Heartless Prince by Brook Wilder
Chapter 58
Leda
Moments Before
“Let me go!” I yelled, trying to pull myself out of Rocco’s grip as he marched me back into the one place I had hoped I would never see again.
“Listen, I don’t know why he’s doing this,” the second-in-command said softly, for my ears only. “But he’s got a damn good reason, so just be patient, all right?”
I didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. Lucas lied to me. He had brought me back to the place where it all started, and I highly doubted that this time I would be looking at him at the end of the night.
The same old woman from what felt like a lifetime ago met us at the door. The disapproving glare on her face was the same as it had been. “You know the drill,” she replied, throwing a small scrap of clothing at me. “Come on. You’re late already.”
This time I didn’t argue with her, numb to the fact that I was going through this again. My clothing fell onto the floor in a tangled heap, and I slid on the thin, trying to keep myself together as I did so. Once I was dressed, she nodded. “Come.”
I walked the familiar path to the stage, my feet barely making a sound on the cold floor. The auctioneer gave me a passing smirk, but I held my head high. Screw them all. It didn’t matter. So what if Lucas had ripped out my heart and fed it to the room full of sharks?
So what if I had believed that he could be my future?
So what if I had thought that he was different?
He wasn’t.
Lucas was just like the rest of them, and I should have known better than to trust him in the first place.
The lights were blinding as I stepped up onto the stage, barely able to make out the shapes of people beyond them. Was Lucas out there, watching this with a smirk on his face, knowing that he had won? I really wished I could see him now, so that he could see the anger in my eyes.
How much I hated him.
“First up, one that has been here before with us, and we are pleased to see her again,” the auctioneer stated, catching my attention. “Leda D’Agostino. We will start the bidding at five million dollars.”
The number didn’t even faze me. Five million dollars. I had gone for twenty to Lucas.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up inside me, and I had to force myself to keep it down. Maybe if I broke down on stage, they wouldn’t want me.
Probably not.
They wanted me for my name. Not how mentally stable I was.
I clamped my lips tightly together as the auctioneer droned on behind me, the bids coming quickly. Unlike before, I kept my head held high.
I was still Leda D’Agostino, a survivor for all those that thought they could destroy me. Whoever got me this time was going to find someone defiant, someone who wasn’t going to just lie down and take it.
I scanned the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lucas. Not because I wanted him to be my savior, but because I wanted him to see just how much I hated him.
I wasn’t going to open myself to anything or anyone ever again. Lucas had taught me a valuable lesson, and that lesson was never to trust anyone again.
“Eight million going once!” the auctioneer called out. “Eight million going twice! Sold for eight million!”
There were jeers, and the murmur rose, but I was already turning away, not caring who had bought me this time. It really didn’t matter anyway.
I was alone in this fight.
But I didn’t get far. The auctioneer stopped me as I passed, and before I knew it, there was a guard at my elbow, grabbing at my arm.
“Let’s go, bitch,” he said, tugging me away from the stage and back the way I had come. We passed the room that I had been undressed in, walking further down the corridor until I lost track of where we had turned. I briefly thought about asking him to let me go, telling him that I could pay him handsomely for it, but where would I go?
I wasn’t safe anywhere, not with my father still alive and now an enemy of Lucas Valentino.
That had to be the only thought, after all. He had to hate me, not love me. Otherwise he would never have allowed me to be put on display like that, to be bought by some unknown person for their own personal enjoyment.
A person in love didn’t do that. People in love didn’t hurt each other.
They sure as hell didn’t turn their backs on the person they loved. I had been prepared to do whatever it took to keep him safe.
Now, I wanted to kill him myself.
The grip on my arm tightened and I winced. My feet were cold against the wood floor, but hey, I had been here before.
I knew what was going to happen next, and this time, I wasn’t so sure I would like the outcome.
The guard escorting me pushed me into a room, one that was different than the first one. “Don’t cause any trouble,” he growled before shutting the door.
I let out a crazed laugh, looking at the bed and extraordinarily little else in the room. Cause trouble? I was going to go insane, more like it.
Lucas had put me back up on the auction block. I still was having a hard time processing the fact, not to mention why he would do so in the first place.
Had his words meant nothing?
Had this all been a sick, twisted dream? I felt like it must have been. I felt like at any moment I was going to wake up and tell Lucas how crazy this was. That it was all just a sick nightmare.
But the cold air on my skin was real. The shiver in my body was real.
This wasn’t a nightmare.
This was real, and the pain was real.
I hated the pain. I thought I had felt it all, but the way that Lucas had coldly walked away from me, letting his second-in-command take me to the same old woman who had forced me to dress like this…
He said he loved me, but then he did this? No wonder he had acted the way he had in the penthouse.
Lucas was saying goodbye. He knew all along that he was going to bring me here tonight. Yet he still allowed me to touch him—allowed me to think that we were making love. He gave me a single happy memory, and then cruelly ripped it all away.
A sob escaped me suddenly, and I clamped my hand over my mouth, forcing the rest to remain. It wasn’t time to break down. Not yet. Not until I knew who bought me this time. I needed to find out if I was going to survive.
I refused to be a pawn any longer. I was going to put up the fight of a lifetime, one that would give me what I needed most.
I needed my freedom.
Or I would die trying.
Either way, I never wanted to see Lucas Valentino again.
Just thinking about his name hurt, but I forced it away. There would be time, if I could get out of here, to mourn the loss of the fleeting happiness I thought I had found with Lucas.
And plan his demise. One thing was for certain. Lucas had better stay far away from me in the future, or the next time I saw him, he might get a knife to the gut for what he had put me through. This wasn’t love. I didn’t know what his reasoning was behind it, but it wasn’t going to be good enough.
I just hoped that it had been worth it for him.
Steeling myself against any further thoughts about Lucas, I did the same thing as before and looked for something I could use to defend myself against whoever was going to come through that door. There were no sheets on the bed. The bed frame itself was iron and bolted to the ground.
Aside from the black negligee I was wearing, I had nothing else.
Stupidly, I tried the door. It was locked from the outside. If I got out of this alive, I was going to go somewhere that no one could ever find me. I would change my name and just disappear.
Stepping away from the door, I ignored the bare mattress and chose to stand in the furthest corner instead. Maybe I would get lucky and my new owner would be old so that I could rush past him when he entered the room and find my way out of this hellhole.
Or maybe no one would come at all. Maybe this was Lucas’s perverse game, one where he got his kicks by putting me up there repeatedly so he could purchase me.
At least I would know what to expect.
I hated this feeling. The anxiety for what was going to happen next was awful, but not as awful as feeling betrayed by the way that Lucas had walked away earlier.
It was like I didn’t even matter to him.
It wasn’t the same act he had put on back at the penthouse, but none of that mattered any longer. Right now, I was focused on making it through the next moment.
And after that, I was going to erase Lucas from my brain, my heart, and my body.
The door opened, and my hopes died as a guy around Lucas’s age walked in, a smirk on his face. The door shut almost immediately, and I pressed myself against the wall, not bothering to move from my spot.
“Leda D’Agostino,” he replied, his voice full of malice. “You are every bit like your father described.”
I clenched my jaw, choosing not to respond. Maybe if I irritated him enough, he would leave me alone.
“You know,” he continued, clearly not caring about my actions. “I’ve dreamed of this moment for quite some time. And I have to admit. You’re no disappointment.”
I didn’t blink, hiding my fear from him. What the fuck was he talking about?
“And as much as I would have loved being the first man you fuck,” he said after a moment, stripping off his coat. “It seems that the whore got to you first.”
The whore? What was he talking about?
“That fucker,” the stranger seethed. “A whore who thinks he was a Don. It should have been me. Not him. It was my uncle’s legacy, and that senile old man just gave it away.” His grin turned into a snarl. “But that doesn’t matter right now, does it, Leda? You and I? We’re going to have a lot of fun.”
“Don’t come any closer,” I finally said, hoping that my voice was steady.
He laughed and stepped closer. “Did you tell him the same thing? Right before he fucked you bloody and raw? I promise you, I’m twice the man that whore is. Valentino will be nothing more than a smear in your thoughts when I finish with you.”
His words were chilling, and I felt the first frisson of fear snake through me. Unless I was able to somehow get away from him and out of this room, I wasn’t going to survive him. It was his snake-like eyes. Where Lucas showed me a degree of warmth, there was nothing of that sort in this man.
And the fact that he had a personal vendetta against Lucas made things even more complicated.
“Take off your fucking clothes,” he sneered, reaching for the waistband of his pants. “I want to see what eight million looks like.”
“No,” I said bravely.
The back of his hand slapped me across the face. Hard. The coppery taste of blood filled my mouth. He laughed and flexed his hand. “That wasn’t a request, you fucking cunt.”
I didn’t have much of a choice. Fighting back tears, I slid the thin straps off my shoulders and let the whisper of fabric slide down my body, not bothering to cover up any of my parts. I didn’t want to give him any more excuses to hurt me.
“Oh very good, I can see why he was infatuated with you.” He raped me with his eyes. I felt dirty and wanted to cower away from his gaze.
“On your knees. And open your mouth,” he said after a moment, grabbing himself through the front of his pants. “Like a good little whore.”
“You put that thing in my mouth and I’ll bite it off.” I shot back behind gritted teeth.
“What did you say?”
“I’ll bite your fucking dick off.”
He moved faster than I had anticipated, and pain bloomed in my stomach as his fist collided with my solar plexus. I fell to my knees. Nausea climbed my throat, and for a moment, I saw stars. The pain was overwhelming. He grabbed a fistful of my hair and yanked me up to meet his eyes. I saw the gleam of satisfaction in them.
“Open your fucking mouth,” he said.
I spat in his face instead.
“You fucking cunt.” He snarled.
Without warning, fingers wrapped around my throat and began to tighten. I clawed at his face, at his wrists, at whatever I could reach. But he refused to let go. I kicked out uselessly and only found empty air.
As my world started turning black, real fear shot through me. This wasn’t a fight I was going to win. Tears threatened, and I forced them back, hating that I felt this way.
I was giving up. I had no options, no way out of this.
Nobody was coming to save me.
