The Skull Crusher

by Penelope Sky

So I took her for myself.

  I went outside and grabbed the clothes my men had picked up from the personal shopper. Everything was on hangers and wrapped in a plastic bag. It had to be almost a hundred pounds worth of clothes, but I carried it into the elevator and back into the living room.

  Cassini had confined herself to her bedroom most of the time and only came out for meals. She happened to enter the living room at that moment, dressed in my boxers and t-shirt. The clothes were too big, but she somehow made them sexier than lingerie. She was the only woman I’d seen wearing my clothes, and I wouldn’t mind if she walked around the house like that all the time.

  I laid the clothes across the table. “Here.” I pulled the plastic wrapping off the top, revealing jeans, tops, cocktail dresses, and a few formal gowns.

  She eyed the pile of clothes then turned back to me. “Let me know how much I owe you.”

  I admired her pride, but it was useless under my roof. “I’m your owner. I’ll take care of you.”

  Her eyes lit up with the flames of hell. Her lips pursed together tightly like she was trying to control whatever outburst lay behind her lips. Whenever I looked pissed, I looked like an angry god, but when this woman was angry, it only heightened her sex appeal. Whether she was moaning or yelling at me, I found her equally attractive. Right now, she looked like she wanted to slap me hard across the face, just the way she did with Lucian. “Fuck you, you don’t own me.”

  “Change the label if you want, but you can’t change the situation.” I’d never kept a woman as a prisoner before. I got off on power—but not quite like this. But this was a slight against Lucian as well as a guilty pleasure for me. I had no idea how long I would keep her or what I would do with her, but I knew I wanted her—for as long as she kept my interest. And if she kept looking pissed off like that, I might keep her forever. “Get dressed. We’re leaving.”

  “Where are we going?” The shirt was so loose that one side hung off her shoulder and halfway down her arm. With her gorgeous skin exposed, she was basically asking me to sink my teeth right into her flesh.

  “Stop asking questions and get dressed.” I wasn’t used to someone questioning me left and right. My men did what I said because they believed in my leadership—and they also didn’t want to get shot in the foot. But this woman was fearless.

  “I’m not a whore who just follows directions.”

  “Never said you were.” I stepped away and made a phone call while she got ready in her bedroom. By the time I was finished, she stepped out in jeans and t-shirt.

  “I hope I’m dressed for the occasion…”

  She looked fuckable in anything. It was the first time I’d seen her in something other than a dress, and even though the clothing covered her beautiful legs and her shirt wasn’t as tight as her dresses, she still made my heart stop for a second. “You could be naked and still be dressed for the occasion.”

  We left the compound and got into my truck. Then we drove a few blocks away to the doctor’s office.

  She read the sign out front. “I’m not sick.”

  “That’s not why we’re here.”

  “Then why are we here?”

  “We’re getting tested.”

  She turned her head my way, her beautiful brown hair swaying with her movements. She hadn’t put on makeup because she hadn’t had time, but she was one of the few women in the world who didn’t really need it. She had naturally red lips, sexy cheekbones, and green eyes that reminded me of the green valleys of Switzerland in spring. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

  I nodded.

  “Both of us, right?”

  I nodded again.

  “What’s the point of that if you’re sleeping around?”

  She continued to make the assumption I’d been with other women when I hadn’t. She’d been the only woman in my bed since the night we met. I didn’t practice monogamy, but I’d never been with a woman I wanted twice. For some inexplicable reason, I wanted this woman more than twice. More like a million times. But I refused to correct her. “They’re also putting a tracker in your ankle. I’ll be able to find you anywhere in the world. Not that you would run.”

  “What makes you think I won’t run?” She cocked an eyebrow.

  I stared at her, my eyes lingering on the hollow in her throat. “Do you want to go back to Lucian?”

  “No, but—”

  “I’m the only man in the world who can keep him away from you.” If he crossed me, I would enslave him. I would kill all his men, and I would torture him mercilessly. Then I would get everything I wanted.

  She shut her mouth, her eyebrow slowly descending. She despised Lucian a lot more than she would ever despise me, and not just because she was fucking me. At least I was a man who could be respected, a man who was strong enough to protect a woman. By my side, she would never have to worry about anything again.

  “If you run away and somehow manage to succeed, he’ll take you. And what do you think he’ll do to you?”

  Her face turned noticeably pale.

  If he didn’t kill her, he would beat her. And death was preferable to being underneath that man every night. Maybe I was an asshole, but at least she liked to fuck me. And at least I was a real man. “Let’s go.”

  NOT THAT I expected anything else, but our results indicated we were both clean. The tracker was successfully placed in her ankle, and the doctor didn’t raise any questions to my unusual request. He was the doctor I called in the middle of the night when my men were shot or stabbed. He was paid handsomely under the table, and he looked the other way to all my illegal activities.

  We returned to the compound and took the elevator to my floor. I hadn’t told my brother what I did because we hadn’t crossed paths yet. He was busy working, and I was busy leading.

  “You know, I could carve the tracker out of my ankle.” She stepped inside the living room and left her shoes by the door, making herself at home already.

  As she should. She would live with me for a long time. “You’d probably die.”

  “It takes a lot more than some pain to kill me.”

  It was hard not to grin at everything she said. “From the blood loss.”

  She shrugged. “That still doesn’t scare me.”

  “It’s pretty close to a vein, so it should scare you.”

  The confidence disappeared from her gaze. With her arms crossed over her chest, she walked into the kitchen and looked in the fridge. “Oh, good…you got some food.”

  “There was already food in there.”

  “But real food. Like cheese.” She grabbed a beer before she came back to me. She held it to her lips and took a long drink while she kept her eyes on me. She sauntered around my living room like she owned it, like she was enticing me with her natural allure. But she wasn’t the kind of woman that had to purposely be sexy to seduce a man. She was just naturally magnetic, the way she swayed her hips and sealed her lips around the head of that bottle.

  “We have different definitions of food.” I didn’t really drink beer. The only reason that was in the fridge was because she’d added it to the list. Beer was for pussies, but watching her drink it was a turn-on. I never saw her drink it when we first met, but now that I was getting to know the real her, I realized she preferred it.

  “If you’re the kind of man that doesn’t care about anything, then why be so disciplined?” She sat on the couch and crossed her legs.

  “Because a man should be disciplined. I put my life on the line every day. Can I do that if I’m not in the best shape I can possibly be? Women like to get under me for a reason, not just because I’m rich.”

  “But don’t you pay for sex?”

  Sometimes I wondered if she was jealous. She mentioned my other hookups often. “I don’t pay for sex because I have to. I pay for it because it’s easier.”

  She took a drink of her beer as she stared at me.

  I stood in the entryway and loosened my watch from around my wrist. I pulle
d my gun from the back of my jeans and tossed it on the counter. The ring on my left hand was heavy, but I never took it off. It was much too valuable to leave lying around. “I’m gonna shower, then I’ll be gone for most of the evening.”

  She was about to take a drink, but she lowered the beer back to her thigh. “Where are you going?”

  I didn’t bother answering her question. I would come and go all the time, and I refused to explain my whereabouts to someone I owned. She had no rights, no opinion. She was like a dog. Her job was to stay home and wait for me to come home. I walked into the hallway.

  “Uh, hello?”

  I looked at her over my shoulder.

  “Are you going to answer me?”

  I hardly gave her a glance before I kept walking. “I don’t answer anyone. That includes you.”

  3

  BALTO

  I sat on my throne with a scotch in my hand. The men drank at the tables around the bar, laughing and talking while the strippers danced around on the stage. Music played over the speakers, and the lights were low. We turned our bar into a trafficking auction one minute and then a strip joint the next.

  I puffed on my cigar and felt the burn all the way to my lungs. I was happiest when I had a drink in one hand, a cigar in the other, and a woman on my lap. All I had to do was wave euros in the air and a woman would be at my beck and call. But I already had a woman waiting for me at home.

  I didn’t owe her anything.

  I would never owe her anything.

  But after having her bareback, I wanted her even more than before. I didn’t want a different woman to ride my dick with a condom minimizing the sensation. I didn’t want another woman on me at all—even if she was clean.

  “What the hell happened to you?” Heath appeared at my side, having just walked in with his team. In a dark blue shirt and black jeans, he looked better with every passing week. The scars of jail slowly started to fade away. Like a weed that hadn’t had rain in so long, he’d finally quenched his thirst and took over the entire garden. The men didn’t struggle to tell us apart, because I had a skull ring and he didn’t. That iconic piece of jewelry set us apart. The ring I wore casually on my hand was worth a billion, at the very least. Only a truly brave man would wear it constantly instead of hiding it away.

  “Meaning?” I looked at the stripper closest to me on the stage. In nothing but a little black thong, she danced around because she’d been paid a fortune to do so. Anytime we booked them for a wild night, they called in sick at their other gigs and jumped at the chance to entertain us. They were paid handsomely, enough to buy themselves an apartment in the city.

  Heath pulled up a wooden chair and sat beside me. The topless bartender put a drink in his hand without even asking him what he wanted. “Thanks, sweetheart.” He gave her a playful tap on the ass as she walked away.

  She turned around and stabbed him with her eyes. “Look, don’t touch. And you better tip me good for that.” She flipped her hair and marched off to help the other guys.

  She was surrounded by the coldest criminals in the country, but she wasn’t afraid to hold her ground. That took balls—the kind of balls I admired. I drank from my glass and continued to watch the stripper, staring at her without really looking at her. Once you’d seen as many tits as I had, they all looked the same. But Cassini had a very impressive rack. She had big tits that were so perfectly shaped, they seemed fake. But I’d squeezed them enough times to know they were real.

  After Heath watched the waitress walk away, he turned back to me. “That one’s got a bit of an attitude.”

  “You have to have an attitude if you want to survive around here.”

  “Definitely.” He drank from his glass. “A woman with an attitude turns me on…not sure why.”

  Same with me. I hadn’t noticed it until recently…not until I met Cassini. But no other woman had the nerve to stand up to me. Cassini was a smart woman and knew she was in over her head. That didn’t stop her from standing her ground against me. Even if it was pointless, she tried anyway. She hadn’t put out yet, but her restraint would wane. Once she was comfortable with her new arrangement, her legs would slowly spread and I would pound her until she was sore.

  “So, you didn’t get the diamond or the explosives. I’m guessing that’s why you look like shit right now.”

  “I look like shit because I’m talking to you.”

  Heath cracked a smile. “Always a smartass, huh?”

  “Always.” I drank my scotch and finally turned to look into his face. “And no, I didn’t get either.”

  “So, are we going to kill him, then?”

  “No. We need him alive.” Lucian would hide the diamond in a place I would never find it, and if he were dead, he couldn’t work for me. I needed him alive—and submissive. “So I took something else.”

  “Who did you kill this time? I know you wouldn’t lay a hand on his wife.”

  I’d lay two hands on her—on her tits and ass. “I didn’t kill anyone. But I took Cassini for my own.”

  Heath slowly shook his head, a grin on his face. “Bold.”

  “She’s valuable to him, so I know it was a hard blow.”

  “But is that the real reason you took her?” he challenged. “Or did you do that for yourself?”

  I shrugged. “Both. Torture for him, reward for me.”

  “She must be happy.”

  “Not so much. She thought I’d rescued her. Then I enlightened her. She simply switched masters—that’s all.”

  “She must prefer you to him.”

  “I’m sure she does. But she’s still pissed.” And I liked it when she was pissed. She did this provocative thing with her mouth… I couldn’t get enough of it. “Which is fine by me because she’s sexy when she’s pissed.”

  “If she’s your prisoner, can I get a go?”

  I turned my gaze on him, provoked by the question. “Touch her and I’ll kill you.”

  He chuckled then took a drink. “We’ve shared women before, but this one is off-limits, huh?”

  “Yes.” I stared him down with my cold eyes, promising a painful death if he disobeyed me.

  “Damn. She’s a beauty.”

  “I’ll smash this glass over your skull.” I lifted my scotch and shook the glass so the ice cubes tapped against the sides.

  He brushed off the threat. “I like making you angry. It’s so easy.”

  I turned back to the strippers.

  “So, she’s just going to live with you?”

  “She’ll do whatever I want for the foreseeable future.”

  “And what about when you get bored of her? Can I have her then?”

  I assumed I would get bored of her eventually, but I still didn’t want to hand her off to my brother. Truth be told, I had no idea what I would do when my boredom descended. I didn’t want to give her back to Lucian because I wanted to punish him. But I couldn’t let her go because he would find her eventually. The only option I had was to kill her. That seemed like a waste. But that might be the only way to get Lucian to cooperate. That diamond was worth a lot more than her life, but he might have deeper feelings for her. There was no other way to explain his marriage to her. He could have kept her as a slave. He was never obligated to marry her. He did that by his own choosing. “No.”

  “So even when you don’t want her, I still can’t have her?” he asked incredulously.

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. Calm the fuck down and screw one of the strippers if you’re so horny.”

  “I’ve been fucking anything and everything since I got out of the joint. But Cassini is fucking exquisite. That dark skin, those luscious lips—”

  I slammed the glass against his skull, shattering the tumbler into pieces and sending him to the floor simultaneously.

  Everyone in the room stopped and turned at the commotion, seeing my brother lying at my feet with a bleeding head and shards of glass sprinkled across his shirt and pants.

  I snapped
my fingers, and the waitress instantly put a new drink in my hand. I took a sip and watched the dancers again.

  Heath groaned and rubbed his bleeding head. “Be careful, Balto. You only make me want her more.”

  Without looking at him, I stomped my foot into his knee. “Be careful, Heath. I might actually kill you one of these days.”

  4

  CASSINI

  I was alone.

  It was the first time I’d ever been truly alone since I married Lucian. Even when he wasn’t at the house, Maria and the other staff were there. Armed men were positioned across the grounds, visible out of every window. But since I was on the fourth floor of the building, it was easy to forget about the men guarding the building.

  It was three in the morning, and I still couldn’t sleep.

  I wasn’t sure why I was so unnerved. When Balto was down the hall, I slept just fine. But without him there, I somehow felt vulnerable. No one could get past those men and disable the alarm to the elevator to get me, but I still felt exposed.

  If Lucian were ever to intercept me, he would punish me. He would punish me for the way I’d slapped him in front of all his men. Then he would punish me for leaving with Balto even though I didn’t have a choice. And while this wasn’t my fault, he would punish me for sleeping with Balto.

  There was a good chance Lucian might kill me.

  And if he didn’t, he would make my existence so unbearable, I’d wish I were dead.

  I could have watched TV in my room, but I decided to grab a beer from the fridge and lie on the couch in the living room. At this hour, there was nothing good on TV, so I watched old reruns of shows that had been off the air for over a decade.

  I kept glancing at the time, wondering when he would come home.

  What was he doing? Was he out with another woman? I hadn’t entered his bed because I was too upset to want him. The man had turned me into a prisoner and bossed me around like I had no rights. Now, he wasn’t the sexy stranger I met in a bar, but another asshole who thought he could own me.