Chapter 97 - NINETY SEVEN

Chapter 97: Chapter NINETY SEVEN

ANGEL

My heart seized at those words, my blood trickling cold. I’d have preferred he did anything to me. Hit me. Screamed at me. Fucked me so hard I couldn’t walk for a week. Any of it. All of it. But not this.

How could he be so cruel? Painting me the horrifying picture of a whole night without his warmth.

A whole night of nothing.

He knew how much this would break me, it was the only punishment I couldn’t take, Daddy knew this, and yet he was doing this to me. Using it like a weapon. Aiming it right at the softest, most terrified part of me.

"Fine, I’ll do the stupid cleaning, satisfied?" I stood up with my pride somewhere around my ankles.

He returned to his seat casually and resumed sipping coffee like he hadn’t just gutted me with five sentences.

I walked to the supply closet, grabbed the mop, and came back.

I mopped the orange juice with jerky, furious strokes. Each one angrier than the last, smearing the mess more than cleaning because my hands were shaking and my vision was blurred with tears that kept falling.

"Slower," Vincenzo said from his chair. "You’re just spreading it around."

I slowed down, my teeth were grinding so hard my jaw ached.

"The glass, Angel. That’s where you’re meant to start with,"

My lips tightened to suppress a very loud scream of me ’hating him’ as I put the mop down and got on my knees where I started picking up the glass shards one by one.

The tile was cold and wet under my bare knees. Each shard I picked up felt like a piece of my dignity being collected and thrown in the bin.

Vincenzo watched the entire time. I could feel his gaze on my bare legs, on my ass barely covered by his shirt as I crawled across the kitchen floor.

"By the table leg," he said. "You missed one."

I reached for it.

"Near the fridge."

I crawled to the fridge, my knees dragging across cold, damp tile.

"Under the table."

I still couldn’t believe how miserable my life had become. I was on my hands and knees under the kitchen table, picking up shards like some sort of twisted Cinderella while my Daddy sat above me making sure I didn’t miss a single piece.

A shard bit slightly into my palm, I stared at it wondering if Daddy would think I was pathetic if I got hurt. Maybe he’d regret not taking his family’s side. Then, he’d scoop me up and carry me to the bathroom and tend to the wound with gentle hands and soft apologies. Maybe the blood would remind him that I was fragile. That I was his. That I needed protecting, not punishing.

"Don’t even think about it."

Vincenzo’s voice was right above me. I looked up to see that he wasn’t even staring at me. His eyes were on his phone, scrolling casually.

Yet he had known without even looking at me. And his tone held a warning so absolute it made the hair on my arms stand up.

"If I see you bleeding," he continued quietly, still not looking at me, "I’m going to punish you. And not the kind of punishment you enjoy." He looked at me then, lowering his phone, and the look in his eyes told me exactly what kind of punishment he meant.

I felt like banging my head somewhere, but he probably wouldn’t allow that, either.

I was fucking miserable.

I put the shard down and finished cleaning.

When the floor was clean and the glass was in the bin and the mop was back in the closet, I stood.

My knees were red and sore, my palms were damp. My pride was somewhere six feet under now.

"Come here," Vincenzo said, he was done with his coffee now. His voice was different, the edge was gone. An offering.

"Why?" I snarled, unable to keep the fury from my voice, "I already got it cleaned like the good little pathetic slave that you made me, want to give me a collar now?" I snapped in a voice mean and laced thickly with venom.

Vincenzo’s eyes darkened and hardened at that. I saw it register — the word slave, and collar.

"Angel, come to me, you’ve been a good girl, let Daddy reward you now."

Something in his voice broke through the anger I was holding up. This time the tears came, welling up from somewhere deep and bruised.

I walked towards him, when I was within reach, his fingers snagged around my wrist, jerking me to his thigh and then his arms wrapped around me. "You’re so horrible," I whispered, my voice muffled against his naked chest. "I knew she was going to change you. I knew it. The second another woman walked into this house you were going to —" I couldn’t finish.

My chin was trembling, my nose was burning. And my reward was delivered without permission.

His lips crashed against mine, muffling my grievance.

His lips were gentle. Too gentle for the emotions overwhelming me. His tongue warred with mine softly. Almost reassuringly, like he was telling me that he was still here... Still mine.

His hand cupped the back of my skull and pulled me deeper. My tears smeared against his stubble and I almost hated how fast my body surrendered. My anger just — dissolved. Completely drained, all it took was his mouth and my whole body forgot what I’d been screaming about.

I was hopelessly, disgustingly pathetic for this man. We were both breathless when he pulled back.

"You picked her side," I accused but there was no fight left in it.

His thumb traced my lower lip. Swollen from the kiss. His eyes followed the movement, dark and heavy-lidded.

"I don’t have a side, Angel." His voice was soft, tender. "There’s no side. There’s you. And just you."

"It didn’t feel like that when you even wanted me to apologize to her!"