Page 8 of Savage Don

She really is. And it fills me with a desperate, hopeless rage.

Fuck this.

Whipping open the door, I’m greeted by a hallway full of onlookers. They all gawk at the scene I leave behind as I push past them and storm down the hallway.

No one dares stop me.

I’m already outside, at the end of the block, when I hear the first police sirens. They won’t ever get their hands on me. I’m never coming back to this place.

I’ve learned my lesson.

Sonia may have been the first to teach me how to please a woman—hell, she might even have helped me become a man. But her most important lesson was one that I had to learn on my own. One that had to hit me right in the fucking face before I was strong enough to accept it.

The heart is weak. The heart is stupid. The heart is useless. It should be kept as far away from the cock as humanly possible, if not locked away in a cold, dark place forever.

I know better than to listen to my heart anymore. And I’ll never forget that.

Never fall for anyone, Raymond.

Never again.

1

Francesca

Present day…

Every time a set of headlights crawls over my back, I have to fight off an instinct to freeze.

No one is following you, Francesca.

Still, I’m nothing if not diligent. It’s how I’ve gotten away with this for so long now.

Quickening my pace, I scurry down the sidewalk. The corner I need to turn down is just up ahead.

Before I get too close, though, I give a quick glance over my shoulder.

It doesn’t look like I’m being followed.

Still got it.

No one gives the Italian mob the slip better than I do. But that just may be because no one has as much experience with it as I do.

I’ve been sneaking around behind my father’s back ever since I was a little girl. But up until last year, I had never gone far.

Then, I secretly enrolled in Branksome University. Now, three nights a week, I take to the shadows and risk my life just to get a taste of normalcy.

Another wave of yellow headlights crash over my back, and I instinctively hold my books tighter to my chest.

My escape earlier tonight was easy. Almost too easy.

The guards that patrol my floor might as well have been on painkillers, they were so out of it—or maybe they’re just disgruntled. I’ve overheard rumors that some of them aren’t getting paid on time.

A cold shiver tingles up my spine as I turn down a well-worn alleyway that leads directly onto the main campus road.

All of my life, I’ve had people trying to keep me locked in my gilded cage. I know what it’s like to be watched, to be followed. But for the last year and a half, I’ve made sure that I don’t step on campus until I know that I’m completely alone.

“Fran!”