by Raven Dark
“Michael, did you bring your girlfriend aboard with me here?”
A man in a waiter’s uniform sets a silver platter down in front of me and lifts the lid off to reveal the same eggs and toast. There’s a handful of strawberries on the plate. He puts the same thing in front of Michael. He gives the waiter a nod and he departs.
“Katerina is not my girlfriend.” He sets the folder aside on the table.
“Wife, then.”
He scowls. “You think I’m that much of an asshole?” It shocks me to realize he looks genuinely perturbed by my insinuation.
“You kidnapped me and carted me off to the Rockies against my will. Not to mention that act of pure debauchery you put me through last night. Cheating on a woman doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch.”
“Debauchery?” He pops a strawberry into his mouth. “I like the sound of that. Are you jealous, Aurora?”
It pisses me off to realize it, but I am. And that I’m wondering if he lets every woman who works for him kiss him like that. The folder is probably a day planner, which makes her his personal assistant.
“I put my women through a lot of things, kravitsa, but cheating isn’t one of them.”
It’s not a reassurance, somehow.
The doors to the cabin open and a tall, reed-thin man with round spectacles walks in. He’s carrying a leather satchel. Michael turns to him as he crosses to the table.
“Ah. Doctor.” He nods to me. “Aurora, this is my family’s personal physician, Doctor Vanhorn. Relax, he’s the best there is. He’ll take care of you.”
The doctor walks over to my chair.
The man is here to give me the injection Michael mentioned last night. I tense, my brain scrambling for a way out of this. Once I’ve had that injection, there’ll be nothing to stop Michael from doing whatever he wants to me, whenever he wants. Not that an absence of contraceptive drugs would detour him.
Doctor Vanhorn squats at my side. “Roll up your sleeve, please, Miss Romano.” His voice is clipped, professional, and completely indifferent.
When I don’t do as he tells me, Michael raises a brow. Daring me to challenge him.
I sigh and jerk my sleeve up past my elbow. I hate needles.
It’s over in an instant. The prick of the needle makes me wince. Both men ignore it. As soon as Vanhorn is finished, he closes up his satchel. Michael thanks him, and he leaves with little more than a nod.
Somehow, being given that injection feels like some final act that serves as Michael’s claiming me. I’m really in this. He owns me now.
Shutting down, I eat a few strawberries and then eye the eggs. Doing the only thing I can do, play along as if it’s nothing. “I don’t suppose you have any ketchup?”
He pulls a disgusted face. “How can you ruin perfectly good eggs with that unmitigated slop?”
I shrug. “Eating eggs without kats-up is its own brand of torture, Michael.”
He gives a delightful laugh as he forks eggs into his mouth. “Well, we wouldn’t want that.”
“Do the people who work for you know…why I’m here?” Or how?
The corners of his mouth go up. “You mean do they know I’m a depraved monster who dragged you here for my pleasure?”
“Something like that.”
“They know enough.” He sits back. “They will not help you, Aurora. They don’t know everything, but they know enough that they won’t bat an eye if you tell them you don’t want to be here.”
“Even Katerina?”
“Yes.”
Somehow, it’s disturbing that she’d let another woman be held here as a prisoner without taking action, although I don’t know why it’s a shock. Many of the men in the Mafia have wives, girlfriends and female staff who know what they do and they’re loyal enough not to say anything. Women in the Mafia understand that’s just what you do.
“All of my employees are aware of my…tastes, kravitsa.” He polishes off some more eggs and a bite of toast. “If I had asked any one of them to bring you to me instead of arranging to have your father bring you to me personally, they would have done it, without question.”
Suddenly, I’ve lost my appetite. Unfortunately, I know too much about how he manages to obtain that kind of silence or loyalty. My father has the same power, the same money, the same kind of connections in the underworld as the Volkovs.
Whatever hope I had of escaping slips a little further away.
“Why the Rockies, Michael? What are you going to do with me?”
He shakes his head. “You are persistent, I’ll grant you that. It’s my turn to ask questions.” He sits back, pulls a phone from his pocket, presses a button on it, and slides it across the table in front of me. “Who’s Antonio?”
What? I look down at the phone’s glowing screen. It vibrates as a caller ID with the name Antonio Petrelli pops up. I pick the phone up slowly, my brain sluggish.
Even if Gio hadn’t taken my phone and probably tossed it somewhere, I’d have known this one wasn’t mine. The one Micheal is holding is more expensive than I could afford. But why the hell would Antonio be calling on Michael’s phone? And the accusation in his tone is unmistakable, suggesting the call, a call from another man, is for me.
A dozen questions trip over themselves in my head. “Michael, how…?”
“Who is he?” The coldness in his eyes, the stiffness in his shoulders makes my muscles tighten with warning.
My brain races too fast to form a proper answer. I hate that the jealousy in his eyes rattles me. And that the possession in that look makes my pussy flutter. “He’s no one. How did you get—”
He grabs the phone and looks at it. It’s stopped vibrating now. “He called you fifteen times since I left you in that bedroom.” Michael raises a concerned brow. “That’s charming.”
He’s giving Antonio a hard time for how many times he’s called me after all that he’s done? “Pot, meet kettle, Michael.”
His teeth flash, but the smile doesn’t touch his eyes. “Who is he?”
I can just imagine what’s going through Antonio’s head. My father likely hasn’t told him what’s happened to me. Calling me that often would normally piss me off, but he’s probably worried sick. I can’t help feeling a little bad for him.
“I told you, he’s no one.” The last thing I want to do is tell him shit about anyone he thinks I’m involved with. My father is an ass, and while I don’t like Antonio, he has nothing to do with what Vincent has done. There’s no need to put him on Michael’s radar any more than he already is.
“Fifteen calls in a night is not no one.” He sets the phone down. “I know you haven’t fucked him. I can tell you were as untouched as you told me last night, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something between you.”
“There isn’t.”
“Have you spread your legs for him, Aurora? Has he touched you?”
At his insinuations, I roll my eyes, anger rising. “How the are you getting a call from him? What the hell is going on here?”
“This phone is a clone of yours.”
My jaw drops. “You cloned my phone?” Fear begins to take root. “How did you get it?”
He shrugs.
“Michael! The only time I leave my phone is when I’m asleep! Wait a minute.” My face drains of blood. “Oh, my God. Were you in my fucking apartment?”
“And if I was?”
I groan, putting my head in my hands. What kind of a monster has this man turned into? “I don’t believe you! That’s really sick, you know.”
I’ve never felt so violated, so exposed. What else might he have done while he was in there? And had he been creeping around in there when I was asleep? Watching me? I shiver.
“If you weren’t attached to your phone at the hip all the time, I wouldn’t have had to take such measures,” he deadpans.
“Oh, my God.”
For what reason, I can’t imagine, but somehow, the fact that he’d go to such lengths to have me does weird things t
o my insides. It also scares the hell out of me. He has no care for the law or my personal privacy, and worst of all, he doesn’t seem to care that he’s done anything wrong. He may not even think he has.
“You haven’t answered me, woman. Have you sucked him off? Has he had his mouth on your pussy?”
“How dare you!” I grit out.
“Answer me!” he snaps.
“No! Michael, I told you, I haven’t—. Antonio is just a guy my dad wants me to marry. He’s one of his friends.”
“Were you going to marry him?”
“Why the hell do you even care?” My voice breaks with the thought of all I’ve suddenly lost the right to. If I can’t get away from Michael, there’s a lot of things I won’t be doing. Marrying, having a family, falling in love. I didn’t want the Mafia life, and I never wanted to become some Mafioso’s trophy wife, but I did plan on having a family one day. “You have me. If you have your way, my life is over, so why do you care what my plans for the future are?”
“Because.” He leans over and captures my wrist with his fingers. His grip makes the purple bruises from the flex cuffs there sting. “You belong to me. I don’t want you thinking about another man while I’m fucking you.”
“Trust me, Michael, I don’t think about Antonio like that.”
“Why? Not enough money in his bank account?”
“You son of a bitch.” I try to pull my wrist away, but his grip turns to iron. I whimper, and he ignores it. “Let go of me.”
His brow shoots up, in reaction to the insult, I assume. “Let go of me, please, sir,” he corrects.
I roll my eyes, frustration destroying what’s left of my wits. My voice breaks. “Let go of me, please, Sir.”
“No. Answer me before I put you across this table and tan your damn hide.”
The threat shakes me to the core. “Fine. You want to know why I don’t want to marry Antonio Petrelli? It’s not because I’m some gold-digging whore. It’s because the man is twice my age, and he’s a sexist pig! He doesn’t want a wife, he wants a servant!”
Michael’s eyes narrow. The idea that I don’t want Antonio for a husband for perfectly logical reasons seems baffling to him.
He loosens his grip and nods as if the answer satisfies him.
“Let go of me.”
He looks at the table for a second. Then he adjusts his grip and takes in the bruises on my wrists, appearing surprised to see them there.
“You continue to surprise me, kravitsa.” He plants a kiss on inside of my wrist, right over the bruises, and then finally releases me.
I rub my wrist, trying to make sense of the confused scowl that crosses his features. The tingle left behind by his lips lingers long after they’ve left my skin.
He nods to my plate and stands up. There’s a slight tick in his jaw, as if at a twinge in his knee. “Eat, then you can take a shower. I’ll see if I can find you some…ketchup.” He gives another shudder and heads for the front cabin.
But even if he finds it, I won’t likely enjoy the meal. I feel like a mouse that just escaped a dangerous trap. I’m not all that hungry anymore.
Chapter 7
The Shower
I finished breakfast without him.
Michael found the ketchup, surprisingly. He dropped packets of it on the table muttering that I was lucky, Adrian liked it. Then he’d given me another one of his “rules” before walking away.
The rule? I was never to lock any doors on him. That included when I had my shower.
Then he’d left. Which was just as well, otherwise I might have insulted him and incurred whatever punishment he’d decide I deserved.
I couldn’t understand that man. He’d said he wanted me to have breakfast with him, but then he’d left in a huff. He didn’t want me to have feelings for or be with anyone else, but then when I said I wasn’t going to marry Antonio, he hadn’t seemed pleased. He’d seemed to close himself off and withdraw into himself before he’d left. I had the feeling I’d said something wrong, but what?
With my thoughts still spinning, I’d finished breakfast and found the shower down hall beside the bedroom.
It surprised me how big the room was, considering that the jet only had so much room to accommodate what was obviously supposed to be a home in the air. The shower could have easily fit two of me, making it still bigger than the dinky one in my apartment.
I’d stepped into the bathroom, glad of the excuse to have some time alone. I suspected such a thing might become scarce where Michael was concerned.
Footsteps scuff on the tiles behind me and I whir around, expecting to find him there, my private time gone.
“Towels for you.” His assistant holds up a couple of thick, plush white towels for me and drops them on the slip of a counter beside the sink.
I bristle just from being close to this woman. Katerina obviously doesn’t like me, and I definitely don’t like her. It isn’t because she clearly has feelings for Michael. It isn’t. It’s because somehow, I can’t accept her rolling with what’s happening here. Why, I don’t know, when women in the Mob had to accept men doing some pretty hairy shit all the time.
“Thank you.” I nod. There’s no point in being rude to her.
“Ten minutes to shower,” she adds.
“Pardon?” I’ve heard her, but I’m surprised at the short length of time.
“Michael has places to be, Miss Romano. He doesn’t want you in here for hours holding everyone up.”
I drop my shoulders. She’s as good at making me feel like a spoiled brat as Michael. There’s a glint of amusement in her eyes that makes me feel like a self-centered prima donna, but I’ve never been the type to spend hours primping like my twin. “Ten minutes is more than enough.”
“I can see that. There’s not much to work with, is there?”
Wow. I cock my head, but give no other reaction, not rising to her bait.
She turns to leave, but then stops and looks back at me in the doorway. “Oh, Michael doesn’t like locked doors. So, if you know what’s good for you, don’t.”
She leaves before I can reply.
Jesus. Life dealing with that woman is going to make for a very long next fifty or so years.
Putting Katerina out of my mind, I shut the door and undress, then turn on the shower, adjusting the water until I like it. Which is to say it’s almost scalding hot.
Before stepping into the stall, I catch sight of my nakedness in the mirror above the sink. “Jesus Christ.”
There are bruises on my shoulders where Michael gripped them while he ravaged me. They’re faint, nothing like the bands of purple around my wrists, but looking at them still makes me shiver with the memories of how they got there. For some reason, the sight of those bruises also makes my sex tighten, as if they’re a mark of ownership.
Well, either way, there’s nothing I can do about them now except let them heal.
Under the spray, I close my eyes and let the hot water wash away the stress of the last couple of days. The water pounds at my muscles, taking away the tension. All that I’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours floods back in a torrent of anger, sadness, betrayal, loss, and, in the case of my dad, a feeling of abandonment so strong it makes me want to hit something.
Vincent had never been the most loving man while I was growing up. In fact, sometimes he was downright cold. He turned his emotions on and off like a faucet, and what’s more, he’d often disappear for days or weeks at a time without a word of explanation to me, Isabella, or our mother. Vincent was married to the Mafia. Mother was his mistress. But all of us accepted it, knew it was just a necessary part of life in the Mafia. Besides, with my dad, at least in my mind, it was the little moments that mattered. Moments when he was there for us. When he played ball with his girls or played piano with mom, when he cooked up a special dinner for us. When he bought those beautiful dolls for me, or little trinkets for Isabella to put in her beautiful hair. Those moments mattered because, as often as he was gone
or became distant with us, he meant every word of love, every gesture, every ounce of affection he gave us.
Or I’d thought he did.
Now, I know none of it had been real. How could it have been? If he’d really loved me, he wouldn’t have been able to throw me to the wolves.
Trust me, I understand that in the Mafia, you had to maintain a certain distance, never becoming completely attached, because as soon as you do, what you became attached to became a weakness your enemies could use against you. You had to be willing to give up anything out of loyalty. The Syndicate came first. But I’d never expected him to view his own daughter as nothing more than a pawn, something to be cast aside and sold the moment I was no longer useful.
As angry as I am with Michael, thinking back on my father’s actions cuts at me just as deep. Maybe deeper. He hadn’t loved me. He hadn’t cared. I was nothing to him but something to be used for his own gain.
My eyes sting, and for the umpteenth time in a single day, I push the tears back, refusing to fall apart. I’d have given anything to drop to the floor of the shower and curl up for a good sob, but I can’t. Ten minutes only leaves me time to wash. My emotions will have to come later.
I wash my hair with the glorious-smelling floral scented shampoo from the wall-mounted dispenser, then scrub down with the vanilla-scented liquid soap. I’m just rinsing off when the sliding door to the shower opens, letting the steam out.
So much for time alone.
“Hey—” I start, indignant.
Michael steps in. The stall isn’t tiny, but he makes it seem so, towering over me and taking up what’s left of the space with his huge, powerful frame. He’s also buck fucking naked. It occurs to me that despite how long I’ve known him, and even after what we did last night, I’ve never even seen him with his shirt off. Well, except once when we were kids and I made the mistake of…
Nope, I don’t want to think about that. At all.
Unlike when he was a kid, he’s all ripples and layers of muscle with perfectly bronzed skin. Tattoos line his arms and chest, birds, slashing lines, snakes. There’s an interesting five pointed star over his left pec. My gaze falls between his legs.