Chapter 66 - SIXTY SIX

Chapter 66: Chapter SIXTY SIX

ANGEL

"Don’t touch her." Vincenzo’s voice was lethal. The women froze mid-action.

He moved between them and me, his hands settling on my shoulders. Firm. Unshakable.

"I’ve got her," he said. "Just set it up."

"Yes, Sir"

I tried to twist away but Vincenzo pressed me down into the mattress.

"Please don’t," I whispered. "Please."

"You did this to yourself." His voice was gentle again but his hands held me completely in place. "You won’t eat. You won’t drink. What choice do I have?"

"Let me die then. Let me die and go to him!"

Once again I saw his eyes flash with something deadly as they always did whenever I mentioned Damien.

"You will never speak of such things again. Understand?" The pressure on my shoulder tightened.

I couldn’t respond when I felt the sharp sting of the needle entering my arm, a low sob broke out of my mouth.

"Shh." His hand stroked my hair while the IV line fed fluids into my vein. "It’s okay. It’s for your own good."

But nothing about this was good.

I was being kept alive against my will. Fed like livestock. Maintained like a doll undergoing repair.

For what? For whom?

Not for me.

***

More days passed in a blur of pink walls and Vincenzo’s constant, suffocating presence.

I felt his attention following me even when I closed my eyes.

He bathed me when I didn’t bother doing it myself.

I fought each time, but he easily won anyway.

Now, I was sitting in the tub. Vincenzo ran the water, rolling up his shirt to his sleeves while I looked around what used to be my old bathroom.

The walls still had stickers on them, all my favourite hair and skin products were still arranged carefully in the right spot like they’d been waiting for me.

The water was too hot but I didn’t complain, because I didn’t want to talk to him.

"Warm enough?" he asked.

Silence.

I jerked at the first touch of his hand. It felt wrong.

Gentle. Too careful and I wanted to scream and claw my own skin off.

These weren’t the right hands. The right hands knew exactly how much pressure to use. The right hands left marks that meant something. These hands touched me like I was made of glass, and I hated it, because I wasn’t glass — I was steel that Damien had forged in fire, and Vincenzo’s softness felt like an insult to everything I’d survived to become.

’YOU ARE LETTING SOMEONE ELSE TOUCH YOU,’ Damien’s voice whispered in my head, clear as if he were standing right beside me. ’YOU LET HIM PUT HIS HAND ON WHAT IS MINE’

I couldn’t stop Vincenzo. I was failing Damien.

This was a slow, gentle violation of everything Damien had built inside me — this had no end. It just kept going, one soft touch at a time, dissolving me.

’YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DISOBEY’ The voice snarled in my ears.

I nodded, whimpering. I deserved whatever he would have done. I deserved the whip and the gag and the cuffs and hours of edging until I lost my mind. I deserved all of it because I was sitting in another man’s bathtub letting another man’s hands move across skin that didn’t belong to me anymore.

Punishment. I deserved punishment.

"Angel? What’s wrong?" Vincenzo’s voice broke through, and when my eyes snapped open, I found him watching intently.

"You!" I snarled, my voice sounded hollow as I heard it for the first time in days.

"Daddy isn’t here to punish me because you touched me. It’s because of you! I should have been wearing his collar," I heard myself say. My voice sounded far away, detached from my body. The words poured out of a place I couldn’t control.

"He was going to give it to me. I was going to be his forever."

And the loss of that collar — a piece of metal I’d never even touched — hurt. My chest was hurting so bad.

Vincenzo’s hands stilled on my skin, he didn’t stop me from talking. Even though he didn’t like hearing Damien’s name, he still let me speak about him.

As I spewed my hatred for him, Vincenzo’s fingers worked shampoo through my hair, and the touch was so gentle, everything Damien’s never was.

Damien would have gripped my hair hard enough to hurt and reminded me who I belonged to while he washed me.

He would have made me feel owned even in something as mundane as bathing. His hands would have been rough, possessive, claiming.

This felt like a gentle erasure of how Damien possessed my body. Each pass of Vincenzo’s fingers through my hair was removing Damien’s fingerprints from my scalp.

When he was done, he pulled my naked body from the water and wrapped the towel around me.

His hands settled on my shoulders as he turned me to face him.

His eyes were dark. Unreadable.

"He broke you," Vincenzo said quietly."But that’s okay. I will put you back together. Soon, you’ll be my daughter again,"

The promise in those words made my whole body shudder despite the warmth of the bath.

He carried me bridal style back to my room, settling me on my bed. His gaze lingered on me and back to the IV stand that was still lurking on my bedside like a threat.

"Are you ready to eat now, or do I send for them?"

I didn’t want both. But I think I hated being pricked by needles more. So with distaste in my mouth, I muttered one word. "Eat,"

Something passed through his eyes, it looked almost like relief. I shut my eyes, not wanting to even look at him. A small victory for him, probably. One spoonful closer to the girl he wanted me to be.

A thought came to mind.

For the past few days, I hadn’t seen anyone else since waking up here. Not a single person besides Vincenzo and the doctors.

Where was his wife?

Jillian.