Page 13 of Brutal Vows

I scoff and tighten my grip on her wrists.

“Nothing to do with me? I’m here. I’m involved, and you know exactly what that means, don’t you,bugiarda?”

She jerks her arms, testing my hold on her wrists, and wriggles against me. I growl and lean more of my weight onto her.

“This is what you want, isn’t it? My attention. My anger,” I snarl through gritted teeth.

As I take a deep breath to calm myself, the scent of vanilla teases my nostrils. Another kernel of doubt sprouts within me.

Julieta always wore expensive perfumes. She never would have let anyone catch her wearing such a simple, holistic fragrance.

She also would never run around in purple and pink patterned scrubs with blood smeared all over her. Nor would she have openly punched me or jumped over a railing when she could’ve tried to use the sexual attraction between us as an out.

Maybe she’s temporarily conforming to the likes of whatever poor sap she has her sights set on this time.

“Are you working at the clinic that just got shot to shit?” I ask.

Her eyes flare in alarm, but she masks the reaction with a glare and tries to tug her wrists free again.

I curse and dig my fingertips into her jugular.

Her reaction seals her fate.

She’s hiding something. I can’t let her go. There’s no way she just happens to be working in the clinic the Dorian gang—who were next on our list to annihilate for taking part in the attack on my family eight months ago—shot up by chance.

“You’re unbelievable,” I snarl.

She lifts a brow and clenches her teeth, but the fear lingering in her clear green eyes undermines her bravado.

“Did you just realize you bit off more than you could chew now that I’m here?” I mock.

To my surprise, she chuckles, shakes her head, and refocuses unyielding green orbs at me.

“I bit off more than I could chew decades ago, yet here I am, still alive. Stillscheming.” I swear she’d form quotation marks with her fingers if I weren’t holding her wrists against the wall. “Still unlucky enough to run intoyouagain.” She lifts her lip in the most gorgeous sneer I’ve ever seen. “Whatever you think you mean to me, I can assure you, you don’t. I want nothing to do with you, so get your hands off me.”

I scoff and tug her wrists higher on the wall, forcing her onto her toes. Her soft breasts shift against the hard planes of my chest, highlighting the raised flesh around my scars.

“Don’t worry,bugiarda. I’d rather handle a snake than a liar like you, but unfortunately for us both, I can’t let you run off and ruin more lives than you already have.”

Hurt flashes through her eyes, and for a moment, she seems so vulnerable and guilt-ridden I long to take back my words, but she buries her thoughts under a mask of anger.

“What are you going to do, kidnap me in broad daylight?”

I smirk and run the pad of my thumb over the sensitive skin under her ear.

“I’ve got those cops in my pocket, so who’s going to stop me? You?” I murmur with a sardonic quirk of my brow.

She thins her lips into a hostile line. A muscle ticks in her jaw. Temptation proves too much. I lean down and nip her jawline before pouring every ounce of menace into my tone as I whisper in her ear.

“You’re welcome to try,bugiarda schifosa, but I promise you won’t like what I do to you if you do.”

Her pulse pounds against my fingers and her throat bobs against my palm as she swallows. I stop my tongue a centimeter before I taste the sweat trailing down the side of her neck and lift my face away before I do something I’ll regret.

Her beauty shouldn’t matter when she’s proven to be the most self-centered and manipulative woman I’ve ever met, but the leashed fury emanating from her every response calls to the feral beast trapped inside me.

“So what’ll it be, Julieta? Are you going to fight, or will you be a good littleputtanaand come with me?” I goad.

“Why would I go with you when you’re just going to hurt me?”

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