Page 236 of Breaking Rosalind
“Kill her and you may as well kill me,” I snarl.
Tommy points the gun at my head. “Now.”
“No,” Matty croaks. “Not my boy. Not my heir.”
Tommy throws his head back and releases a crowing laugh, his bent arms flapping like a rooster. This man is completely fucked in the head.
I clench my teeth, imagining him making that fucking noise on my operating table as I slice him open with a number 20 scalpel before making him eat his own entrails.
The door opens and a deep voice says, “Is this a bad time, Mr. Galliano?”
“Come in,” Matty says.
“Clear some space for the good doctor,” Tommy roars.
The guards step aside, leaving dead bodies still sprawled across the linoleum. A middle-aged man picks his way through the expanding pools of blood and corpses to reach Matteo.
“Someone please draw the privacy curtains?” the doctor asks, his voice urgent. One of the orderly rushes forward, pulling the curtains closed with a loud swish.
Tommy glances around the hospital room, his lips tightening with displeasure. “Clean this shit up.”
Over several tense minutes, the orderlies drag out the bodies and one of them returns with a bucket and mop. I stare across the room at Rosalind, whose gaze never leaves mine.
She could never love a man like me with such tainted blood. My father is a pedophile who stabs innocent women, and my uncle is a deranged psychopath who looks capable of worse. The Galliano family is a cesspool of depravity and needs to go up in flames.
The silence continues, broken only by the beeping machinery, until the doctor steps out from behind the curtain.
“What’s the verdict?” Tommy asks, his voice tense.
The doctor offers him a bright smile. “I’ve cleaned Mr. Galliano’s wounds and replaced his dressings. He’s still on track to make a full recovery.”
Tommy scratches his temple with the gun’s muzzle. “Get three doses of benzo and give one to my brother.”
“Sir?” the doctor’s features shutter.
“Benzo,” Tommy barks. “Now.”
Flinching, the doctor darts past the wall lined with guards and out of the room, letting the door click shut.
“You sure about this, Dad?” asks a large man with features similar to Tommy’s. “We’re running low?—”
“Don’t question me in front of the help,” Tommy snaps.
The son bows his head, his shoulders tensing. I glance around the room, noting that all the other faces harden at being referred to as servants. It looks like Tommy and his brother run their organization like a fiefdom with the two of them as the lords of the manner, while we run ours like a family.
More importantly, what is benzo and why does it sound so familiar?
The doctor returns with two vials and disappears around the curtain, presumably to administer the dose to Matteo. Seconds later, there’s an audible sigh, and the doctor reemerges with the second dose.
Tommy grunts his approval. “Now inject the bitch.”
Alarm kicks me in the chest, and I lurch forward. “No.”
The guards grab my arms and shove me back, while the ones restraining Rosalind tighten their grips.
She thrashes, but they’re too strong. She kicks out at the approaching doctor, but he side-steps.
“Take her from behind,” Tommy drawls, almost sounding bored. “If memory serves, my brother had to do her from behind after she put on all that weight.”