Page 18 of Until You Break
“I…won’t…go in there.”
“You’ll go exactly where I tell you.”
“No—”
I closed a fist in his shirt and dragged him into the cone of light. His body resisted, but the chemicals still running through him betrayed the fight. His shoulder sagged a fraction before he caught himself.
“Try me again,” I murmured, sliding my thumb over the column of his throat just long enough to feel his pulse jump. “I enjoy the sound of you losing.”
His teeth caught his lower lip. Shoulder pressed into the seat, testing the hold. Black curls spilled across his forehead, stormwater eyes burned with defiance. My grip tightened, shoving him back into place. “Every time you push, you prove you’re already inside my hold.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” he muttered, voice thick and uneven, the drugs dragging at the edges of his defiance.
His defiance stirred me more than his silence ever could. Proof he was fire even under drug weight.
We rolled through the gates under a bruised sky. The Bellandi gates shut behind us, Palermo gone, his father nowhere to reach him now. Gravel snarled under our shoes when I yanked him out. He twisted. I shoved him into brick hard enough to break his breath.
“Take him to the cellar,” I told Adrian. My mouth curved with calculation. Emilio would look even better underground, stripped of every option but me. Then I bent close, words for Emilio alone, low enough that the guards still saw the control even if they didn’t hear it. “We’ll meet again soon,cucciolo. Try not to miss me.”
“Not a chance,” he rasped, voice rough, slurred at the edges from whatever they’d given him.
I caught his chin, tilting his face toward me, not to touch, but to show him off. His father had failed. His brothers had failed. Every guard watching saw it too. Emilio was held where I wanted him, on display, and there was nothing anyone could do.
“You won’t break me.”
“I don’t need to break you.” My voice carried, sharp as a blade. “I only need you to obey. And when you do, you’ll do it in front of every man who thought you were theirs.”
He twisted. “You think I’ll just let you?—”
“Let me?” I stepped in until chest met chest. Heat through thin fabric. The bite of cologne and gun oil between us. “You’re already letting me. Every time you breathe, kitten, you do it on my terms.”
“Go to hell.”
“I’ll take you there myself.” My thumb pressed below his lip. “You’ll thank me for it.”
“Never.”
His pulse kicked against my touch. Mine answered. The defiance in his eyes made it better.
“Keep talking,cucciolo,” I murmured, breath stirring his hair. “I like the sound of you fighting when I already know how you’ll sound when you beg.” My hand slid lower, pressing just above his belt before I released him. A promise without hurry. I lifted my chin. “Take him down,signori.”
Adrian, my bodyguard, and another guard closed in. Emilio snarled, clawed, cursed. They dragged him through the back door and down.
I watched him go, heat spreading. Property. Prize. Problem.
Euphoria throbbed.
Upstairs, I shrugged off my jacket, kicked away my shoes, poured myself whiskey, and lit a cigarette. I drew in smoke that tasted like victory, nameless and sharp.
Already, I missed the fury in his eyes. Already, I wanted him close enough to touch. Close enough to shatter.
I opened the feed and watched them throw Emilio into the cell. He lay there a while, then pushed up, slow, mapping his box. Every twitch of his fingers, every drag of his lip across his teeth, I recorded in memory. The mic carried his breaths, sharp, catching, almost like he was already learning surrender. My pulse ticked in time with his defiance.
I hit the mic. “There he is,” I murmured to the lens, making sure he’d hear. “All bruised and beautiful. You think this is punishment? This is foreplay.”
His head jerked toward the camera, movements sluggish under the drugs. “I swear…I’ll kill you,” he slurred, the threat wobbling even as his eyes burned.
“Then aim higher,cucciolo. God left this place a long time ago.”
