Kiss Me in the Dark Anthology - Monica James Page 0,97

at my hands, torn between excitement and disappointment. Wiggling my fingers, I wondered when I’d get an engagement ring. Fina had gotten hers immediately when our parents had decided on the bond.

But maybe this time, they’d wait. It would be frowned upon when an engagement would be made public so shortly after Fina was saved.

I stood and headed over to my bed. I grabbed my stuffed animals and tossed them to the ground then removed a few embarrassing horse posters from my walls. After I’d removed a few too frilly dresses from my wardrobe and put them down on the stuffed animal heap, I hurried downstairs to grab a garbage bag. Danilo wanted someone as poised as my sister. I couldn’t act like a little girl anymore if I wanted him to want me.

Enthralled

Copyright 2020 Giana Darling

Published by Giana Darling

Edited by Jenny Sims

Cover Design by Najla Qamber

Cover Model Mariam Agredano

Cover Photographer Xavi Smoke

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

“I want to be inside your darkest everything.”

—Frida Kahlo.

It was the biggest day of my life.

I know most people say that about something joyous; a graduation, a wedding ceremony, the birth of their first child.

My situation was a little different.

Sure, it was my eighteenth birthday, but it was also the day I was sold.

And I don’t mean sold metaphorically. As far as I was concerned, my soul was still intact although my father might have been selling his in return for the thousands of dollars he would receive for my body. He wasn’t that worried about it. And honestly, neither was I. If Seamus Moore had a soul at one time, it had long ago dissolved into cinders and ash.

You’re probably wondering why I went along with it. Even as I sat in the beaten-up red Fiat my twin brother, Sebastian, had just fixed for the fortieth time beside my potentially soulless father who was singing along to Umberto Tozzi as if it was a normal day, I was wondering the same thing. My eldest sister Elena was taking a free online ethics course, and even she didn’t know the moral answer to the question my life had been reduced to—was exchanging one body worth the price of multiple persons’ happiness?

I didn’t really care that she didn’t have a response. To me, it was worth it.

“You remember what I told you, carina?” my father asked over the tinny swell of sound from the car speakers.

“Si.”

“In English,” he reprimanded gently with a crooked smile in my direction. It was as if I was just being a silly child and teasing him with my mini rebellion. I wanted to tease his skin with the edge of a cold blade, but I held my tongue between my teeth and bit down hard until the fantasy dissolved in pain.

“Tell me,” he continued.

“No.”

His hand found my slim thigh, and his steely fingers wound around it in a rough squeeze. I was used to his physicality, and it did not intimidate me, not now when I faced a potentially much more dangerous future. But I indulged him anyway.

“I am not to look his eyes—”

“In his eyes,” he corrected.

“In his eyes. Or speak unless I am directly spoken to. I will obey him in all things and keep him in comfort. I understand, papa, it is like Italian marriage, but with a contract instead of vows.” I was fluent in the language, but stress ate at my erudite mind like termites.

He grunted, unamused with my droll comparison. Even though Seamus was not Italian—his Irish accent, deep red hair, and ruddy complexion would always betray him as otherwise—he had assimilated himself into every facet of the culture until being Italian had become a kind of religion to him. And my father’s version of a priest? Let’s just say, you’d never want to meet Rocco Abruzzi, the man who ran a large gambling operation for the current Neapolitan capo, Salvatore Vitale. He was unassuming enough with flaccid features and brows