Sold To Mr. Milano - Daniella Wright Page 0,8
him just to leave me.
He grunted, but said nothing at first.
“Nothing to say to that? Then I have to assume your intentions are no better than whatever those men back there were planning. Let me out. Drop me off on the side of the road or take me back to the market. Just anything to get me away from you.”
“You are a feisty thing, aren’t you?” he subtly raised one brow. “I thought women in your condition calmed down a little bit. Haven’t you any maternal instincts for survival?”
“Very much so, and I can honestly say I think I’ll die if I have to spend another moment with you.”
He looked slightly stunned but then burst into laughter. “Good God, woman. You better be glad I’m driving. I’ve punched men out for saying less than that to me.”
“But as you’re clearly aware, I’m not a man. Though it wouldn’t surprise me if you treated a woman the same way.”
He slumped back down, returning to his stoic silence. I knew I was getting to him. Could it be that Alberto Milano did have his limits? He had a soft spot for pregnant women, obviously. But the subject of beating women seemed to bother him too.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you’d strike a woman yourself. The work you do causes plenty of harm to be done to women and children. Just because it’s not directly by your hands doesn’t mean you’re any less responsible. I’d argue women like me ending up in places like the black market is the fault of none other than men like yourself...for running families out of their homes. Having young fathers killed by gang violence on a street corner.”
“Last week a man killed himself because he was facing prosecution being brought down on him by your dear father, Don Martino,” he shot back. “Do you blame him for that man losing his life?”
“No, I blame the man who dragged him into a life of crime in the first place.”
“Then you blame your country,” his voice raised and cracked with anger. “The government is who left him with no other options. If a country refuses to take care of its people, then it is each man for himself. You can not blame us for what we have to do to protect ourselves and our families.”
“You could do so in an honorable way that helps people rather than hurting them. You could be honest...like my father.”
He marveled sarcastically at the suggestion. “Your father!? Oh dear, young, sweet Alicia. I would never be anything like your father. He betrays hard-working men who are just trying to get by. He has us thrown behind bars because he’s not smart enough to run a business as lucratively as we do. Were you not poor growing up? Do you think the other children of the men who work with your father were so poor? No, I can assure you they were not.”
He knew they were not because he lined the pockets of those detectives himself, even if he’d never confessed to it with me here now.
“My father is a hundred times smarter than you. Because he knows how to balance his morality with his need to make a living.”
“Too bad it didn’t rub off on you,” he scoffed, shooting another disgusted glance in my direction.
My fists clenched. I wanted to keep arguing, but I was becoming so frustrated that all the words were clumping on the edge of my tongue in one big tangled knot. I refused to let him think he won by seeing me stammer through being too angry to speak an intelligent thought.
I sat back and crossed my arms, keeping it all pent up inside. I did have to remember I was with a dangerous man, and by the tone of his voice, I knew I was pushing him too far. Not far enough to pull over and throw me out of the car, as I would hope for. But far enough to hold me prisoner and do terrible things to me to make me pay. People did not question men like him, especially not women. I didn’t like not speaking my mind, but I had to play it smart to stay alive.
I didn’t challenge him on the big things anymore. He would never confess to anything of value to me anyway. But that didn’t stop us from bickering relentlessly as we continued along the long winding roads of the countryside.
3
Alberto
I had no idea where I was going or what I