My Masters' Nightmare Season 1, Episode 4 Poisoned (3 page)

I pointed at Bianca as he appeared at the
top of the staircase. “She is reaping what she sowed!” I yelled,
faking rage. “I will not stand by and do nothing while being made a
cockold!”

He looked at me
disapprovingly.

“
You told me to take care of
things or
you
would,” I said, “which I am doing now, brother.”

“
I meant throw her
out.”

“
No, you meant kill her,
you just forgot.”

Frowning, Frano’s gaze moved to Bianca,
then he shook his head and turned away.

I looked down at Bianca and
smiled. “I can kill you and he won’t
do a thing, so do as you’re told and stay
out of my business
and
my love life.” My smile widened. “Now, I’m off to make
Jagger’s lies come true, that is, if I can get there before lunch,
because didn’t he say I raped him this morning?” Not waiting for
her reply, I spun around and headed for the front door, taking
great satisfaction as Bianca started crying.

2

Bianca

I pushed up into a sitting
position and
covered my face and just cried and cried and cried for all
that Jagger had endured, and what he was going to endure for longer
unless I did something about it. Without a doubt, I believe Jagger
over Alberto, Jagger’s pain confirming it. And Alberto had done
nothing but lie to everyone, even to his brother, who he claimed he
loved. And now he claimed he loved Jagger, but he couldn’t if he
raped him, because rape wasn’t made from love, it was made from a
selfish lust, which I had known for a while. Given, I had never
raped Jagger, but at times I’d wanted to force myself onto him, to
wrap myself around him and to never let go. But I had always
stopped myself, because I loved him more than my own selfish
desires, and, unlike Alberto, I wasn’t a monster. Normal people who
empathized with others would never force someone—which was why I
hated this family, because they weren’t normal, they were savages,
only Jagger and his brother worth anything. Oh, I didn’t delude
myself, I knew what Jagger did for a living, but like the slaves he
wasn’t given a choice. I’d heard him sob when he was in his room,
heard it so many times it wrecked my soul and bruised my heart. I’d
confronted him over it once and he’d denied it, said I must have
imagined it, then he’d put on an arrogant front, hiding his
tortured soul behind a beautiful veneer.

A hand touched my shoulder, making me
jolt. I looked up at Thierry. Jagger’s half-brother looked like a
younger version of him, just skinny and with darker eyes, eyes of
which I now knew had experienced far too much, my husband having so
much to answer to. Two brothers he was ruining, two beautiful souls
I would make him pay for with his life.

“
Are you alright?” Thierry asked
in that soft French accent of his. I loved his voice, it was so
beautiful, and when he sang it was heavenly, like an angel had
graced our presence. I had wondered whether it was why he rarely
spoke, because people just stared at him—much like I was doing now.
He ducked his head, looking embarrassed, the boy very
shy.

I pushed to my feet. “Did Alberto rape
you?” I asked, needing to hear it from him.

Thierry looked up, his expression
horrified, then he quickly looked back down and shook his
head.

I placed my hands on his arms,
the boy jolting in response. I let go of him, not wanting to make
him even more uncomfortable than he already was. “Don’t be scared,
you can tell me. Alberto is a monster, so I will believe everything
you say in regards to him. So,
bambino
, did he rape you?”

Thierry kept his gaze down, but
nodded ever so slightly, that one small movement tearing me apart.
It was bad enough that Alberto raped the slaves, but raping
famiglia
was pure evil. I
had wanted to escape this household for a long time now, had wanted
to leave after I found out what a monster Alberto was, but now I
wanted to stay so I could make Alberto pay for all the suffering
he’d caused.

I wrapped my arms around
Thierry, the sweet
bambino
going stiff. Even though he was only five years younger
than Jagger, supposedly a man at eighteen, he was a baby to me, a
drop of innocence amongst an ocean of evil. I ran my hand up and
down his back. “You can cry if you want to,” I said, “because I
want to cry for you. I know how you feel and how you must walk
around every day terrified of what Alberto might do next, because
he has hurt me in the same way.”

Thierry wrapped his arms around me and
hugged me tight, his sob reaching deep inside of me and squeezing
my heart. I let him cry, I don’t know for how long, but I didn’t
let go, because he needed this as much as I did. And I cried with
him, because I knew exactly what it was like to wear the hand of
Alberto and have his evil inside of me. But even though I had the
same thing happen to me, I knew it was worse for Thierry, because
my youth and innocence had been extinguished a long time ago, and
for this poor boy to have endured something so vile at an age where
every feeling was heightened—it was beyond what even I had
experienced.

I had been an ignorant fool to
marry Alberto, something I had quickly learned to my detriment. I
had been flitting between men before I’d met him, thinking I could
stay young and enjoy the single-life forever. But my internal clock
had started ticking in my late twenties, growing louder and more
insistent as I crossed the line into my thirties. Because of it, I
had decided to give up my lifestyle so I could find a man and start
a
famiglia
. But no man wanted to settle down with me. The ones I went
out with were eternal bachelors, their needs different from mine.
And worse, some of the bastards had mocked me, saying I should find
an ugly man if I wanted a husband, because I was up against young
women in full bloom, while my petals were withering away. Then I
had met Jagger … beautiful, beautiful Jagger. He didn’t treat me as
if I was old; he treated me like a young beauty, showering me with
attention and love, giving me the happiest moments of my life. But
he still left me like all the other men. Yet, unlike those other
men he was worth fighting for. But no matter what I did, he
continued to reject me. So, in an attempt to make him jealous, I
turned my attention to Frano, but the don showed no interest, which
led me to consider Alberto, someone who used to stare at me when I
was with Jagger. A month later I was married to Alberto and back in
Jagger’s arms, the man making love to me barely an hour after I had
taken my marriage vows, vows I had wanted to say to him.

I ran a hand over Thierry’s hair. It
was a dark brown unlike Jagger’s black, but he had the same soft
waves. “Will you help me kill Alberto?” I whispered in his
ear.

He stiffened in my arms.

“
Will you?” I
repeated.

“
I can’t,” he
said.

“
Even for your
brother?”

Thierry pulled away from me. His eyes were
red and glossy, the pain inside those chocolate brown irises
telling me he knew what was happening to Jagger. I’d been visiting
my parents on a neighboring island when the Donatelli had taken
over the house, kidnapping Jagger, Mario, and all of the slaves. I
wondered what would’ve happened to me if I had been here. Probably
locked in the House of Whores as well.

“
I can’t kill anyone,” Thierry
said, his gaze flicking to the top of the staircase. But no one
stood up there, no Frano looking down upon us.

“
We can’t talk here,” I said,
taking a hold of his hand. I pulled him towards the slave cells
he’d just cleaned, the ones belonging to Mario. We headed down the
staircase and across the space where normally a guard stood. But
there were no slaves to guard since all of the six cells were
empty, the past sales as well as the Donatelli leaving them empty.
I’d heard that Jagger was the best trainer, but he never brought in
as many slaves as Mario, even though he had no trouble with bedding
every female he could so easily get his hands on. But, although he
had numerous opportunities, he rarely brought them back home or to
the New York compound. Frano had yelled at him for it, but he
continued to do it time and time again, just bringing in the bare
minimum to make sure that Frano didn’t kick him out of the house.
He probably had saved countless lives in neglecting his duty,
making me feel for him even more. Jagger was a beautiful soul
brought up in an evil world, one I wanted to help him escape
from—along with his brother.

I pulled Thierry into one of Mario’s empty
cells and sat him down on the bed. It must’ve been Red’s room,
because it had blankets and sheets, even a pillow. Everyone knew
that Mario favored her far too much, which had led to run-ins with
Frano, who was unhappy with how Mario had a bad habit of falling
for his slaves.

I placed a hand on Thierry’s lap. “I
need you to help me kill Alberto.”

“
I can’t.”

“
Why not?”

He turned to me, looking as
though
the
answer was obvious. “He’s a person.”

“
No, he’s a monster, and what he
did to you and me, and is still doing to your brother proves he
doesn’t deserve to live. You will be doing the world a favor
helping me, and consider how many people you will save.”

He shook his head. “I can’t, it’s
wrong, it’s a sin.”

“
According to the
brothers, nothing is a sin in this house.”

“
God still watches over
us.”

I exhaled loudly, not understanding how
the boy still believed in God after what he’d experienced. His
mother had been his father’s mistress until Jagger’s mother had
found out, resulting in Thierry and his mother being banished from
the island, which had led to him living a life amongst prostitutes
and drug addicts until his mother’s death from a heroin
overdose.

I squeezed his knee, not wanting to tell
him what I had to say next, but he had to be told. “I went to the
Donatelli House of Whores today—where they are keeping your
brother. Jagger was on a bed naked, his body swollen in all the
sexual areas. He’s being raped by men, and one of those men is
Alberto.”

Thierry shook his head, his expression
horrified, but nonetheless I could tell he believed me, he just
didn’t want to, so I pressed on certain I could change his
mind.

“
Alberto will keep on
doing this until Jagger dies—unless we do something about
it.”

“
But I can’t kill someone,
no matter what, I just can’t. Plus, he’s too big, I can’t fight
him.”

“
I’m not asking that of you, all
I want you to do is to serve him a drink.”

Thierry’s eyebrows pulled together,
his expression confused.

“
I will poison it,” I added,
“you just have to give it to him.”

“
Why can’t you give it to
him?”

“
Because it
is a servant’s job, and if I
serve him he will be suspicious.”

“
I never serve him, so he will
be suspicious of me too.”

“
Not now that the Donatelli have
taken most of our servants. All but you, the gardener, and the two
cooks remain.”

“
But-but, I can’t murder
someone, I will be damned to Hell.”

“
You won’t be murdering him, I
will. I’m the one who will poison the drink; you just need to make
sure he gets it, and if it makes you feel better, I will take full
responsibility for his death, so your soul will be
clean.”

“
No, it won’t
.”

I grabbed his face, forcing him to look at
me. “Do you want your brother to die?”

“
Of course
not!”

“
But he will if you allow
Alberto to live. Jagger will eventually take his own life or he’ll
die from the torture, and when that happens, Alberto will turn to
you for sex—the only person who resembles his
obsession.”

The boy looked horrified.

“
So, I ask you one more
time, will you give Alberto that drink?”

He stared at me, his eyes so big, so
conflicted, but the nod eventually came, that one small movement
making me smile.

3

Alberto

I drove dow
n the Donatelli driveway to
their
bordello—
which everyone called the House of Whores. It was where the
prostitutes, slaves, and mistresses lived, while the
famiglia
resided one
property away. But although the house was for whores, it wasn’t any
less
grande
. The massive mansion was a reminder of how powerful the
Donatelli were, a cream-colored statement decorated with swirling
edifices and topped with a terracotta roof, while the five floors
inside were filled with riches and whores.

I pulled my Alfa Romeo over to
pa
rk next to
the cream of Italian cars: Ferrari, Maserati, only the top of the
range on this side of the driveway. I got out of my car, watching
as a portly man exited the front door. He headed in the opposite
direction, where the ordinary cars were parked, the man no doubt
having just had a few minutes of pleasure with one of the unmoving
whores, the vacant creatures who you could fuck without breaking
the bank.