Sold To Mr. Milano - Daniella Wright Page 0,25

unmoved. He wasn’t falling for my provocations. What was he waiting for? He had his torture tools right there in front of him, just a few feet away. He had these cranks and surely a million others tricks up his sleeve to put someone into agony. But so far all he had done was whisper something to the men outside. I couldn’t make out what it was. I swallowed hard and tried not to let my fear show. Whatever was coming...was it even worse than anything I had prepared myself for? Too horrifying to imagine?

There was a knock, prompting Alberto to go retrieve something from the men outside. I took in a deep breath, not knowing what to expect to see in his hands when he turned around. It seemed to be happening in slow motion. He rolled in a wooden cart on wheels, but it was covered in an old dirty tarp so that I couldn’t see what it carried. When he ripped it away with a sound that echoed against the stone walls, I saw a row of buckets. Several rows, actually, of silver buckets that were dripping with something along the edges.

A heavy feeling of dread settled into my chest. What could be in those buckets? Acid, I thought. Or something like it. I tried to prepare myself for whatever unbearable things I would feel when he did what he intended to do with them. He was no longer hesitating. He picked one of them up and rushed forward, sloshing its contents across my body.

I screamed instinctively, expecting to feel immeasurable pain. I thought my skin would begin to melt and that I would see my own bones showing through my skin by the time he was done. It would be a slow death, but I would die with honor. I was prepared for the worst.

But as I calmed down, I realized any pain I thought I felt was simply the sting of ice. It wasn’t acid at all, but simply cold water. And while it was mildly irritating to have it thrown across me, the wall, and the floor rather than to be able to drink it, it was not the horrid torture I was expecting. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“Water!?” I cackled, sounding almost evil in my relief. “That’s how you think you will make me talk!? Cold water!?” I laughed even harder as I said it out loud. “It will take more than that to make me talk. You don’t have what it takes, Alberto. You could kill me if you wanted, and yet...you splash me with water!”

He tried not to seem phased by me teasing him, but I could see the rage boiling up inside of him. His eyes twitched and his nostrils flared. With a rolling growl, he splashed another bucket of icy water across me, and didn’t hesitate to throw another one on right after that.

The double blow of the stinging cold did get to me more that time. It went up my nose and down my throat, causing me to cough. While I had been sweaty and hot moments ago, I was now freezing, and the stone wall behind me wasn’t helping any. But it was still tame compared to what I was waiting for. Nonetheless, Alberto could see that I was irritated and was looking quite pleased with himself. I couldn’t let him get away with that smug smile.

“This is nothing,” I said, hiding my doubts. “I do believe you’re losing your touch, Mr. Milano. Perhaps you aren’t everything I believed you to be. I don’t even appear to be pregnant anymore, and you’re still taking it easy on me. You’re weak.”

My voice broke with disgust as I said it, and it sent him charging towards me in a rage, but this time he didn’t have a bucket in his hands. It was just me and him, face to face. I expected to see pure hatred in his dark eyes as he stared back at me, but there was something missing. There was a softness that I knew I had to be imagining. No decent man could do the things he did. And while he may not have been snapping my fingers like twigs or ripping out my teeth with pliers, I was still freezing and chained to a wall. Whatever I thought I could see buried within him was a lie.

He broke away without saying a word and hit me with another blow of water. Each time it