Page 17 of One Savage Union

I roll my eyes. “Oh, so you wouldn’t curse me. You’d stalk me, drug me, and drag me to your lair to do God knows what. Maybe rape or kill me. That’s not rude at all.”

“Enough!” he roars. I press back against the wall but refuse to break eye contact. I won’t let this monster see me flinch.

“I don’t rape women,” he says, his tone cutting. “They come to me willingly. Just as you will one day.” He smirks, his gaze flicking over me. “Your mouth, however, seems to do you no favors—unless it’s wrapped around my cock. Perhaps I’ll help you with that later. For now,mia palla di fuoco, you’ll listen or face the consequences sooner than planned.”

I say nothing, choosing my silence wisely. If I stay quiet, he’ll finish his explanation and—hopefully—unchain me. Not to mention, I desperately need to use the bathroom.

Satisfied with my apparent obedience, Rocco nods, then begins to pace in slow, deliberate steps that echo like a countdown. He stops at the edge of the light, just close enough for me to see the wicked curl of his lips.

“My cousin Leonardo intended to take you for himself,” he says, voice calm, cruel. “To break you in ways you can’t imagine.”

A chill skates down my spine, but I lock my body in place. I won’t flinch. Won’t give him the satisfaction.

“And what about you?” I ask, my voice a whisper sharp as glass. “What willyoudo to me?”

Rocco moves before I can brace myself, closing the space between us like a shadow swallowing light. He leans in, his breath warm against the shell of my ear.

“I will own you,” he growls, the promise low and dark. “Mind. Body. Soul. And you will thank me for it.”

My breath stutters. His lips graze my jaw—barely a touch, but it brands me. Heat flares under my skin, uninvited, unwelcome. It coils tight in my stomach, tangled with fury, fear, and something far more dangerous.

Ihatehim.

I hate how he speaks.

I hate how he looks at me like he already knows what I’ll do next.

I hate how my body reacts—like it’s his to command.

“What do you want with me?” I pant, my voice barely audible over the pounding of my heartbeat.

Rocco doesn’t answer right away.

He leans in closer, his breath a slow drag against my skin, the scent of power and control curling around me like smoke.

What either of us wants doesn’t matter, Piccola. “Because in less than an hour,” he murmurs, his voice velvet-drenched in menace, “you’ll be my wife.”

5

LUCIA

Rocco’s promise of matrimony knocks me from my trance, and I shake my head in shock.

“What? I’m not marrying you. I’m not marrying anybody. Are you crazy?”

He glares with disapproval, but his penetrating stare doesn’t move me. I need answers.

“Why would your sick cousin, if he even exists, want anything to do with me? He doesn’t even know me, yet I’m supposed to believe he had some plot to kidnap and torture me? Why would he do that? WHY THE FUCK AM I HERE?!”

I scream the last question with all the strength my voice can muster, and tears stream uncontrollably down my face. The frustration is unbearable. I’m making a spectacle of myself—something my proud Ghanaian mother taught me never to do.

Chrisette Asare never cowered or created spectacles.

But I’m not as strong as my mother, and I never was.

I’m scared shitless.

Rocco leans back on his haunches to examine me. Yet again, I’m the specimen under his microscope. I feel naked inside andout when he fixes his eyes on me, and I hate it. He’s digging out all the parts of myself that I hide away from the world. He ogles them to feed a sick fetish. Refusing to be his meal, I turn away and look at the wall, but he reaches out and draws my face back to him.

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