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“He is not a merciful man, Sofia.”
“And you are?” She lifts her chin, glaring at me. “You’re keeping me prisoner here.”
A surge of frustration verging on anger ripples through me, and I stand up from the desk despite myself, nearly knocking my chair over. “I am keeping yousafe!” I thunder, my voice carrying out of the office and echoing in the hall, and I see Sofia flinch backwards again. To her credit, she doesn’t try to run. “Was your friend not able to convey properly what those men, the Bratva, would have done to you?”
“She said they would have sold me, and she mentioned—worse things,” Sofia admits. She swallows hard, and I see her slender throat convulse.
My cock twitches, swelling in the confines of my tailored suit. Just the sight of that makes me think of her throat convulsing around my shaft, the way it would feel while I gripped her hair and thrust myself deeper, fucking her face until—
Goddamn it, Luca, get yourself under control.My reaction to this girl is ridiculous. I consider myself exceptionally virile, but at thirty-one and with half of Manhattan notched in my bedpost, I’d thought my days of uncontrollable erections were behind me. And yet here I am, standing in my office as achingly and inappropriately hard as a teenager who has yet to fuck anything other than his hand.
“You’re right,” I say calmly. “The Bratva are well known for their treatment of women. Their primary source of income is selling concubines to wealthy men, and sex slaves to all parts of the world. The women who aren’t deemed valuable enough for sale are used for sport for their own men.”
“Trafficking,” Sofia whispers, and I can see the fear in her eyes.
“Not only that, but the women they keep aren’t treated much better. Maybe you’re thinking that as a daughter of a Russian woman, they might have married you off to someone in their inner circle. Maybe you wouldn’t have been sold. But their wives are little more than chattel, too, living in fear and at the whims of their husbands.”
“And would that be any different from being married to you?” Sofia lifts her chin defiantly.
I can feel my jaw clench. Slowly and purposefully, I step around the edge of my desk, coming to face her a few feet away. “Our marriage will not be loving, Sofia. I will not be a faithful husband, or a devoted one. But I can promise you this—I will never lay a hand on you in anger. I will never force you into my bed against your will. You will be protected from anything that might harm you, provided for in every way, with every luxury that money can buy. I can’t give you romance, or a family of your own, but I will see to it that in whatever way I can make up for that with material things—your home, travel, anything you wish—I will do so. I don’t intend to make you unhappy, Sofia. But I do intend to bring this entire matter to a close as quickly as possible.”
“You already laid hands on me,” Sofia points out. “Last night.”
This girl is insufferable.I let out a slow, measured breath. “You were trying to escape.”
“Still—”
“Alright!” I grit my teeth. “I won’t touch you again, without permission. Is that enough for you?”
“You still haven’t answered my question. What happens if I refuse?”
It takes all the effort I can muster not to clench my hands into fists, or shout. But I can’t afford to frighten her—at least not when it comes to me.
But I’m done playing games, and dancing around the truth.
“Don Rossi will have you killed,” I say simply.
The words have the desired effect. Sofia goes bone-white, and for a second I think she might pass out again. I’m wondering whether my promise not to lay my hands on her again includes keeping her from falling to the floor in a dead faint, but she manages to stay upright, gripping the side of the door to steady herself.
“What do you mean?” she whispers.
“I mean exactly that. You are a loose end, Sofia. A chess piece, a card to play, whatever you want to call it. By marrying you, I am taking you out of play. Off of the board. You will be safe, and the Bratva can no longer use you against us. But if you refuse to marry me, and I let you leave here, they will be able to take you again. Don Rossi will not allow that to be a possibility.”
Sofia frowns, her forehead creasing with confusion. “But if you don’t want to marry me, how can they use me as bait? Why do I matter, if I don’t mean anything to you? Surely a promise between two men who are long dead doesn’t mean so much to this Viktor, or to your boss—”
“Sofia!” I grit my teeth, trying to hold my temper. “There are things that you don’t need to know, and that I can’t tell you. But what I can—what Iamtelling you, is that you actuallydohave a choice. You can agree to marry me, here and now, or I can call Don Rossi and tell him that you refuse. And after that, there is nothing else I can do to save you.”
“And will you be the one to kill me, if I say no? Maybe pull out a gun here and shoot me?” Sofia glares at me.
“Not here,” I say simply. “And I hope not.” It’s not something that I can picture Rossi doing, truthfully. He’s not the kind to play games, to take Sofia and put a gun in my hand in hopes that she might be convinced to change her mind. He’d simply have her killed, clean and quiet, and wash his hands of the entire mess. In fact, I know that’s what he’d prefer. As long as she’s alive, even married to me, there are variables. She might try to run again. She might be kidnapped. She might become pregnant, and the baby used against us.
Death is the best guarantee that a potential problem won’t come to pass.
But I don’t want that to happen. I want to fulfill the promise that was made for me, tuck Sofia somewhere safely away, and put enough security on her that she’ll never be in danger. If I’m careful the first night, and never touch her again, there will be no possibility of children. The matter of Sofia Romano will still be handled—and she’ll be alive.
“I don’t want you dead,” I tell her simply. “That’s why I’m doing this, Sofia. It’s the only way to solve this problem.”
“So I’m a problem to you?”
