Page 56 of Twisted Fate

For the first time in my life, I’m allowing myself to indulge my own desires, just a little. Yes, Sophia is still the woman that my father chose, still someone who is a part of his machinations—but she hasn’t behaved like she’s under his thumb. She seems to genuinely want me, to desire me in the same way that I do her… and now that I’ve given in to my desire for my wife, I can’t seem to stop the flood of lust that I feel for her.

I want her. I chose the time and place, exactly as I said I would—I can consider that a win. And now, I don’t want to deny myself the pleasure that I clearly desperately need. Once she’s pregnant, I tell myself as I check my phone and go to look in on Elia, I’ll back off again. I’ll fuck her out of my system until she’s carrying my child. She won’t keep this hold on me for long—no woman ever does. Sophia is different from most women, but she’s notthatdifferent. She can’t be.

Our hostage is still alive, bound, and spitting mad. I give her some water, as a courtesy, and she swirls it around her mouth, spitting out a bloody mouthful into the tub before taking another drink. I leave her there, checking on the messages from my security before returning to Sophia.

She's standing by the window, looking out at the savannah, her dark hair loose around her shoulders. The morning light catches on her profile, illuminating the curve of her cheek, the fullness of her lips. Something tightens in my chest at the sight of her, and I push it away. This is lust, nothing more. A physical reaction to a beautiful woman who happens to be exceptionally good in bed.

“My security will be here within the hour,” I tell her as I reach for a piece of toast from the room service cart, spreading jamacross it. “And then we can have your room cleaned up and go back to normal.”

Sophia turns back to look at me. “Does that mean separate bedrooms again?”

I hesitate. A part of me wants to say yes, just to maintain my control over the situation. Just to remind her that I call the shots here, not her. But what would be the point?

We have one more night here, maybe two, depending on how long it takes for my security to take Elia back to Miami and for the jet to return. Why shouldn’t I enjoy having unfettered access to her? We’ll go back to my father’s mansion after this, and go back to separate bedrooms, except for when I want to fuck her. Why not live in this pleasurable bubble, just for a little while longer?

“No.” I look at her, gauging her reaction. “I want you in my bed until we go back home.”

A pleased look crosses her face, and she bites her lower lip, sending a shiver of desire instantly down my spine.

I step closer to her, breathing in her scent. She smells like warm, feminine skin and her floral soap, and I feel that throb of desire pulsing through my veins. “As soon as I don’t have to worry about our little problem next door, all I plan to do is fuck you until you can’t walk straight,volchitsa.”

I see the shudder of arousal that runs through her. “I thought that’s what you were already doing,” she murmurs sweetly, tipping her chin up.

“Oh,dorogoy.” I reach out, trailing one fingertip along her cheek. “You have no idea what I can do to you.”

A strange expression flickers across her face at that. It looks like lust—but also… fear? It’s gone in a second, but I could swear that I saw the briefest glimpse of terror crossing her face before it smooths back into a soft expression of desire.

A knock at the door interrupts us. When I go to answer it, I see Serge, one of my father’s most trusted guards.Good.

For the next twenty minutes, as I show him and the three men with him to Sophia’s former room, hand over Elia to them, and come up with a plan to get her out of the resort without being noticed, I don’t think about Sophia at all. And then Serge leaves with one other man and Elia, leaving two guards behind with me, and everything comes rushing back.

She’s not in the room when I go back to it. We agreed that she’d go to the spa while I got things with Elia taken care of, and come back in time for us to go to dinner. I pace the empty room, trying to sort out everything rattling around in my head.

I’m more taken with her than I should be. Butfuck, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, and the best fuck I’ve ever had, and she’smine. Just the thought has some primal part of me growling, ready to go and find her and show her just howmineshe really is right now.

I forgot how fucking good all of it could feel. And with her—it feels different.More, somehow. She’s not the woman I thought she was, that’s for sure—and I’m not sure that she’s the woman my father thought she was, either.

He would never have picked Sophia Moretti for me if he knew how capable she was. How dangerous.

Which makes me wonder—how did henotknow?

He wanted someone suitable for me. A pretty, pliant, moldable mafia wife that he could use to influence me, someone who would be afraid of the Bratvapakhan, who would recognize the world she’d stepped into and tread carefully, doing his bidding.

I’m not sure Sophia has ever tread carefully in her life. And while the thought of her father dragging her off on jobs to torture his targets alongside him while she was still just a teenagermakes me feel a surge of disgust—I’m also impressed by the woman that she is.

I’ve never known a woman like her. One so self-assured, so capable, and so unafraid of me. At least now—the thought of how she’d brought a gun with her on our camping trip because she was worried about what I might do to her still itches at the back of my mind, bothering me.

Was she really afraid of me? Or was it for some other reason?

There’s more that she’s not telling me. I feel sure of it. Or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t want me to see the extent of how her father’s training affected her. I can feel that there’s a darkness in her—a darkness that matches my own.

There’s a reason I haven’t sought out love. Why I’ve long since given up on the idea of choosing a woman for myself; I’ve never been able to imagine that there was a woman out there who could see me—truly see me—and not flinch back. Not be afraid of me. Not shy away from my touch, once she knew.

I don’t revel often in torture. But I enjoyed paying back Elia for what she almost did to Sophia and me today. I enjoyed the taste of her fear in the air, the look on her face when she knew the pain she was going to endure. I’m a disciplined man because when I give in to my emotions, to the raw lust and darkness within me—it can all too easily take over.

The fact that I’ve nearly run out of fingers to count how many times I’ve fucked Sophia in the last day and a half is enough to prove that.

But Sophia didn’t flinch at what I did to Elia. She was the one who knocked her out. Who tied her up. The one who slivered cuts into her skin and rubbed salt on the wounds.

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