Page 19 of Savage Bratva King

8

LEONID

Tamara leadsthe way back into the main house, opening and closing doors in silence, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and Gianna in my arms.

After the twins left the dining room to carry out my orders, I sat back down in my seat, drank black coffee, sweet, and replayed the conversation between me and Gianna in my head.

Had I expected Gianna Sedric to be a meek slip of a woman who would take one look at me and promise to do whatever I asked? Was that really what I wanted? I needed to stick to the plan. Hold her here, spoil her for any other man, and then release her back into the wild like an uncaged animal.

What I hadn’t expected was for her to swallow the bait and turn the game around on me. What did she grow up on, fucking Russian roulette?

She’d caused me to break my own goddamned rules. I’d shown weakness the instant she turned the seductive charm on me like a teenager yet to pop his first cherry. I’d taken my eye off the ball, and she’d snuck right in there as if she’d known all along about my intentions for her.

But it was the bruise on her jaw that had spurred me into action.

She lied about how she got it. I knew that she was lying, and rather than coerce the truth out of her, I let it slide. First sign of weakness, and she’d jumped on it with both hands like a passenger leaving a sinking ship.

She was covering for someone, and the only person who’d been alone with her since she landed was Ivana. Was she afraid of Ivana? The woman could be intimidating—hell, she even worried me sometimes with the intensity of her reactions—but that wasn’t it. She wasn’t protecting Ivana either. Which meant that those bruises were between Gianna and Ivana, and she wanted to inflict payback in her own way and in her own time.

But women like Ivana only understand violence. I’d warned her to back off; I’d disrespected her position in front of the printzessa; then I’d given her the perfect opportunity to release her embarrassment onto my captive.

Once the truth hit, I ran down to the basement, my feet barely touching the staircase. I didn’t consider how it would look when I stopped them from carrying out my own orders. My thoughts, as muddled as they were, were solely for Gianna’s welfare. Dead, she was as good as useless to me. I might as well pin a target on my back and hand myself over to Xander Amory with my hands above my head.

But when I saw her plunging backwards into the freezing water, something came untethered inside me. I barely registered Ivana sprawling face forwards on top of her. My vision was clouded red. I saw Gianna’s face disappearing under the water’s surface, and I reacted to save her.

My asset.

The pawn in my game to take down Xander Amory and his Sicilian mob.

Now, carrying her back into the house with her body curled against mine like a sleeping child, I feel more like her protector than her captor, and I don’t understand how this has happened. Was this her intention? She knew exactly what she was doing when she licked my fingers, but my knowledge of the way women’s minds work is limited to my relationship with Elena, and Elena would’ve seduced the Pope to get what she wanted.

Still, something tells me this is not the case with Gianna.

Or does she have me so fooled that I will believe whatever she wants me to believe?

I stop outside a guest room on the upper level of the house and wait for Tamara to open the door. She does, but not before her eyebrows disappear questioningly beneath her soft bangs first.

I follow her inside, still carrying my cargo in my arms.

The room is painted in shades of cerulean and turquoise, just like Gianna’s eyes, and I realize too late the reason why I must’ve been drawn to this guest bedroom rather than any other. With daylight pouring through the window, it is warm and inviting, not exactly what I’d had in mind for my prisoner when I sealed her fate a couple of days earlier.

Without prompting, Tamara pulls back the comforter and stands aside while I settle Gianna onto the bed. The instant her body leaves mine, she seems to go into shock, trembling so violently I can hear her teeth chattering. I drag her wet clothes from her and pull the comforter up to her chin and tuck it around her. But it isn’t enough.

“Fetch me coffee,” I bark at Tamara. “Plenty of sugar.”

The door closes softly behind her.

Gianna’s eyes are closed. Her lips are tinged with blue, and her cheeks are pale, her veins visible beneath the surface like tiny meandering rivers making the bruises on her jaw look like an unearthly poison taking over her body. Another rush of anger fills me—not at Ivana this time, but at myself. Why does it affect me so badly to see her like this when I’m the asshole who wanted her broken?

“Gianna.” I place my hand on top of the comforter, and she instinctively leans into it, wrapping her body around my arm without opening her eyes.

Her cheeks feel like ice when I place my knuckles against them, but her forehead is burning up. She’s feverish, thanks to me. Violent shivers seem to rock her body in waves.

So, I do the only thing I can think of doing while I wait for Tamara to return: I lay beside her on the bed, pull the comforter over us both, and transfer my body heat to her.

I wrap my arms around Gianna and rub her the way a mother might rub a child wrapped in a towel to get them dry, and gradually, the shivering subsides. The pink slowly returns to her cheeks and lips, and her breathing regulates. Gianna tucks her knees up to her chest, instinctively keeping the heat in her core, and I can’t help smiling at how fragile she looks, like a newborn baby.

I’m still lying beside her on the bed, the comforter pulled up to our chins, when Tamara returns with a pot of steaming coffee, and two small jugs of cream and sugar.

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