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I nodded. “I’m gonna try the whole using my feminine wiles thing.”
“Don’t,” he pleaded. “Don’t go near him. Please. I don’t think… I don’t think I could handle him taking you. I can’t.”
“I won’t scream,” I promised. “I won’t cry. You won’t hear anything except for an idiot man pretending to be a grown-up, trying to get a rise out of you. I’ll just…” I sniffed. “I’ll just pretend I’m with you, and when it hurts, I’ll think of you, and I’ll think of how you almost got your dick shot off because I didn’t want to marry someone like your brother.”
Santino lowered his head, tugging my arm through the bars and pressing his forehead against the back of my hand. “I’m not this strong, Katya.”
“You have to be,” I said. “You have no choice. Because if you’re not strong, then I can’t be strong.”
He nodded, then shifted and pressed his mouth to the back of my hand.
“You know we would have never really worked out anyway.” A tear slid down my cheek. I need to stay hydrated, but I can’t stop crying.
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?” He turned fully toward me.
“Because.” I leaned in close, my face partially through the bars. “You kill people and, I think, actually enjoy it.”
Santino made a face. “Only if they deserve it, but yes, I find immense satisfaction when I grab someone who’s been trafficking children overseas. In fact, it takes immense self-control not to carry out the torture longer than two hours.”
“I’d make it six.”
“Noted. And second?” he asked.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she admitted. “And I think you like that fear; I think you need it in order to be you. It’s the one thing I can’t give you, my fear. You have too much of my respect for fear to take hold.”
“That’s okay; my fear of you cancels out your fear of me.”
“You aren’t afraid of me!”
“You literally got me married within days of meeting me and almost got me killed… twice.”
She giggled.
“It’s not funny!”
“It’s kind of funny, just a little bit?”
He rolled his eyes and reached for my knee through the bars, pulling me roughly against the cold steel. I liked it. I needed it. “I swear I’ll find a way to save us.”
“I know.” At least I knew he would die trying. But maybe if I gave in a bit, maybe if I seduced his brother or did something to catch him off guard, I could save us too. I just didn’t know what.
Santino’s hand inched up my bare thigh. “Enough talk of death. Imagine you’re on the beach, a drink in one hand, nachos in the other.”
“Why nachos?”
“Don’t ruin the dream,” he muttered and smacked my thigh lightly. “You have nachos with olives—”
“Without olives.”
“My dream, we get olives. Now stop interrupting.”
“Sorry.” I giggled, loving this side of him. “Keep going.”
“And on this beach, it’s just us and the ocean. We can swim naked with dolphins, though highly not recommended because they’re horny bastards, but we could at least skinny dip under the sun and the moon. Nobody’s after us. Only light, no darkness, only the heat from the sun and the light from the moon after that, for days on end.”
“Take me there. Promise?” I asked.
His smile was so pure and beautiful I wanted to cry all over again. “Of course.”
