Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 62590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 313(@200wpm)___ 250(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
“We’ll take care of things here, if you want to take care of the girl.” Sonny’s a good right-hand man. Loyal, eager-to-please. Not always the best decision-maker, but that might come with time.
“Thank you.” I pick up the briefcase of money and pay out the two guys, leaving a stack of money for them to pay out the rest of the crew for the night.
Grasping the girl’s elbow, I help her to her feet. “Okay, hon, let’s get you out of here. Do you speak English?”
She swings her unfocused gaze to my face and stumbles as I lead her to the door, looking terrified. She might not speak English, and she might be drugged, but she understands she’s been sold.
And I have no way to tell her she’s safe.
An hour later, after calling the detective and taking the girl to the police department, I get home. I’m certain Summer will be asleep–it’s one in the morning.
But she waited up. She greets me with far more enthusiasm than I deserve.
I disentangle her arms from around my neck and give her a perfunctory kiss. “Go to bed, bambina. I’ll be in soon.”
She’s disappointed, but I feel too dirty to touch her. And not the kind of soil a shower can wash off. What I saw tonight–human trafficking–makes me sick.
It grinds up against my moral codes. I’ve murdered. I use intimidation, violence, and threats to get my way on a fairly regular basis. I operate in a world of crime. Always have. I was born into this life. Raised in it. I have nerves of steel when it comes to most things.
I don’t know why this shit bothered me so much.
Actually, I do.
It’s too close to the games I play at in bed. The non-consensual version.
That girl had been whipped. Used.
What happened to her was wrong on every level. Yet those are the exact scenes and scenarios I love to enact in my own bedroom. With my willing partners.
I’m a sick fuck, and I’ve taken the don’s daughter–the princess of the mafia–into my warped world. I’ve trained her as a submissive. Treated her like a pretend sex slave.
It’s so wrong.
I turn on the television, unable to face the sweet girl I’ve corrupted.
When I fall asleep, my dreams are soaked in guilt.
I’ve been on a killing rampage, taking down a rival family back in Italy. I gun down the last one and step over him to take the girl he was keeping prisoner. It’s the Russian girl. I put her in my car without untying her, and then she turns into Summer. Tied up. At my mercy. Begging for an orgasm as I drive the car. But then we’re hit from behind. Glass shatters. Metal crunches.
Gunshots riddle the car with holes. I hold Summer’s head down to keep her safe.
Mario looks through the shattered window. He’s holding a gun. “You shouldn’t have taken the girl.”
“I know,” I say, but I’m unwilling to give her up. Unwilling to make it right by giving Summer to Mario or returning her where she belongs.
He points the gun at my temple. “Then you know what I have to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Summer
I wake before Carlo and get in the shower.
It might be time to end this little fling with him. I suspect he’s getting bored, and I’d rather be the one to end things first. Salvage my pride and all that.
For the first time since I moved in a week ago, he wasn’t interested in sex last night. He came home from whatever work he was doing last night and seemed shut down.
I had stayed up for him, and I threw my arms around his neck, offering up a kiss, but he gave me a perfunctory peck and disentangled himself from me.
“Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine, Bambi. Go to bed, I’ll be in in a minute.”
I went to the bedroom and stripped down to my panties, waiting, but he never came in. Instead, I heard the television go on.
It’s not like we have to have sex every night. He might be tired. Or stressed out. Just because he spent hours giving me mind-blowing orgasms the rest of the week doesn’t mean he always will.
But it hurt my feelings way more than it should have, which is why I think I should probably end things.
Carlo’s up and dressed when I get out of the shower. “Buongiorno.” He cups my nape and kisses me in that masterful way he has that makes my knees go weak. I try to stay strong, breezing past him and getting dressed.
He leans against the doorframe, hands in his pockets, watching me. “Sorry I was a dud last night. Can I take you to breakfast, principessa?”
I shrug into a cute dress. Maybe I was being hasty. “Yeah. That’d be nice.”
I lace up a pair of high-top Chucks and enjoy Carlo’s appreciative sweep of my bare legs.