“Not yet, but when Blake Walker shared things with me, I didn’t immediately feel the trigger. It came later in the day.”
“Well then, let’s just print out everything and get you armed.”
I hear the exterior door opening and I push to my feet, exiting the office as Marabella calls out, “Chocolate croissants have arrived.”
I round the counter and rush to meet her, finding her lugging two picnic baskets, and I have this sense of belonging, of rightness here in the castle. Death might live here, but so do new beginnings, healing, and perseverance. I belong here, no matter what my past might try to say otherwise. It’s at that moment that a peal of thunder rattles the store windows, as if I’m being told the calm before the storm is over.
An hour and a half later, my stomach is stuffed, my stack of papers is substantial, and there is no word from Kayden, which has me feeling pretty antsy. “I think that’s about everything,” Sasha says, finishing off a croissant before handing me one last page. “I even printed everything I could find here in Rome that’s near the alleyway where you were found. But there’s one other place in Paris I wanted to mention. Did you ever go to the club?”
Ice slides down my spine and I quickly shove away the memory of being tied up, the whip biting into my skin. “He took you there?”
“Fool that I am,” she says, “I went by choice. Naively—who’d ever think to call me that—I didn’t see that we’re his targets. He likes powerful women he can break. If they submit easily, he doesn’t want them. But I guess that’s good. I mean, think about how he affects us. Can you imagine what he would do to someone with a different nature?”
“I don’t even want to consider that.”
“But maybe that’s the point,” she continues. “He wants to be able to push and push and push some more.”
“Why were you involved with him?”
“We had a contract with a French diplomat who wanted to take him down once and for all. The paycheck was huge and I’d get to take down the brutal head of the French mob. I was so inspired that I stayed even when it got bad. Did he ever make you call him Master? That was where the trouble started for me. I have this ‘never surrender’ mentality that he saw as a challenge.”
My mind starts swimming with images, and I begin to tremble. I drop my head forward, fighting the flashback I can’t have here. Not in front of Sasha, and with Matteo nearby, perhaps walking in at any moment. I fight hard, but it’s no use. Suddenly I am in the past, though not at the club. I am in his bedroom. Garner Neuville’s bedroom.
I am naked. He is not. He’s dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt. I’m on my knees and he’s holding the flogger I hate so damn much. I stare at the floor, willing myself to just get through this.
“Look at me,” he orders, and I ignore my warning to myself and his command. “Look at me.”
I can’t do it. I just . . . can’t.
His fingers tangle in my hair and he yanks my head back, the tug against my scalp biting. “I see that defiance in your eyes, my love. You dare to look at me this way? The man who saved you? The man who owns this city, as I own you? The man who deleted the security footage that showed you leaning over a dying man?”
And there it is. A promise to destroy me should I not submit, delivered by the mob boss. A laundry list of the many ways he can, and will, hurt me if I leave him. And a reminder to me that I can’t kill him yet. Not when I’ve seen enough of his operation to know he will be avenged. Not until I know I’m ready to disappear and take the necklace with me.
“Say thank you,” he orders.
“Thank you,” I force out.
“You don’t sound like you mean it.” He leans in and brushes his lips over mine. “I can taste your disobedience. Ah, love. The moment I break you will be the most erotic of my life.” He nips my lips, a painful punishment that draws blood, his voice roughening. “I am your Master. You will say it before this night is over.”
He tightens the grip on my hair and reaches down and smacks my nipple with the flogger. But I don’t give him what he wants. I do not cry out; I do not so much as whimper. “Master,” he repeats.
I want to kill him.
I want to hurt him first.
I want this night to be the night I get to do those things.
“Say it,” he commands. “Master.”
I don’t say it, but he doesn’t even wait to realize that. He releases my hair and thankfully drops the flogger, only to produce a rope from his pocket. “Put your hands in front of you.”
The moment I let him tie me up, the real torture will start and I’ll be unable to kill him.
“Hands,” he demands.
Kill him!
No.