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His eyes squeezed shut as he swallowed the instant refusal. He forced them open, finding her own gaze locked onto his face. “You admitted it yourself, Bea. The Albanian raped you for five fucking years. I can only imagine what that’s like, and I wanted to kill the man, too, spreading it out over as many days as I could. Fuck, I wanted to resuscitate him to do it all over again. But he’s already dead.” He forced himself to take a breath and let it out slowly. “Only you know what you need to do to heal. If you decide you need to fuck everyone you find, I’ll try to accept that. I even promise not to kill them, as long as they don’t hurt you.”
“You’re lying,” she said.
“I’m not.” Montrell’s lips twisted. “Though it’ll be hard to watch. I don’t trust anyone with you. I know my boys, though. They wouldn’t hurt you if you want to start there.” He tried to force a grin and decided to be completely honest. It fit him better. “I’ll be jealous as hell, and I’ll likely stomp around in a scary way. I want you for myself, Bea, but I want you to want me.”
Her arms tightened. She leaned back against the wall. “And there it is.”
“There what is?” Montrell frowned, confused.
She looked away. “Sexual pressure.”
“Hell no!” His palm curled into a fist. “It’s just me not giving partial truths, but I won’t fucking pressure you. Let’s agree here and now, the only way sex comes up between us again is if you come to my room for it. It’s completely off the table in all other interactions between us until then.”
She shook her head. “You said ‘until.’ Like you’re hoping.” Her eyes were back to dull stone. “It’s never going to happen.”
“I’m a big boy, Bea. Let me worry about my cock. In your mind, I can not have one.”
Her eyes softened a little as she let out a surprised snort.
He grinned back. “Consider me sexless for now. I can handle it.”
Her expression looked almost thoughtful. Like she was considering the prospect.
It was the first time she hadn’t appeared worried since their reunion.
“Go get some rest.” His voice softened from its typical bellow to take away any hint of an order. “And tomorrow, start doing whatever the hell you want.”
Beatrice hesitated, then turned toward the door. When she glanced back, she flashed a hard smile that tilted those full lips of hers and gave him hope because it was a hint of the girl she was. “You might regret this.”
She strode away before he could reply. Montrell leaned his head back as he gave his chair a little swivel. Would she make him regret it? He looked forward to seeing her try.
Chapter 5
Wrapping her mind around the idea of her newfound freedom was not an automatic or an easy thing. Beatrice no longer trusted words. She’d been burned by them too many times. At first, she considered Montrell’s talk a trap. Her husband used to trap her like that. He’d say the opposite of what he truly wanted, and then he would punish her when she took him at face value.
So the first few days after the talk, she continued to skulk around. She started by breaking the ingrained habit of spending her time cooking and cleaning. The Albanians had expected that of their women. She’d been less than skilled at both. As a daughter of La Cosa Nostra, she’d never been expected to learn that type of skill. Montrell had said that she could do it if she wanted, but she’d never fucking wanted to.
She got used to walking the property barefoot. It was easier to sneak around that way. As she peered around corners and became comfortable with her new prison, she also listened to the Coronellas.
They were a rambunctious lot. They talked shit and ragged on each other when they thought no one was watching, but it was all for show. She’d thought their gushing about Montrell was put on when he was present. It wasn’t. They practically worshipped the man as a god, even though he was a relatively inexperienced head of the family.
Fighting for his place among them meant a lot to the other made men. She overheard snippets about his father and was glad the man was dead.
The Albanians had acted close-knit, and if you crossed one they’d react as a group to support the injured party, but they also tore one another down and meant it. Oh, they wouldn’t act directly, but mistakes happened, and sometimes they let them. She’d warned her husband about his cousin in good faith, but he had turned on her as the traitor.
Beatrice had rarely gone unnoticed before. When the Coronellas did catch sight of her, they greeted her kindly. Sometimes she didn’t let them catch sight of her. After the first time in the stairwell, she never caught them saying anything bad about her. Montrell had asked them to respect her, and as far as she could tell, they did.
It was so different from the vulgar comments the Albanians had subjected her to. A few had even found her doing whatever task she’d been assigned that day and pushed against her, using their bodies until she cowered. She’d fucking hated cowering, but it was the only way to make them stop—if they would stop.
She’d threatened Montrell with the possibility she’d experiment with other men, but she couldn’t imagine rekindling that part of her. Oh, when she was younger, she used to practice flirting on her father’s soldiers. There had been a safety to it. They all knew the rules.
Since then, she’d been shown that type of safety was a lie.
It was huddled against the stairwell on the third day in the Coronella estate that she caught sight of herself in the wall mirror. She didn’t recognize her timid expression. Her cowering posture. And she hated the way she looked.
The first push out of her self-enforced prison was a shopping trip. Giulia had brought her credit cards to use. The temptation to order a new wardrobe online was strong, but that would just be another way of hiding, so she took extra pains to dress in one of the last new outfits that fit. She put on her makeup carefully, until her eyes and face looked mostly familiar, and slipped on the only heels she had before straightening her back and sauntering down the stairs.
There was an ache at the bottom of her spine by the time she reached the first floor, but she ignored it by forcing a smile at the two soldiers there and asking them to take her out.
