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It had been a long time since Roger had called me that. I was barely a teenager when he started calling me his king. At the time, it felt like such an honor, but now it seemed like more of a burden. A man could not hold so many allegiances without breaking.
“I understand. I’m going to give the sous chef a chance before I slaughter the lot of them. What of my brother?”
An uneasy silence fell between us.
“He grows paranoid. As the days pass with his woman still missing, he suspects that those close to us must have something to do with it. I had to stop him from going on a killing spree and taking out our foot soldiers with a bomb.”
Relief flowed through me. For a minute there, I didn’t think Roger was going to tell me anything. He’d been so secretive lately. For all my life, Roger had been like a father to me. But the coded messages. The skirting around questions. Him advising that I find another right hand. It was time to accept that Roger was no longer with me.
“...you could always starve Sloane,” Roger was saying when I tuned back in.
Wait, what?
“You could deprive her of food when she is being unruly. It would be a quick and easy way to tame her.”
A feeling I couldn’t place raced through me. I wished I could put my finger on it. “What would I do if she wasn’t bad at all?”
“That’s easy, my king. You give her affection as a reward. Food is the easiest punishment because she can go longer without it. I wouldn’t dehydrate her too much.”
My mind wanted to reject the idea of starvation, especially since I needed her to be healthy enough to carry my son, but my cock grew hard at the thought of punishing Sloane in other ways. Carving my name into her chest hadn’t pacified the monster within, the one relished in her pain only to make it better again. She could tolerate more. She was strong.
“Maybe you’re right,” I murmured, mostly lost in my thoughts in all the ways I could torment Sloane.
“I have to go, my king,” Roger rushed. “Anything else?”
“No, no. That’s all,” I said, distractedly.
He hung up that phone as my cock drove me mad with ideas of what to do with Sloane.Would I ever tire of her?Breeding my littlemalishkaover and over again, for a decade, would keep me virile and strong.
A knock on my office door had me adjusting my dick. “Enter,” I commanded.
Roman walked in. “Mr. Petrov—”
I cut him off with a raised hand. “When will you call me Alexie?”
“Sir?” He looked confused.
“Mr. Petrov is too formal. You are here to work, yes, but you are my protégé. They all need to know how close we are so they will give you the respect you deserve.Da?”
Roman nodded. “Alexie,” he tried out.
My phone pinged with a text message. I scowled.About time.“Sophia has remade soup. Would you like to come with me to try it?”
“Sure, sir—Alexie.”
Roman followed me down the long hallway to the stairs closest to my office. I enjoyed the layout of this house, and truthfully, I still did not know how Roger did this undetected. I hadn’t even known he had connections in America. Sure, sometimes he went with my father overseas, but only when there were issues, like that time the Cartel tried to take over in Las Vegas. We had to reach out to the Sicilians to get it back. It was awful. The fucking Sicilians ran their syndicate by the book. Always looking for the Feds on every corner.
We headed into the kitchen, and everyone rushed to turn their stations off and lined up against the wall. I appreciated the show of respect. Except for Sophia.
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“What’s this?” I waved toward the stock pot in front of her.
“Tomato soup, sir.” She didn’t look my way.
That bothered me. “I know that. What I don’t understand is why is there so much of it?”
“I figured you would probably want more once you got a taste.”
