Her pretty blue eyes widen. She has no immediate answer, she can’t conjure a lie fast enough. I watch as her cheeks flush with the embarrassment of having been caught out.
I don’t press her on it, a rare kindness I won’t be offering in the future. She’s still in shock at what she witnessed, both tonight and back at her office apparently. Now I know why her scent had taunted me that day. She’d been right outside the door the entire time.
It’s a pleasant surprise to find out Tess has a backbone. She’s no meek society girl. She doesn’t do what I say just because she’s afraid I’m going to kill her. She doesn’t throw herself at me knowing it can save her, knowing being with me can give her protection and power.
No, she’s reckless with her mouth, her words, and her actions. Like me.
She’s perfect.
So fucking beautiful it steals my breath away.
“Who was that man you danced with?”
I’d walked into the charity event to find her clutched in the arms of some geriatric fucker, pressed so tightly against him she couldn’t move. A primitive type of anger had filled me when I thought she was willingly throwing herself at him. It’d devolved into outright rage when I saw her face and realized she was more a prisoner than anything.
Arturo had yanked me back by my shirt when I’d made a move towards her, reminding me that we were here to follow the lead on Adriana.
Marco found Dadurian the day after Firenze and tortured a confession out of him. He’d quickly admitted to having seen Adriana that night two years ago. He’d been in charge of slipping something in her drink but wasn’t the one who’d kidnapped and eventually killed her.
That man was an Italian, one Dadurian hadn’t named before dying, simply telling us he was a Leone.
The family of Augusto Leone, the capo.
Angelo Leone, a distant cousin of Augusto, presently lays dead at my feet. Turns out he wasn’t the man I was looking for either, had no idea what I was talking about or who Adriana even was, but he’d gotten a bullet in the head nonetheless.
In no particular order, I was going to destroy every single member of the Leone family one by one until I found the man responsible for Adriana’s death.
It made sense that it was the Italians. There’s no way they’d have let the Armenians come to their club and create such a mess without their involvement or supervision. Unlike them, they have the manpower and firepower to take me on.
Arturo had been right to stop me from making a scene, redirecting me instead to the rare species exhibit where Marco had plucked Angelo from the charity gala and was holding him captive.
Nonetheless, the second we’d stepped away from the event I’d clocked Turo in the jaw for getting between me and Tess.
And now anger burns in her gaze, but it doesn’t seem directed at me. At least not entirely.
“He’s a colleague.”
She spits it out like it’s an insult. She’s beautiful when she’s mad, her cheeks red, those delectable tits of hers straining to escape. If I make her angry enough, will one finally slip free, exposing one of the nipples I’m so desperate to bite?
“Do you let all your colleagues touch you like that?” If she does, that’s going to stop right fucking now.
“No.” She looks down at the exhibit of thousand-year-old insects. Softer, she adds, “He thinks he’s going to marry me.”
The thought of that man or any other getting their hands on her makes my eye twitch dangerously.
I don’t fucking think so.
“He’s wrong.”
She laughs humorlessly and doesn’t say anything. My cock throbs painfully in my trousers. He’s finally found someone he wants to fuck into next year and he doesn’t appreciate not being allowed to do so.
I let the silence stretch between us until eventually she speaks again.
“That man you killed,” she starts, nodding her chin in his general direction. “He didn’t do anything to you?”
“Not specifically, no.”
“And you killed him anyway?”
“Yes.”
She looks at me like I’m an abomination.
“You’re a monster.”
“Yes.”
Unlike her, I won’t deny the truth.
Her eyes narrow when I prowl towards her. “Don’t come near me. I’ll scream.”
“I’d rather you scream in other ways.”
She gapes at me, mouth parting in shock. “What’s wrong with you? You really think I’m going to sleep with you after I watched you assault my father and kill an innocent man?”
An arrogant smile graces my lips. “I do.”
She sets her jaw and lifts her chin at me in challenge. “So you’re planning on assaulting me.”
I laugh, actual mirth shining in my eyes. I’m enjoying this game we’re playing; I don’t know to what end, but I’m more entertained than I have been in years.
“We both know you’ll fuck me willingly, even if you’re not ready to admit it just yet.” I step up to her and this time she stays put. Her head tilts back to keep her eyes on me, exposing her open throat. My eyes drop to the expanse of her skin. I’m desperate to claim her, to mark her in a way that identifies her as belonging to Thiago da Silva. My gaze moves back up to find her eyes hazed over with lust. “Not just willingly, Tess. Repeatedly. I can tell by the way you’ve been eye fucking me since you walked in. You’ll beg me to make you come and then you’ll beg me to please stop making you come. Depending on how merciful I feel that day, depending on how much of a good girl you’ll have been for me that day, I’ll decide then whether to use your pleasure as a reward or a form of torture.”
Her lips are parted, her breaths shallow. Her eyes pinball between mine as she rides the wave of lust my words have unfurled inside her. I know if I were to put my hands in her panties, I’d find her soaked for me.
It’s an exercise in control that I don’t actually have to not reach out and touch her.
“If you’re so convinced I’ll willingly sleep with you, then let me go,” she challenges.
I smirk. Extending my arms casually to either side of me, I look at her questioningly. “Am I holding you prisoner?”
Her eyes widen then turn wary. When I don’t move or touch her, she slides one foot to the side, then the other. She repeats the motion with her eyes trained on me like a skittish animal surveying a looming predator until I’m no longer standing between her and the door.
She doesn’t run even though I know she must be dying to, and that only makes me harder for her. I’m dizzy with the need to have her, to fuck her.
“Tess.”
She freezes, less than a foot from the door. The way her back tenses and her shoulders bunch around her ears tells me she’s afraid I’m going to hurt her. That I dangled the hope of an escape in front of her only to yank her back from the clutches of freedom at the very last second.
Nevertheless, she looks over her shoulder at me. She doesn’t bow her head or avert gaze. She looks me straight in the eye and defies me.
She should be scared of how violent my lust is for her. I can’t promise I won’t hurt her when she does eventually submit to me.
“I’ve decided I will have you.”
She scoffs. “It’s not up to you. I’m not for sale, Thiago.”
Her use of my name is intentional. It’s meant to equalize us, to reduce me from violent killer and cartel leader down to just a man who might show her some mercy.
It does the opposite, because I don’t hear my name often and I’ve definitely never heard it lobbed at me with such venom before. I love it, that fire of hers. She unintentionally marks me as hers with my own name.
“Everyone has a price.”
“Not me.”
I face her and bury my hands deep in my pockets.
“Maybe you don’t,” I acquiesce. A slow, dark smile stretches my lips. “But we both know someone else who does, don’t we, amor?”
She blanches and I’m seconds away from coming in my trousers at the sight of her pale face losing all its color.
Her submission is going to taste so fucking sweet. I whistle, a shrill sound that pierces the air, and the doors open. “Let her through.”
I turn away and don’t watch as she leaves.
✽✽✽
Arturo walks back into the room with Marco in tow. The expression on his face tells me he knows what I’m going to say before I even say it.
“Her,” I tell him. “I want her.”
