“You see?” he murmured, his warm breath coating the skin of my back. “I know what you need, Doe. Never, ever fucking doubt that.”
Chapter 9
Antonio
Doe and I didn’t leave the barn house for a week. We spent the days training, and the nights fucking. Away from the rest of the family, alone, we had the freedom to embrace the darkness we both harbored inside. No inhibitions. No reserves. Just us and the one thing that bound us together, our depravity. It was funny, really. I was born with this amount of twisted in me. Doe, on the other hand, had it beaten and raped into her. But that didn’t change the fact that we were two imperfect parts put together as one perfect force.
The more I pushed her, the more she started to embrace her own strength. The mere fact that she was learning so fast was proof enough that I had made the right decision. It was like she found the fire in her, the need to become empowered. To no longer be the innocent, vulnerable doe I found in the dark. And I was falling more and more in love with her the stronger she became. To see her go from slave to queen right before my eyes was the most amazing fucking thing I’d ever witnessed in my entire goddamn life. The tame, placid, docile look she always had in her eyes was changing. Those dark chocolate swirls were starting to beam with light, power shining through her irises.
Every time she fired a gun, her aim got better. It wasn’t part of my plan, but seeing her learn so quickly how to handle a firearm, I took it up a notch and had her training with knives and every other goddamn weapon I could think of. After every training session, we fucked like savages. The adrenaline. The sheer power that pulsed like a fucking heartbeat between us was intoxicating. It turned us into animals—into beasts who wanted to devour each other. This thing between us was hard. It was raw. It was fierce. And it was everything I ever fucking wanted with a woman.
“Can’t we stay here forever?” Her voice sounded lazy, both of us spent from indulging in each other.
My fingers slowly trailed down the curve of her back. “Reality is a cruel awakening, isn’t it?”
Silence fell around us, and I felt the tension rise—her tension.
“He’s going to come for me.” It wasn’t a question.
“When he does, we’ll be ready for him.” No use in denying it. She knew it as well as I did. Vadik was coming. Only she didn’t know the truth about Vadik’s desperation to get her back. She thought it was a mere obsession he had with her, and the fact that someone had the balls to steal her from him. But it was so much more than that.
I sat up, steadying myself on my elbow, then brushed her hair away from her face, staring at her marred ear. “I made an appointment with a doctor to get this fixed.”
She turned to face me, the soft pink of her nipples forcing my gaze away from her face. “You want to fix my scars?”
I looked at her. “I can’t promise it’ll work. But I think it’s worth a try.”
“Vadik already tried. Not even one of the best plastic surgeons on his payroll couldfixit.” There was a slight hint of animosity in her voice. I didn’t like it.
“Doe, it’s worth a try.”
“Why? Do my scars bother you?”
I sat up straight. “The fuck it does. No. It’s not about the goddamn scars, it’s about righting what that fucker did to you.”
“You can’t fix this, Antonio.” She turned away from me, and I balled my fist. The need to grab her face and force her to look at me was overwhelming. Just because I wanted her to shed the skin of the slave she wore didn’t mean I was less of a motherfucker with control issues. I still had the need to demand respect. But I knew better. If I wanted her to get this surgery done, I needed to keep my shit together. It was the most important part of the plan.
“Doe, look at me.” The fact that she took a few breaths before she obeyed was proof that the obedient, fragile girl in her was disappearing. Good.
Once she turned, her eyes focused on mine, I made an effort to drop the stone look on my face. “I do have an ulterior motive for you having this surgery, but it’s not because I think of your scars as ugly, or anything but a flawed perfection.”
Her eyes softened, and she sat up in the bed with me. “Then what is it?”
“There’s no use bullshitting around the truth. He will come for you.”
She visibly shuddered.
“I want to make sure we have every security measure in place the day he does.”
Her eyebrows slanted inward. “I don’t understand. What does the surgery have to do with my security against Vadik?”
With a soft touch, I brushed her hair behind her shoulder before letting my gaze settle on hers once again. “There’s a chip.” My heart was pounding.
“A chip?”
“Yes. It’s a microchip.” I took a breath. “It’s the only way to make sure I always know where you are.”
“A tracking device?”