God of Pain novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Her Father's Car

I pulled on my school skirt and went down three flights of stairs before Cormac could stop me.

He caught up on the porch, in jeans and nothing else, barefoot on the cold boards.

The black sedan idled at the curb.

The back door opened, and my father, Carlo Maradei, got out.

He looked older than he had at the dinner table, with grey in his stubble and his tie hanging loose.

He had not slept either.

Two of his men stood behind him on the sidewalk, and neighbors were already watching through curtains.

"Livia," he said.

"Papa."

"Get in the car."

"No."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he looked past me at Cormac, at the bare chest, the bruises, the marks of my fingernails across his shoulder.

His jaw tightened.

"I'm not going to shout on a stranger's porch," he said. "So I'll say it once. Come home."

"Is Tino's driver still waiting at the house?"

"Tino is a guest in our house."

"That isn't what I asked."

My father's eyes closed for half a second.

"Yes."

"Then I'm not coming home. You put a bodyguard on me for a man I never agreed to marry.

"I'm eighteen, Papa. You can't carry me out of here."

"I can do exactly that."

"You can," I agreed. "In front of this whole street, with their phones out, after Monday's video."

He glanced at the windows.

A curtain dropped.

"Has it reached the news yet?" I asked.

My father said nothing.

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