Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1)(98)

Violet hissed. “Let me go.”

“There, that’s better,” Alberto said like she hadn’t uttered a thing.

“Daddy—”

For the first time since she had come out of the house, she saw a real anger flash in her father’s eyes and settle deep into the scowling lines of his face. “Do not call me that like you want to find some sympathetic part in me. You are twenty-one, not a child. You know how to follow my rules. And I will no longer keep treating you with the kid gloves I have in the past, Violet. You …”

Violet blinked, feeling another swell of tears fall from the corners of her eyes. “What?”

“You couldn’t have hurt me more—betrayed me more—than how you did with that Russian.”

“Kaz.”

Alberto didn’t give a thing away when he asked, “What?”

“He is not the Russian, his name is Kazimir.”

“You are being foolish,” Alberto spat. “A foolish, stupid girl who spread her legs for a pretty man and nothing more.”

He could have slapped her and it would have felt better.

Violet refused to show how his words cut her. “Then why not leave me to be with him, huh? If I shamed you so much, why not let me go and be the whore you clearly think I am?”

Stay, she had wanted to say. Stay with Kaz.

A man who loved her.

Who would protect her at all cost.

Who never treated her like her father did.

“Because you are not his,” her father said sharply, his fingers digging in harder on her arm. “You are mine.”

“I’m not,” Violet whispered. “Not after this.”

Alberto’s gaze narrowed, but he finally let her go. “Fix your face.”

She didn’t make a move to do what he said, letting her tears stain her cheeks even more.

Her father waved a hand at the driver. “Chris, take us around to the Kitchen.”

The driver glanced at Alberto in the rearview mirror. “Boss?”

“The Kitchen—to the Black Hall,” Alberto demanded.

Violet didn't know what her father was talking about, but it couldn’t be good considering even Carmine had lifted his head and was staring at Alberto like the man had grown a second head.

“What?” her brother mumbled.

“Make it fast,” Alberto said, never taking his gaze off Violet.

What was going on?

Violet watched streets fly by and eventually become more familiar, until they were in the bowels of Hell’s Kitchen and coming to a stop at what looked like a rundown, decrepit building that might, at one time, have been an apartment building.

“Stay in the car, I do not need you for this,” Alberto told the driver, and then Carmine. He grabbed Violet’s arm, pulling her with him as he exited the back of the car. “Keep quiet, and keep up, darling.”

She didn’t like how he’d used that endearment with just a hint of sarcasm and condescension, but chose to do as he said.

At that point, it wasn’t like Violet had much of a damn choice.

It wasn’t long after they entered the shamble of a building before Violet figured out why her father had called it Black Hall. Darkness enveloped the entire place but when a small, flickering light bulb was turned on, black halls stared back at her from every direction.

Alberto pulled her along, opening a door to another set of halls, and a staircase. Again, the place was black all over, even with the bit of light.

Violet couldn’t understand why they would paint the place black like it was, and it almost felt like the walls were f*cking closing in on her because it seemed so small. Her heart rate picked up, thundering. Anxiety simmered through her bloodstream.

“What—”

“Shut up,” Alberto said.

Violet snapped her mouth shut, letting her father continue to drag her along like she was a doll and nothing more. The more she breathed in the air of the building, the sicker she felt. It stunk with a musky, earthy tone, but also with something she couldn’t describe. Something that smelled like rotting meat and garbage.

Finally, her father pushed open a door at the end of yet another long, small black hallway. His hand found her shoulders, and he shoved, pushing her inside first.

Violet spun on her heel to face her father, and he slammed the door shut, and flicked on another tiny light bulb that barely did the job of lighting the small space.

All over again, the walls seemed to close in on Violet.

“You never liked the dark when you were a child,” Alberto said, taking one step away from the door.

Violet forced her panic down, keeping her gaze on her father and not the black walls surrounding her. “I’m not a child now.”

“Clearly. But I’m not quite sure what to think of you now, either. A lady doesn’t seem to fit what with your recent behavior. No lady would go on acting as you did with that Russian.”

She beat down the urge to correct Alberto again.

“Why am I here?” Violet chanced a look at the dark walls, wishing the room was bigger. She didn’t like small spaces, either. “And what is this place?”

Alberto smiled, but it came off cold.

She had no doubt he meant for it to.

“This, Violet, is the Black Hall. And I wanted to show you it.”