Blood for my Rose |• Crimson Rose series✔️

Chapter 25

Switzerland
Zurich

Humiliated, trembling and naked, Rose swayed from side to side as she sprinted away from Rocco. Hot tears ran down her eyes, something Mauricio couldn't see because his eyes were locked on his father's stupid manifestation of fury.

Was the man mad? How dare he put Rose in a position that left her fighting for her release? How dare he undress her and humiliate her to this extent...?

"Father, we spoke about this already, no?" Mauricio stepped in, avoiding the broken glass on the floor, the liquid as well. "You said—"

"Quit it, I know what I said," Rocco answered back and rose to his feet. "Last time I checked, I make the rules, no?" He tucked his hands into his robe pockets, after tying it, and fixed his son a hostile stare. "What problem do you have with me being with her?"

Rose let out a labored breath and found Mauricio's arm but didn't hold it more than a second before she went and stood behind him, covering herself completely from Rocco's line of sight.

On the flip side of who she'd always thought of herself, it was in this moment she knew just how fragile and incapable she was; when she couldn't dare spy on, much less look Rocco in the eye.

"She's young." Mauricio maintained like that was the main reason he couldn't stand for it. "Scared. And kidnapped. What other reason is there?"

Rocco laughed. A laughter that came from a place of discovery. Perhaps realization. And he just couldn't stop laughing. "Get over the Italian, that relationship ended centuries ago."

"What are you talking about?"

Enraged, Rocco snapped at him, "I see the way you look at her!" He intentionally knocked over a small flower pot from its stand, causing it to shatter into pieces on the ground. Mauricio quickly took a few steps back to avoid getting hit by the shards of ceramic.

Clenching his fist, Rocco Sandoval spun around a circle, seizing himself from propelling forward to beat the crap out of his son. "I always told you not to get tangled up with her. Especially not emotionally!"

Mauricio swallowed hard as his nose flared up, angered. "I do not love her," he denied and continued, "Like you said, the relationship ended a long time ago. Long enough for me to move on."

Maybe Rose believed this guise, but not Rocco. He was Mauricio's father and knew a lot more about him than she could ever. He'd watched him crawl, learn to talk, play hide and seek, and chase after women. Now, Rocco saw that look in his boy's eyes, the one he had seen in his own eyes when he was hopelessly in love with a woman. But the fact that he was able to get out of that hopelessness meant his son could equally do it.

At Mauricio, Rocco gave a side glance that held doubt, suspicion, envy. "Do not lie to me, boy!"

"Do you even have any respect for yourself?"

The unduly possessive Rocco handled that question as a rhetorical statement and snorted to avoid the confrontation.

"Why the fuck did you even kidnap her and bring her here? You could have bought a house, taken her to an apartment in the city or any other city, maybe the cathouse, for all I care"—his voice began to weaver from a cold undertone to a mordant yell—"There were a thousand other options, one of which would have given you privacy. But you chose to bring her here. Here where I live. Here where I'd see her. And you expect me to be fine, knowing you want to have her—a woman that belonged to me—right where I'd hear her scream."