as I say.
” He shoved me to the side of
the door. “Don’t move unless you want to die,” he whispered. He
raised his gun as footsteps approached our room. A second or two
later, a soldier poked his head into the room, getting a bullet in
his temple for his trouble. “That’s three,” Jagger said. “You can
now get your niece.”

I stepped over the corpse and ran out of
the room, yelling Teodora’s name.

“
Zia!
” she replied from downstairs,
calling me auntie.

I descended the
stairs
,
seeing her heading towards me. “Jagger’s not going to hurt you,” I
said.

Bursting into tears, she
threw herself into
my arms. “I thought he was going to kill you,” she
sobbed.

“
Well, at least you had no
delusions of trying to save me.”

She pulled back. “I’m sorry, I was
scared.”

I wiped her cheeks. “No need to be sorry.
If he was truly going to kill me, I would’ve wanted you to run. He
is crazy.”