Kian
“If you try and stop me, then you’re as bad as Darragh Kinahan.”
Her words are pointed, laced with pent-up anger and frustration. She’s trying to get a rise out of me, and at the same time she’s trying to force me to back off.
I might have done exactly that—if her fucking life wasn’t at risk.
She turns her back on me and starts walking away. The sight alone is fucking intolerable. Renata Lombardi is not walking away from me. Not now. Not ever again.
It takes me only three long strides to reach her. She notices me at the last moment and tries to squirm out of my reach. But I grab her and twist her around so she’s forced to face me.
“You son of a bitch!” she yelps. “You gave me my freedom—isn’t that what you just told me a few seconds ago?”
“You do realize the implications of what I just told you, don’t you?” I hiss. “Or do I need to spell it out for you?”
“That you didn’t just kill my father; you killed my mother too?” she fires back. “That you’ll kill my brother the moment it suits you? That you’ll probably kill me as well, once this is all over?”
“I know you’re angry,” I say, shaking her hard. “But I need you to put that anger aside for the moment and think straight.”
“Fuck you.”
“Rokiades is after you.”
“What else is new?”
“If he gets his hands on you—”
“Then I’m either his prisoner or yours,” she seethes. “And from where I’m standing, there’s no difference.”
I glare at her, but I refuse to release her. She’s just so goddamn frustrating that I don’t know whether to kiss her or to hurl her into the dark water below.
“Let me go.”
“I will—once Rokiades is taken care of.”
“No!” she protests. “No! Let me go now!”
I ignore her and scoop her over my shoulder. She screams again, her fists hammering my back hard as I get off the boat and head towards the house.
“You can’t do this!” she cries. “Not again, Kian! You told me I wasn’t your prisoner anymore!”
I don’t want to lock her in the cell with Drago. I need to keep the two of them separated until I sort shit out in my head. With the cell out of play, I think about other options. The bedrooms are too comfortable and I’m not in a very gracious mood. None of the common areas in the mansion are suitable to keep Renata locked in.
Which is why I turn left and walk down the corridor towards the black door.
It’s the best place I can think of at the moment.
She notices the black door just as I turn the key in the lock. “What the hell are you doing?” she says. “I don’t want to go down there!”
Again, I ignore her and start down the circular stairway. I have to move carefully so that she doesn’t smack her head or legs on either side of the walls going down. When I get to the room, I prop her back on her feet and push her away from me before she can do it herself.
“You fucking asshole,” she hisses as she straightens herself out.
“Why don’t you cool down?” I tell her. “I have shit I need to see to.”
“You’re really going to leave me down here?”
“That’s the plan,” I say. “But you have the freedom to roam. I’m not going to tie you up.”