Page 13 of Ruthless

“I want you to fight, but don’t piss me off,coniglietta. You haven’t seen the worst of me yet. Besides, all that squirming is only turning me on.” Sara freezes, but I don’t release her until she goes lax. “Wise.”

I pull her seat belt across her chest and buckle her in. Her bottom lip trembles, and I wonder if she knows how much danger she’s in.

Her breathing slows. “Somethin’s wrong. I don feel good.”

I flash a predatory grin as we accelerate out of the parking lot. “That’s the drugs. You’ve been fighting the effects for a while, but it was always a losing battle.”

“Y-you drugged me?”

Not just me, but I don’t bother clarifying. She slumps a moment later, her head lolling against the window while we weave through traffic.

I’m glad she’s not awake to see my hand trembling.

My townhouse on the Upper East Side, one of many properties I own in the city, happens to be my favorite. I steer my Alfa Romeo Guilia Quadrifoglio into the small garage and scoop Sara up into my arms.

She twitches when I kick the door shut, and I find myself studying her face for a beat too long. Tracing the way her lashes fan her cheekbones…the lush sweep of her mouth…

A clack on the cement snaps me back to reality, where I find Pistol wriggling through the dog door and bounding over, her tail wagging. “Cazzo.” I shake my leg when my German Shepard jumps up in an attempt to sniff the unfamiliar woman in my arms. “Pistol, off!”

She whines but obeys, allowing me to remain unmolested as I approach the elevator I installed during renovations several years ago. “Good girl. Come.”

This time, I soften my tone so she knows she’s not in trouble, and she practically races inside. As the elevator doors slide shut, I fight the urge to smile at the sight of her tongue lolling out in satisfaction.

What is it about dogs and women and this type of praise?

No one looking at Pistol would suspect she once worked with the NYPD K9 unit before she was medically retired after an eye injury, and for the thousandth time since I adopted her, I wonder if I should ditch her with Marco and start over again with a more vicious breed.

After another few wags of her tail, I dismiss the idea yet again.

I use my elbow to stab the button to the basement, and the elevator groans as we descend. At five floors, my townhouse is huge as far as New York real estate goes. After a massive overhaul to accommodate both my needs and my men’s, my home is equal parts functional and luxurious, with the basement serving as the crown jewel.

When I step through the doors, it’s as if I’ve been transported to an entirely different place. Even for the cool thirty million I paid, this much space is rare. One side hosts an MMA cage for training, and across the way is a state-of-the-art sauna room.

An attached corridor leads to four cells, all constructed with top-of-the-line thirteen-gauge stainless steel, reinforced hollow metal, and heavy-duty steel framing. High-end, custom-built security cameras—technology created by SilverTech, of course—ensure full coverage from every angle. Each cell contains a bare-bones metal toilet, mostly because no one wants to deal with emptying buckets of shit and piss. At the far end of the hallway is an open-air shower for when things get really messy.

My prisoners don’t deserve the privilege of privacy.

Fluorescent lights flicker overhead as I stride past the first three cells to the fourth, the one containing the manacle I installed for my new guest. She stirs in my arms as I punch in the code and open the heavy door, her face twisting in her sleep.

I carry her to the back of her cell, where a thin cot will be her only source of comfort, and dump her onto it unceremoniously. The drugs in her system should knock her out for hours yet.

I secure the cold metal around her neck, allowing theclinkof the locking mechanism to ease my rising anxiety.

She’s here, and she’s trapped, forced into an uncomfortable position by the position of the bolts and chain.

And mine to deal with however I choose.

For two heartbeats, my conscience pricks me. I recall our effortless conversation earlier tonight and the quiet laughter we shared. If I let go of my desire to punish her, could we return to how it used to be? Could we pretend?

A foolish part of me wants to do just that. Yearns to forgive and forget what she did so long as it means I have my Sara again.

I growl, pissed off by my momentary weakness. No.Saraplayed a role in my captivity. The love I once believed she felt for me was nothing but a convenient lie.

With no one watching, I cave to the urge that’s ridden me since I saw her on the street this afternoon. Crouching down, I capture her mouth with my own and bite hard enough on her plump bottom lip to draw blood.

Even in her incoherent state, Sara tries to jerk away, but I trap the back of her head and lave the wound clean with my tongue.

The taste of copper floods my mouth, and I release her again with reluctance. The pretty red lipstick from earlier smears her mouth and cheek like a scarlet letter.