Dark Saint [Romano Brotherhood, #1]

05 | Nina

I don't see Santo for the next four days.

It makes me feel like I can finally breathe a little bit.

Especially because I'm allowed to wander around the house now. Sure, I need a babysitter, and sure, that babysitter ends up being Tommaso most times. I'm pretty sure he hates it just as much, if not more than I do. It's slightly funny that he's got to follow little old me around instead of torture children and have orgies, which I'm sure is what he normally gets up to.

The wound on my neck is healing well, and I'm steeling myself for Santo's return from wherever he's gone off to. Once he's back, I'm sure my torture will resume. And I can't let that happen—I have a horrible feeling I won't survive the next time Santo takes me down to that basement.

So I've been frantically running through my options, and I've landed on the possibility of convincing Nico to somehow aid me in my escape. If I'm going to get out of here, I have a feeling that the youngest Romano is my best bet. Massimo is out for obvious reasons, Tommaso makes me nervous with his sleazy humor, and Santo is a fucking psychopath.

He makes my heart race and my skin dampen in fear-induced sweat. There are moments where I could swear that I'm getting to him as much as he gets to me, but that's a game I can't afford to play. This is the famed devil of the underground, after all. I have a feeling I haven't seen anything that he's capable of yet.

Although, I still can't forget that look in his eyes as he held the blade to my skin, like the knife was about to cut into his own flesh.

Maybe he likes that. Gets off on it. I wouldn't be surprised—a sick fuck like him.

As I wander the mansion aimlessly with Tommaso as my grumpy shadow, I wrack my brain for ways to get Nico on my side. The problem is that even if he's more sympathetic to my plight, I still don't doubt his loyalty to his brothers. I need to find a way to exploit that somehow.

Tommaso isn't particularly fond of me ever since I've been moved up from hostage-confined-to-one-room status. I would find the sulking look on his face as he follows me around funny, if I weren't being held captive here. As it is, he can sulk all he wants. I'm not sorry he had to interrupt his coital activities with his flavor of the day to walk me around for the first time in nearly two weeks.

"So, why am I being allowed to leave my room again?" I ask, and Tommaso groans. This is the third time I've asked. Maybe I would stop if he answered me.

"Are all women like you? Incessantly talking, nagging—"

"Are you telling me you have no experience with women? That, for some weird reason, doesn't surprise me. You act like an ass."

My eyes widen as my unexpected words fill the air between us, and Tommaso looks like he wants to strangle me.

By some miracle, he doesn't.

"Santo's orders," he grits out. "Some bullshit about you going stir-crazy. I don't know why he cares about your fucking mental state. You're impossibly fucking annoying."

My heart is still pounding from my earlier slip, and I push down the residual panic. I'm not sure what the hell possessed me to say that—to a Romano, no less.

"And I do have experience with women," Tommaso mumbles angrily, "just not women that don't do whatever the fuck I say." He doesn't give me a chance to respond. "You're allowed to go anywhere, except my brothers' wings of the house."

I nod. That's one thing I won't complain about. As if I'd want to venture there anyway. I'm already wary of this new development, some part of me convinced it's to fool me into becoming more comfortable before I'm killed—or worse.