by Jen Davis
Feeling like I had the world, the heavens, and Hell on my shoulders, I walked out of the bathroom but then balked.
The bed was empty.
Fuck!
“Tatum?” My heart pounded against my ribs, the longest string of f-bombs flooding my mind.
“Tatum!” She ran. Motherfucker. She ran.
“Shit.”
I bolted for the bedroom door, ready to blow a fucking horn if it meant getting every goddamn person in this household to look for her.
“Castello?”
I froze, my hand already reaching for the doorknob, the sound of that voice sending a wave of relief over me. I turned and saw her standing by the window. Her naked body was slightly hidden by the curtains, but my heart nearly leapt out of my fucking chest.
“My God, Tatum.” I let out a breath as I stalked toward her.
She smiled—she actually fucking smiled. “Did you think I ran?”
I stopped two steps behind her. “Yeah. I kind of did.”
“And where do you think I’d run to?” She turned back to look out the window, and I couldn’t stop myself from taking those last two steps to close the distance between us. She sucked in a breath when I pushed my body against hers, the electricity of our attraction buzzing between us.
“Away from me,” I whispered as I nuzzled my nose into her golden blonde hair, loving her sweet scent.
She leaned her head back against my shoulder. “Maybe I don’t want to run away from you.”
“You should.”
“Maybe. But where to?” She turned to face me. “After what I just experienced with you, where would I run? I’ll never have what we just shared with anyone else ever again. So tell me, Castello, where could I go that would actually be worth running away from you?”
Her sapphire eyes twinkled with an ocean of unshed tears, and I caved. I finally caved, giving in to the urge by grabbing her arm and pulling her against my chest, wrapping my arms tightly around her. And the second I did, my entire world shifted.
My need to protect her rather than ruin her shook the very foundation I had built the last few months of my life on. What if my mother was wrong? What if Carlo really did love her? God only knew that if this woman was capable of making me feel something, she was capable of making Carlo fall in love with her. The thought of Carlo loving her, touching her, making love to her slammed against my chest, and I wanted to roar like a fucking animal and claw through the skin of every motherfucker who had ever touched her.
Right now, I had no idea what I was going to do, but I knew without a doubt that I needed to do something.
“Tatum.” I pulled my fingers through her hair before urging her to look up at me. “I know you don’t trust me, but I need you to.”
“Why?”
“Just trust me. The less you know, the better. All I ask is that you do what I tell you.”
She shrugged. “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing all along? Being obedient?”
I took her chin between my fingers and lifted her mouth toward mine. “If what you’ve been doing all along is what you call obedience, I can’t wait to find out what your definition of defiance is.”
Our lips touched, softly, gently, like a slow dance of seduction. Her warm breath mixed with mine, our tongues lightly brushing, caressing. It felt like we were drifting into a world where nothing else existed, only us.
My body hummed, my cock twitched. I wanted her. I wanted all of her all the goddamn time. But time was not on our side, and I needed to get her back to her room before the house started to buzz with life.
With heavy reluctance, I pulled my lips from hers. And when the slightest of moans came from her mouth, I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from tossing her over my shoulder, carrying her to the goddamn bed and claiming that sweet little piece of heaven between her legs until my name was engraved on her motherfucking soul.
“I need to take you back to your room.” I glanced to the torn black nightgown on the floor, then to the white shirt I tossed next to it. “Here.” I grabbed the shirt and handed it to her. “At least this will cover a little more.”
Her heart-shaped lips curved into a wicked grin, teasing, commanding me to kiss them again. “I went from washed-out rag to a silk nightgown and now one of the Boss’s shirts. Seems like I’m moving up in the world.”
I grabbed her hips and jerked her against me, letting her feel how hard and ready I was to fuck her again. “That happens when you fuck the Boss.”
She chuckled, and Jesus Christ, the sound made my chest ache. It was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard, and it was like a switch got flipped inside me, turning me from a man who wanted to kill her to a man who wanted to spend his last dime if it meant making her laugh.
“Come on.”
“Castello?”
This time I snickered. “You will never call me sir, will you?”
She cocked a cheeky brow. “Not unless the Boss wants to play, no.”
“Well, we’re done playing.” I glanced down at her. “For now, at least.”
I grabbed my jeans and a new shirt from the closet, pulled them on, and walked to the door. Tatum remained silent and still.
“What is it?”
Her soft eyes found mine. “Did something change?”
“I don’t know…maybe.” I roughed my hand through my hair. “Yes.”
She looked down at her hands clutched in front of her. “What changed?”
How could I explain to her what was going on inside this head of mine if I didn’t understand it myself? How did I tell her that she managed to thaw the ice that had been occupying my veins for so long? That I was convinced she would be my undoing, but that I would embrace my downfall if it meant seeing her in chains every night, hearing her scream my name while all her pleasure belonged to me? For the first time, loyalty wasn’t my driving force anymore, but rather my desire…for her. But between all of that confusion running rampant inside me, I felt on edge, like disaster was looming around the corner, waiting to strike.
“I’m not sure, Tatum. I’m not sure what changed.”
“What is going to happen to me?”
I sighed, glancing up at the ceiling before I looked down at the floor. “I don’t know. God, I don’t know anything right now.”
My answer didn’t set her at ease. It wasn’t meant to. I wasn’t sure if there was any guarantee that this entire situation would turn out okay—for her or me.
“Come on. We better get you out of here before the rest of the house wakes up.”
I saw the reluctance in every step she took, the fear and doubt that plagued her. If there was a way for me to be able to relieve her of that burden just a little, I would have done it. Goddammit, this was all too surreal, going from a man who wanted to punish her to a man who wanted to spare her any kind of torment.
We walked in silence down the dark halls. There was nothing we could say—nothing I could say. For months, I felt powerful as the Boss of this family, and now, for the first time, I felt completely helpless.
Every step we took toward her room felt like we were both on fucking death row, and too soon we stopped in front of the security door that led to her prison. The heaviness that fell over us as I punched in the code was downright toxic.
I opened the last door and let her walk through first.
A kidnapper with manners.
I leaned against the wall and admired how she looked in my white t-shirt. Her perfectly curved legs teased me. Her toned thighs taunted me. And the way her blonde curls fell elegantly around her shoulders, the ends reaching the curve of her back—Tatum Linscott had become the epitome of perfection to me. When or how that happened, I had no fucking clue. But it did happen, and I had no idea what to do with that. All I knew was I no longer wanted to take her life, but rather take her—for myself. I just needed to figure it out…somehow.
A sheet of white paper on the floor caught my attention. “Did you draw?”
She leaned against the oppo
site wall. “I did.”
Silence.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“For my reward.”
“There should be enough paper to keep you busy for a while.”
She smiled. “Actually, I used it all.”
“You did?” I lifted a brow.
“Yup. The chalk, too.” She shrugged. “Drawing soothes me, and God knows I needed a lot of soothing. It also helps me sort through my thoughts whenever I feel confused.”
“What are you confused about?”
This time she lifted her eyebrow, and it almost reached her hairline. “Are you seriously asking me that question? What I’m confused about?”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah, I guess that was a stupid question.”
Pushing myself off the wall, I walked over to the sheet of paper and noticed all the others pushed halfway under the bed.
“What did you draw?”
“Yeah, that’s another good question.”
I glanced at her as I picked up the first sheet. “You don’t know what you drew?”
“I kind of space out when I draw.”
I snickered. “Space out?”
A faint blush spread across her cheeks. “It’s an artist thing.”
“I’m sure it is.” I looked at the piece of paper I picked up and swallowed hard when I stared at the image.
Lines and circles, light and dark shadows, it all came together in a portrait of…me. My heart stammered, my chest suddenly feeling too small for the way my heart swelled. Except…it wasn’t me. There was no scar. The portrait she drew was of my brother.
“It’s Carlo.”
I dropped the sheet and picked up the others. Sheet after sheet was the same damn image.
Carlo. Carlo. Carlo. Every damn picture was of him.
Fire. Red. Everything inside me blazed, my vision nothing but red. I was right. She didn’t see me. She saw my fucking brother every time she looked at me.
There were so many sheets of paper, and after what felt like the fiftieth one, I tossed the rest on the ground and stood.
“It’s my brother. Of course it’s my brother.”
“Maybe it’s you.”
I glared at her and laughed maniacally. “Nice try. But for those images to be me, your drawings lack one specific thing.” I pointed at my scar, and her eyes grew wide. “None of your drawings has this on it.”
She stepped forward. “Castello—”
I grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her back before shoving her face against the wall. “When will you goddamn learn? It’s ‘sir.’”
She struggled against me. “I told you, only when we play.”
“Yeah?” I leaned down toward her ear. “Who says I haven’t been playing this entire time?”
With a hard jerk, I let go of her arm and took a step back. The anger I felt was something I couldn’t describe. It burned, but at the same time it fucking stung as if someone had stabbed me in the back with a thousand knives.
She turned, tears slowly trickling down her cheeks. I ignored it. The sight of her tears did nothing to tame the wild beast inside me.
I grabbed all the sheets from the floor and stomped to the door.
“I’m sorry…sir.”
I froze, her words shoving those thousand knives deeper into my back. “Not yet, you’re not.”
And then I closed the door, my insides numb. Glancing down at one of the sheets in my hand, at the image of my brother, I knew I was lost. Why? Because for the first time in my life, I hated my brother. You could call it jealousy, envy, call it fucked-up-ness, but I hated him so fucking much that I wished he was still alive so I could drive a goddamn stake through his heart. This was what I had become, a man who mourned his dead brother yet hated him too.
I blamed her. I blamed myself. I blamed him.
Chapter 21
Tatum
The second he closed that door, I knew my fate was sealed. The man who left my room was no longer the man out for blood, but rather a man who had been hurt—by me.
I knew something shifted between us during the last few hours; I just didn’t know what it was. But whatever it was, it had to be big. For Castello to act so…so hurt by my drawings, he had to have felt something…for me. I didn’t know how that was even possible. Yet something definitely changed. He was different, and I no longer saw hate when he stared at me. His touch, the way he held me in his arms felt good, like he wanted me there. And I wanted to be there. I wanted him to hold me, to take me, make me his, and protect me.
How’s that for irony? I wanted the one man out to harm me to protect me. I was such a fool. Did I think Castello, the man who spent the last few months plotting and planning my demise, would actually change his mind? And why—because he cared for me?
Stupid, naïve, little Tatum.
I slipped down the wall until I hit the ground. That was when I realized I had allowed myself to hope. I had read more into what happened between me and Castello than there really was. I grabbed hold of something that wasn’t there…hope. But that hope was gone now. It got ripped away from me by a few stupid drawings.
I tried to think back to when I drew those portraits. My mind was twisted and jumbled with so many things that I couldn’t even remember myself having one simple, coherent thought. I always lost myself in my art—especially when my heart and mind were tormented by things I couldn’t make any sense of.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, my soul mourning, my heart aching. Aching for what? For him—for Castello? Did it really go so far that my heart had somehow grown a part of it all? That was absurd.
Clutching my knees to my chest, I leaned my head against my arms and cried. I cried for him, for myself, for Carlo, for everyone who got hurt—who lost something.
The sound of escaping air swooshed through the room, and I jumped up, my heart almost leaping out of my chest.
“Castello.”
The door opened, and I sucked in a breath when I saw the man in front of me wasn’t Castello.
“Who are you?” I pushed my back flat against the wall, adrenaline surging through my veins, my heart hammering in alarm.
The man glanced from one corner of the room to the other, his hands casually tucked into his pants pockets.
“Nice little room you have here.” He stepped in, his slicked-back dark hair shining under the lights. He shrugged. “It’s not one of the most elegant rooms in the house, but I guess for someone like you, it would do.”
The malice that oozed out of him, the threat that slithered along with every word he spoke, made my skin crawl. This man had trouble written all over him…trouble for me.
“Who are you?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Where are my manners?” He stepped forward and held up his hand, a creepy smile plastered on his malicious face. “My name is Nicollo Fattore. I’m the big boss’s cousin.”
I didn’t shake his hand. I didn’t want to come near him since every alarm bell went apeshit inside my head.
“How did you get in here? What do you want?”
He pulled back his hand and lifted a brow. “You sure are cheeky for a girl in your position. Has Castello not beaten any manners into you yet?” He rubbed his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Oh, that’s right, he didn’t have time to teach you any manners since he was too busy fucking you.”
My body went rigid, fear curdling in my stomach. This man wasn’t here to make conversation, and he sure as hell didn’t come here to help me.
He took off his gray suit jacket and tossed it on the chair. He leisurely paced while loosening the buttons of his white dress shirt sleeves. “You know, for someone who’s supposed to be the fucking boss, your boyfriend isn’t very bright. One would think he had the brains to know he needed to wipe the security feed if he wanted to fuck and sample the woman he’s supposed to kill.”
Oh God. My stomach twisted, my insides burning like it had been wrapped in barbed wire. The savage look in his e
yes terrified me. While he rolled up his sleeves like he was about to do something that might get his clothes dirty, pure menace radiated from him.
“Please…” I slowly stepped to the side.
A sly grin slid onto his face. “I see he has taught you how to beg, though.” He took a step forward, and my heart thrashed against my ribs, every survival instinct I had screaming for me to run. And I did.
I launched forward, trying to run past him. But he reached out, grabbed my elbow, and pulled me back.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
He threw me back onto the bed with such force, I hit my head against the headboard. I cried out then felt his slimy hand cover my mouth while he lifted his body onto mine.
“Shh. No need to wake the rest of the house.”
I thrashed, smacked, flayed, did everything I could to try to get him off me.
“That’s right, bitch, fight me. It only makes my cock hard.”
His hand moved an inch, and I managed to bite into the side of his thumb, the metallic taste of blood immediately assaulting my tongue.
“Fuck!” He struck me, my skin instantly on fire as his palm collided with my cheek. “Now I’ll just have to fuck you harder before I fucking slit your throat.”
Strong hands gripped both my wrists above my head. Within seconds, he straddled me, casing me in, my adrenaline-induced strength no match against his. His thighs gripped me so tightly that I only managed to move my hips a little in an attempt to break free.
I screamed, but this time his fist came down, hitting the side of my face. Stars exploded as pain blasted through my skull. For a second, my mind went hazy and registered nothing other than pain and fire. My head throbbed, every bone in my face aching like it had been cracked in half.
I opened my eyes, my vision blurry, my mind disoriented. Nicollo was on top of me, but I couldn’t do anything. It was like my mind had completely shut off, unable to tell my body to fight back. I watched in horror through teary eyes as he loosened his pants, pulling out his disgusting cock, and no matter how hard I willed my body to fight, I couldn’t.