Page 20 of Brutal Vows

Pain lances up my tailbone as he drops me onto a wooden chair and grabs my wrists. Before I can kick his shins, he steps on the cuffs around my ankles and pins my heels to the front bar connecting the chair legs together. With annoying ease, he reaches over to the side table and pulls a coil of rope out of the drawer.

After binding my wrist cuffs to the arm of the chair, he loops the rope underneath the seat, over my lap, around the far leg, and between my ankles. In less than a minute, he ties me to the chair with no room to wiggle free. I test the bindings on my ankles and growl in frustration when I can’t lower my heels to the ground.

Without his warmth pressed against me, my drenched clothes suck the heat from my body, but at least the hem of my shirt falls down and covers my breasts and stomach.

He drags the chair across the floor—with me still in it—and squats beside me to work underneath for a few seconds. Metal clinks against metal as he lifts a chain off the ground and connects it to the underside of my chair. I swallow as I realize he rigged the bolts and chains long ago.

My teeth chatter from the cold as my wet hair drips down my nape.

When he lifts his head and aims bottomless grey eyes at me, my stomach drops and I realize the seriousness of my predicament for the first time.

He may not have scarred my flesh, but he tore through my defenses and left marks on my soul. With his unrelenting dominance and rough hands, he gave my body just enough of his touch to form an addiction.

I hate him. I want him.

I can’t have him.

Protecting my twin is the only thing that matters.

Silence didn’t work. Neither did lying.

And now I’m at the mercy of the most handsome and lethal consigliere in New York City.

Except I know he doesn’t have an ounce of compassion in him. He’ll never believe my sister and I have nothing to do with Julieta or the Russian mobsters.

I’m fucked.

Chapter 6

Ermanno Mancini

Her vulnerable, bright green eyesreach deep into my soul and beg for mercy. I long to cup her face and kiss the fear and misery from her, but she blinks and looks away, breaking the unexpected eye contact with me.

She isn’t Julieta, but that doesn’t mean she’s innocent. She could be just as deceitful and conniving as her stepsister.

Except, even as I think it, I know it isn’t true. None of her reactions hold the artifice of a liar, not even one as practiced as Julieta Giordano. Her moan when I touched her nearly brought me to my knees. The fear in her clear green eyes holds a desperation no amount of acting can create.

She’s terrified of me, but she still fights with a fortitude most men only wish they could possess.

I stand. She swings her glare up at my face.

No matter how hard she tries to mask her emotions, she can’t completely erase her thoughts from her expression. By the tightness around her eyes and the muscle ticking in her jaw, she expects the worst from me.

As she should.

I need answers. She’s connected to the attack on the Russo family somehow, and I’ll do whatever it takes to figure it out.

Blue tinges her lips and her entire body shakes as water drips onto the floor from her soaked body. Even with her scrubs clinging to her delectable frame, she paints a pathetic figure with her soggy shoes and mussed hair.

I long to strip her bare, explore her curves with my teeth and tongue and warm her with my cock. Instead, I strip the comforter off the bed, drape it around her shoulders, and wrap it around her front until she sits in a mini tent of thick fabric.

I pinch her chin between my thumb and forefinger and lift it even though her eyes never left my face.

“Be still,gattina. Don’t waste my hospitality,” I warn.

She lifts a brow, but the chattering of her teeth destroys her attempt to appear fierce.

“Yell all you want; no one but me will hear you,” I say with a nod to the corner behind me.

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