STOLEN || 18+ (Monsters #3)

.29. One mistake

"Look at everyone else.
They are merely words,
while you, you are poetry."

- unknown.

. . .

Leyla

"This is so pretty," I whispered under my breath, looking around the glass sunroom. It was beautiful with couches arranged in it with many plants.

"You like it?" Fabian asked, a small smile on his lips. He stood there, his hands in the pockets of his trousers, his white shirt stretching over his body. A few buttons of his shirt were undone, and the sleeves folded up.

I nodded. "Yes."

He walked closer and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me to his hard body, and twirled a strand of my hair around his finger. "You can explore the whole estate. We have some more small buildings around the land."

I nodded. "Okay," I whispered. His eyes skimmed over my face.

"You're pretty," he muttered. "Fucking gorgeous, you know that?" He tucked the strand he was playing with behind my ear.

I blushed. Even though I was still on the edge, I could not help how my body reacted to him, to them. They were pure muscle and power. I used to not believe that attraction to big mean dudes was an actual thing, but they proved me wrong.

His lips pressed to my neck, right on one of the many marks he had left. "We have to go," he said, lips skimming over my jaw. Push him away. "We'll be back for lunch. Be a good girl, hm?"

He walked away, leaving me flustered and cursing under my breath.

. . .

Rosa's curious eyes followed me as I walked inside the kitchen, they lingered on my wrists and I could have sworn relief flashed through then but she blanked her face in a second.

I opened the fridge.

"We have chocolates!" She said and then snapped her lips shut. Then, in a professional voice, she said, "We have a few pastries, too, I think. And if you want, we have some chips and things like that, too. I hear Americans like those things. Mrs Creed said they do."

I looked at her. So now she was trying to talk to me?

She avoided my eyes. "Sirs said that I could talk to you. Said you might want to talk to someone."

"Did they ask you to tell them everything I said?"

She bit her lip, not answering.

I took a chocolate bar out of the fridge. It had something written on it in Italian but it looked expensive.

I sat on a stool. She was kneading dough, her hands working expertly.

"My mother used to say I'd make my husband happy," she said. "Because I cook well."

"My mother used to say 'if it's cooking which a man looks for in a woman, he deserves to eat take out his whole life'," I set my elbows on the island.

She giggled. "Sounds like a wise woman, Miss Campbell."

I smiled softly. "She was."

Her eyes widened. "I'm sorry-"

I waved her apology off. "It as years ago. Yes, the wound is still there, but not quite as painful."

She hummed. "I don't know if my mother is alive," she said hesitantly. "She sold me to a man for drugs and then I ended up in the system..." System? "I ran away."

"How did you end up here?"

She sighed. "Dante Valentino said I'd be safe here. The man who bought me looks for me still."

They like to play with common women like us.

"Dante..." I said. "The Valentinos are triplets yet Fabiano and Giovanni seem close."

Her eyes roamed the kitchen as if expecting someone to jump out. "Bad things happened between them. That's all I know."

"Did Dante do something to you?"

Her use lifted to me. "He likes to play." Her hands worked harsher on the dough. "That's all that they all do. Mafia men. They play till they get bored and then move to the next toy."

I looked down at my hands. "So...no way out unless they allow it?"

She sighed. "Try to make them care, Miss Campbell, then maybe when they toss you out, there will still be pieces of you to pick up."

Another maid, a lot older than us, entered the kitchen, her disapproving eyes moving from Rosa to us.

She took something from the pantry and walked back out, glaring at me all the while.

"Did I do something?"

"No," Rosa shook her head. "They don't approve of the women Sirs bring. They think they should already be married with thousands of kids."

"Oh," I whispered. "To the noble Italian virgins."

She nodded. "They court some of them sometimes, but it never works out. But you know, eventually, they will have to settle with wives and have kids, as if expected of them by the traditionists of the mafia."

"If they don't?"

"Then their morals will be questioned."

"And if they don't marry virgin Italian women and marry someone else?" I asked for some reason.

She looked me dead in the eye. "There would be a war. Rules and power are the two things this mafia stand with. If either of them weakens, the people with power are questioned. Many Valentinos are dying for a chance to defy Masters, Miss Campbell. All they need is one mistake."

. . .