Page 24 of The Red Queen

“How old are you?” she demanded.

He chuckled. “Are you afraid I won’t be able to perform my husbandly duties?”

Her face suffused with colour at his words. She wasn’t a shy person. It was hard to be shy when she’d grown up in one of the roughest cartels in Mexico. But the image of her and Giovanni in bed together was terrifying. He was hard, brutal, and polished. Like a diamond. And she was fiery and rough around the edges. Like fire. The two did not go together.

“I won’t go along with your plan,” she growled, pulling self-consciously at the edge of her skirt.

“Don’t be naïve,” he said calmly. “Your compliance isn’t necessary.”

“You’re disgusting,” she spat angrily.

“And you are the bitch who tried to recklessly bring down not one organization, but two. You have no rights. You were a dead woman until I took you. Now you’re mine and I have no intention of letting go unless I am the one to put you in the ground.”

It was like having a bucket of ice water thrown on her. It succeeded in putting out the fire. Giovanni’s words were a slap in the face of her mortality. A wake-up call, she supposed she needed. Up to this point, survival hadn’t been high enough on her list.

Now, the thought of dying at Giovanni’s hands felt… wrong.

She had begun to admire him, even as she fought him. He had the potential to replace Nico in her life. To become the master that she needed to fill the void that was slowly spreading inside her each day she went without a family, an organization, a boss.

“You would have me killed?” she asked, wanting to be crystal clear about the details of her captivity.

“That depends on your level of compliance,” he said smoothly, watching her steadily. “If you’re too difficult, then I will have no use for you. If you become the perfect companion, a woman who can blend into the background, accept my edicts, and live quietly by my side, then I will consider extending your life.”

His words were bleak. They were a punch to the chest, but they were also clear.

“If I continue to fight you, then you kill me?” she asked, without inflection in her tone. “If I give you what you want, stay with you peacefully, agree to marry you, then I will be allowed to live? Is this correct?”

“Si,bella, you seem to grasp my intent.”

She ignored his sarcasm, settling into her seat and mulling over her options. If she continued to fight him, she could be injured, or worse, tied down, forced to marry him anyway, and possibly executed if the payoff to Giovanni wasn’t worth the effort. If she complied with him, then she would get to live in a mansion, the wife of a very rich man who exuded so much power she couldn’t help but be attracted. She would get to eat, sleep, breathe and shop.

She knew what she had to do if she wanted to survive. It was a straightforward choice, really.

“Alright,” she said. “I’ll stop fighting you.”

She could feel Giovanni’s stillness from across the seat. He wasn’t expecting her to agree to his terms.

“Forgive me when I say your capitulation feels false. Only minutes ago, you fought my men in an effort to escape. I find it difficult to believe you’ve changed your mind in such a short amount of time.”

“You backed me into a corner by bringing me to Italy,” she defended herself. “How am I supposed to react? My instincts told me to run away from an unclear situation that can only end in my death. Now, you’ve given me clear parameters and a choice. One that allows me to continue living.”

“You can live with the choices I’ve given you, even though one is essentially slavery and the other is death?” he asked, his tone disbelieving. “I have trouble believing you can agree to this.”

She shrugged. “My whole life has been slavery. A life with you doesn’t sound so bad.”

He fell silent, contemplating her words, then shook his head. “I don’t believe you. You’re hard-wired to run, to seek revenge.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “You’ve given me an option I can live with, and I choose it.”

“Why?” he demanded, an angry growl in his tone.

She didn’t understand what he wanted from her, why he was angry at her for giving him exactly what he wanted. Shouldn’t he be rejoicing in her capitulation?

“Because I can live with the choice that allows me to continue breathing.” When he still looked skeptical, she countered with a question, “Why did you take me from Miami? Why didn’t you let Mateo finish me when he had me under his knife?” She automatically cradled her hand with the missing finger in her lap. It was throbbing from her fight in the club.

“You know the answer to this.” He sounded annoyed at her persistence, probably because he wasn’t used to someone else being the one in control, whether physically or in conversation.

“You want a wife,” she answered her own question. “But why me? A woman you knew would be difficult. Why not choose a sweet little Italian bride who will fade quietly into the background?”

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