“You offered me a gift the last time I was here,” I say, my heart racing wildly. This is foolish. This is beyond stupid. “To make up for this embarrassing display, I want that girl.”
Guido’s eyes go wide. He releases her and stands up straight. If he looked like he might vomit before, now he looks like he might pass out. His neck bulges with veins and his mouth moves on its own, but no sound comes out.
Siena doesn’t move, and the tears keep rolling down her cheeks, dripping into her lap and onto the bedspread.
The sound of moaning echoes through the wall followed by an ugly masculine grunt. Guido slowly looks at Siena, but she’s staring at me with pure shock and uncertainty.
I don’t know what I’m thinking. I can’t take her home, much less keep her. I have no clue how I’ll explain Siena to my brothers, my two little sisters, and my mother. Certainly not to my father. There’s nowhere for her to hide in the Kremlin, and she wouldn’t be safe in any of my other apartments. None of them are secure—those are meant only to be used for a night or two at most.
But none of that matters.
It’s all logistics. It’s all beside the point.
My pulse thunders in my ears and my world is reduced to Siena staring at me with those beautiful brown eyes and those pouty lips. I want her mouth wrapped around my cock and her hips wiggling in the air. I want her as my own, kept as a pet.
I want to own her and I want to save her. The two desires are conflicting, but the same.
“You do not want her,” Guido says finally, an awkward laugh on his lips. “That girl is nothing. She is trouble.”
“Then give her to me.” I stare at him, eyes narrowing. “Or was your offer an empty gesture?”
He grimaces and shakes his head. “No, it was not. You can have anyone else, even my best girls. You can have Mira, you’ll love Mira, skin like honey and a mouth—”
“I do not want her,” I say, cutting him off. “I will not repeat myself again, Don Bastone. You made me an offer and I accepted it. What sort of man are you, to go back on your word?”
Anger sparks in his eyes then. Good, I want him angry. I feel insulted that he’d hold this girl from me, as if she was important—as if he has the power to deny me anything. I crush men like him for a living and kill all those that get in my way, and I will not allow this weak old man to turn his back on me this way.
He takes a slow breath and lets it out.
“Maxim, that girl is my daughter.”
I take a step away as my body goes stiff.
His daughter? His own daughter, working in a place like this?
He let her get slapped by the madam right in front of him. The disrespect is repulsive.
And now she’s dressed like a whore waiting for her clients.
So much makes sense. It clicks into place and it sickens me. She kept saying they, they, they, and now I understand. She meant Zita, but also her father, Don Bastone, the man that owns this place. The man that owns her.
The horror of it strikes me like a kick to my stomach. I look at Siena and shame blooms in her eyes as she stares at the floor. “I don’t understand,” I say, shaking my head, trying to make sense of a senseless situation.
“Siena is my daughter,” Guido explains. “She lives and works here because of something she did to my family. She’s a traitor, Maxim, and this is the best she deserves. I will not insult you and your father by giving you something like that.” His lips pull down in a sneer as he glances at his own kin. “Believe me, she will pay for this… display.”
His daughter. His own daughter. What could she have done that warranted this?
My mind races. How can I let her stay now, knowing who she is? Knowing what she and I did together that night?
Knowing that I took her virginity?
That girl is mine by rights.
“Whatever she did, I will punish her for it,” I say, my eyes locked on Siena. She looks up sharply, mouth open. “I asked for her, and I’m not changing my mind.”
Guido sighs. “Maxim, this is too much. I cannot allow her to leave. If you knew what she did, surely you’d agree.”
“Then tell me.”
His jaw flexes. “She helped a whore escape. That whore then turned to the police, who raided one of my facilities. The whore in question has since been caught and killed, and now my daughter is here paying for her crime. She’s a traitor.”
I watch Siena carefully. She’s gaping at her father and I can see agony on her face. Her tears double, falling faster. She must not have known that the girl was dead. I almost feel bad. She’s a mafia daughter and she should have known better than to turn her back on her family, even for a supposedly noble cause. The life of one whore is not worth the honor of the bond to her family.