When she pulls away, I have to spit out blood.
“Do I make myself clear?”
“You think this is over?” I growl right back.
She hums for a moment. “I think you’re an animal, Teo Vitale. And I’d be more than happy to keep you in check if you asked me nicely.”
Her knee lifts up to nudge my throbbing crotch, and I hiss back at her.
“But you come for my family again, and I will kill you,” she whispers.
Her threat hangs between us, balancing us on the edge of her blade. Finally, finally, my head clears enough to form a coherent thought.
“Then do it now,” I whisper back, “because I’m not going to stop. Not until your mother is six feet under, and everything you stole from my family is returned to me.”
I almost gasp in triumph at the tiny flicker of fear in those sultry eyes.
I lean into it, lean into her, making her stagger back a step into the sinks again.
“This was a valiant effort, I’ll give you that,” I continue, “but you will never be able to control me. So you should end it now before I ruin you entirely.”
Yet the blade in her hand doesn’t press against me any harder. In fact, I’m fairly certain I could disarm her right now without earning myself another scratch.
But instead, I wait, wait for the realization to hit her that there’s no escaping this or me. That whatever is coming is already in motion.
“You’re hesitating,” I whisper, daring to dip my head down closer.
Isabella swallows thickly, and I box her in, leaning a hand against the counter behind her.
“What is it,belle?Do you want me to ruin you?”
Just when I think she’s about to let out a small whimper, something else happens entirely.
The pain is instant and the yell escapes my lips just as dizzying darkness threatens to take over my vision entirely.
For a second, I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at. Then my vision clears, and the pain hits all over again.
And there’s a switchblade pinning my hand to the sink counter.
And by the time I yank it out, Isabella has vanished.
10
ISABELLA
Ishould be counting my lucky stars for having survived my last encounter with Teo Vitale, not staring out my apartment window, wondering if he could be one of the lurking bodies below.
But I can’t help it. Not when he’s the only thing that has occupied my mind these last forty-eight hours.
I was only supposed to kiss him.
I was only supposed to lure him in long enough to get a knife to his throat.
But when he kissed me.
When hekissedme…
God, it was like nothing else. I’d almost forgotten what it was like. Or at least I managed to convince myself it wasn’t as good as I remembered.
