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Every hair on my body stands up.
Is he playing with me again? Or is this something else?
There’s a chance he’s really lost control—but it could also just be my naivety coming into play again.
He’s trying to claim you… from the man you hate most in this world… well, the man you hate most… other than the man you’re stuck in here with.
“Thales Retsos is a tapeworm,” I rasp. “A ghoul who sucks the life out of everyone who is forced to be near him. He’s a fucking monster. And I was forced to live with that because my father likes those types of men. But not me. I fucking hate them. I hate him. Thales Retsos can kiss my ass.”
It almost feels good to say. If Leonid Barinov wasn’t looming over me right now, if I didn’t have this choke collar wrapped so tightly around my throat, I might even have the strength to smile.
But I’m in no position to smile.
Leonid, on the other hand, seems far too satisfied with my angst.
“That’s what I like to hear,” he says, those dimples of his creasing even deeper. “But it brings up another question. If you hate the fucker so much, then why the hell were you working with him?”
Any sense of relief I got from finally speaking my mind is quickly wiped out. Leonid hasn’t lost control of shit. He is playing with me; leading me down a twisted path where only my true feelings are allowed to come out, and nothing less.
I have to fight it. I have to fight him.
“I didn’t have much of a choice…” I spit, trying to get angry. Being fearful has never helped anything. Rage, on the other hand, can give someone like me strength. That’s how I was raised. To have hate in my heart. “What part of ‘untouchable’ didn’t you understand?”
Leonid is hardly phased.
“Your father made him untouchable,” he reminds me. “Not you. Why not kill him and start over how you want? He’s not the one who rallied an army. You are. You had the power. So why take his bullshit?”
If I didn’t know any better, I might almost be naïve enough to think that Leonid was giving me a pep talk—hell, maybe even standing up for me. Does my captor believe in me? Does he believe that I could actually lead an entire empire alone?
No. He’s playing with you again. He just wants you to spill all of your dark secrets. Don’t give in so easily.
“It’s not that simple…” I mumble. Instinctively, I go to cross my arms. But the cold metal chains from the kinky bra dig into the inside of my wrists and I flinch away.
In response, Leonid leans down and picks up the black panties. “Tell me why it’s not that simple,” he says, dangling the lingerie in front of my face like a warning.
I almost want to put them on; hide the shame of my simmering arousal. At least with the bra on, my pointed nipples are tapered down, hidden. My pussy, though? Only my thighs hide the wetness growing there, and the touch of my warm skin is only making it worse.
“He has allies,” I say. It’s only a half lie. “Powerful allies within our ranks. If I’d crossed him, then I could have lost everything I worked for. Hell, even my own followers might have abandoned me. For all of the power my father once held; for all of the power I was supposed to hold, there are lines we could never cross. If an untouchable was suddenly touched, then our whole system could fall apart.”
Leonid’s deep blue eyes study me with such intensity that every nerve in my body wants to flinch away. But I can’t move, otherwise he’ll know.
My words aren’t complete lies, but they are far from the truth. If Retsos didn’t have Castor, I would have had him killed long ago.
“You Greeks are so fragile,” Leonid says. “If you’re trapped in a system that’s so out of your control, do you really have any power?”
“I had enough power to take you and your Irish allies on, to scare you,” I remind him. “I had enough power to drag you to New Orleans…”
I need to navigate the rest of this conversation very carefully. Anything to get away from Castor and Retsos. But I won’t be foolish enough to provoke my captor again.
“We were never scared,” Leonid snarls, taking the bait. “We were smart. Why fight when we could fuck our way to world domination?”
“I’m not stupid,” I say, shaking my head. “You didn’t want to be in New Orleans either. You didn’t want to marry me. You’re a fighter, Leonid Barinov, not a lover.”
A sadness infiltrates my chest as I remember how quickly Leonid had seemed to turn away when he’d first laid eyes on me in that dilapidated mansion.
A whirlwind of insecurities lash around inside of me as I try to hide the sadness from my face.
I don’t appear to do a good job.
