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“Seriously. If you're going to punish anyone, let it be me. Hammer tried to get me to come back inside, but I…”
She stops her sentence as I step towards her. Each step I take forward, she takes one back until she hits the pantry door.
“Don’t play silly games with me, red. Hammer is a two-hundred-pound man with a gun.”
“My life is not a game!” she barks.
“Oh really.” I chuckle, filling in the remainder of the space between us, placing my hands on either side of her head, trapping her. “Then why did you gamble with it then?”
With rapid breaths, she tries to hide her fear from me, but she is trembling with it. “It’s none of your business.”
I run a hand across her cheek, feeling the silky softness of her skin. She attempts to move her head away from me, so I grip her jaw in my hand, forcing her to look at me. With narrowed eyes, she sours her lips at me. If she were smart, she would back down. But no, my little red-headed fox likes to fight. I slide my thumb over her lips, tracing the plump fullness of them, picturing how incredible my cock would look between them. Dragging her bottom lip down, I force her to open her mouth. Tears swell in those potent Hazel eyes, making them sparkle like glitter in the sun. “You see, red.” I push my thumb into her mouth until she gags on it. “You are my business. Until Nicolai returns, you are mine to do with whatever the hell I like.”
Tears spill onto her cheeks, making me want to know what her pain tastes like. Pulling out my thumb, she gasps, sucking in the air I had cut off from her. As I lick a teardrop from her cheek, I feel her body quiver against mine—her jaw trembles in my grasp. I remove my other hand from the pantry door and splay it across her collarbone.
She sucks in a breath when my hand moves under the collar of her sweater, touching the bare skin there. I press my hardened cock against her, bringing my face a mere whisker from hers. I feel her ragged breaths on my face. She is as aroused as I am, practically melting at my touch. As much as I feel the hate she has for me, I feel her need and want. It’s as though she can’t control her body's response to mine. She battles against the yearning to be touched. How long has it been since someone made her feel desired? Running my nose up the length of her neck, my fingers dance along her shoulder blade and down the side of her sweater. There is a thin line between lust and loathing, making it so easy to taunt her. Her mouth opens when my hand brushes dangerously close to her breast. My own heart thumps loudly in my chest, mimicking hers. I have never wanted something more than the way I want her right now.
“I bet if I put my hand down your pants right now, you’d be soaking wet,” I whisper softly in her ear. She shivers as my breath tickles her skin. “Are you wet for me, red?”
My dirty words snap her from the erotic trance she is in. The confusion and horror in her eyes tell me she is not disgusted by my words. It’s the truth in them that scares the hell out of her.
Doing her best to compose herself, she looks me right in the eyes, chest heaving with her breaths. “I could never want a monster like you. You destroy everyone you touch and scar the lives of all those who loved them. Butcher!” She spits on me. But that is not what has me releasing her and stepping back. It’s her words. Monster. Butcher. I could never want you.
She is dead right. No one would ever want me if they knew the man I was—the things I have done. I own my sins. I don’t hide them. I don’t lie about them. Whether from my own hands, or that of others, death has always followed me. When you are born into a family such as mine, it’s unavoidable. You adapt, you learn, and you cross lines that have long since gone blurry. My grandparents, my parents, my friends, and so many of my men I have lost over the years, the grief does not even register with me. Yet, why do I feel that I will not recover from the loss of Scarlet? Why her? What is it about her that has me on my knees confessing all my sins, replaying my entire life?
I hear my men call me butcher every day, but it never resonates, never stings me like it does when it comes from her mouth. Scarlet takes my pause as her opportunity to run. I don’t stop her—the door to her bedroom slams. Rubbing my hands over my face, I reach for the whiskey bottle and swig back a good mouthful. The burn down my throat does nothing to numb the throbbing pain in my chest, so I take another, and another. I want this pain to stop!
I know I am not a good person. I have wronged so many, taken lives of men that were never mine to take. I spilled blood in the name of revenge, in the name of the Valsetti family.
There is no forgiveness to be had because I ask for none. I honored my family and was dutiful without question. It was my place. Someone had to bear the weight of it. For my father, he carried the burden of making the decision, Nicolai now too. I just carry out an order. I wear the crown of thorns that delivers evil to the afterlife. A place I will one surely burn-in.
Twenty-Five
Scarlet
Slamming my back against my bedroom door, I slide to the floor, breath heavy and frantic.
I hate to admit it, but I cannot ignore that this man stirs something inside of me that awakens every nerve ending in my body. I am so close to death yet have never felt so alive.
I want him as much as I hate him, and I think he knows it. Otherwise, he would never test the boundaries. It makes no sense to want a man like Luca.
Oh my God! Do I have Stockholm syndrome?
Has the trauma of the past week muddled my brain and I have lost all sanity, all rationality?
The apartment is eerily quiet. I half expected Luca to come after me, tie me back up, and punish me for spitting on him. The other half of me, though, saw his reaction to my words. Something in what I said scorched him. How far would he have gone if my words had not stopped him? Would he have raped me? Would it be rape, though, when my panties are drenched with my arousal? I don’t understand it. I don’t understand my body's reaction to him. Am I that sick that I desire the very man who will be ordered to kill me?
It’s been hours since our encounter. There has been no movement outside that I can hear. Has he left? No longer able to stay cooped up in my room, I slowly creep out of it, peering around the corner into the main living area. I pause momentarily when I first see Luca sitting on the sofa. But then I see the empty bottle of whiskey in his lap. He is passed out, by the look of it. Drank his sorrows right down to the last drop in the bottle.
Not wanting to wake the sleeping beast, I creep into the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge before heading back down the hallway to safety. I think it’s best if I stay as far away as possible from him. Just before I get to my room, I notice the door to Luca’s office is open. It has never been opened the entire time I have been here. He always keeps it locked.
Curiosity gets the better of me, so I step closer to the doorway. One little look won’t hurt, will it? I stand in the doorway, peeking in. There is a big black desk sitting in front of a bookshelf that’s built into the wall. There aren’t many books on it, though. I step into the room to read the titles. The tale of Ulysses, The Iliad of Homer, The Song of Achilles, they are all Greek mythology books. Weird! Not that I expected him to own some romance novels or anything, but mythical creatures? Bottles of expensive-looking whiskey sit on the shelf next to them with a tray of glasses and a cigar box and cutter. I’d never seen Luca smoke, but now that I think about it, the room does have an old smoky smell.
On the wall is an oil painting of a woman. She looks familiar. Her eyes are the same as Luca’s. The painting is slightly abstracted, so features and lines are somewhat blurred, but it’s the unmistakable eyes that lead me to believe this is a portrait of his mother. I remember the photographs I found in Luca’s robe, and she looks like the same woman in the pictures, just in art form.
The black leather office chair beckons me to sit down. The desk drawers call for me to explore. I pull gently on the drawer, not wanting to make a noise. I expect it to be locked, but it slides open easily. Phone cords, pens, pads of paper, and some empty black envelopes. Boring! Closing the drawer, disappointed, I open the next to find more black envelopes: dozens and dozens of them.
These ones are fat with contents, making my heart start to pound furiously with excitement and also a little dread, not sure if I want to know what's inside. I pick up a handful of envelopes, wincing at the sound of the paper as I open the first one as quietly and carefully as I can.
