Page 4 of The Kingpin’s Bride

I dropped to one knee between her thighs. She froze.

I cleaned her carefully, doing my best to be gentle. The cloth came away streaked with my cum and the faint pink of her blood. I wiped every trace from her inner thighs, from the soft folds of her cunt, from the place where I had forced myself inside her while the syndicate watched. Rena’s hands stayed locked in fists against the desk.

When I was finished, I tossed the cloth aside and looked up at her.

“You’re mine now,” I said, voice low. “Not because I paid thirty-five million dollars. Not because the Families demanded a wife. Because I decided it the first night I saw you dance and I have spent every night since then making sure no other man ever got the chance. You can hate me. You can plan to run. You can even try to cut my throat in my sleep. But you will never again belong to anyone else. Do you understand me?”

Her eyes were glassy. Furious. Wet. “…Yes.”

“Say it properly.”

“I’m yours.” The words sounded like they were being dragged out of her by force. “For now.”

I stood, cupped the side of her neck right above the collar, and pressed my thumb to her pulse. “Not for now, Rena. For the rest of your life. And if you ever forget, I’ll remind you the same way I did tonight. In front of an audience.”

She swallowed. The movement shifted my thumb against her throat. I didn’t step back. I dropped to my knees between her open thighs again. Morena’s breath hitched hard. “What are you…”

“Quiet.” The sight made my cock twitch even though I’d already come inside her. I leaned in and dragged the flat of my tongue through the mess in one long, filthy stroke, from the soft, ruined entrance all the way up over her clit. She hissed when my tongue first touched her. Still sore. Still raw. I slowed down and worked her open carefully until the pain turned into something else.

She jerked like she’d been shocked. A broken, high sound tore out of her throat. The chains rattled as her wrists jerked against the desk. “Fuck.”

I sealed my mouth over her and sucked hard, two fingers curling inside her while my tongue worked her clit in tight circles. When her thighs started trembling I pinned them down and didn’t stop until she came with a raw, broken cry, clenching around my fingers. Only then did I pull back and look up at her. Her eyes were glassy, furious, completely wrecked. Tears streaked her cheeks. Her cunt was swollen and shiny and still twitching.

“Next time you’ll be asking, and you’ll enjoy it so much more,” I said quietly, voice dark. “Remember the difference.”

I stood, and lifted her into my arms. She didn’t fight me.

I shrugged back into my jacket, lifted her off the desk, and carried her out the back exit to the waiting car. She stayed silent the entire drive to the penthouse. But she did not fight when I carried her inside. And when I finally unlocked the chains and laid her on the bed in the guest room, she looked at the ceiling and whispered the same words again, so quietly I almost missed them. “I hate you.”I closed the door and stood in the dark hallway with my heart beating too hard in my chest. . I didn’t go to my own bed.

I stood in the dark hallway outside the guest room and listened to her breathe. Safe. Alive. Under my roof. The old fear surfaced anyway, quiet and poisonous. The same voice that had lived in my head since I was twelve.

This is how it starts. You let yourself care and then you become… him. Your father. You put a gun in someone’s mouth because they disappointed you. You make your own children watch that shit.

I pressed my forehead against the doorframe until the wood bit into my skin. I would burn the city down before I became my father. I just did not know yet if love was the thing that would save me from it or the thing that would finish the job.

I opened the door again. She was still awake, lying on her side under the covers, facing the windows. The collar was dark against her throat. My mother’s ring caught the city light every time she breathed.

I closed the door behind me and leaned against it. “You should be asleep.”

“So should you,” she said without turning around.

I walked to the bed and sat on the edge. The mattress dipped. She tensed but didn’t pull away when I reached out and traced the edge of the collar with one finger. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” I unbuckled it slowly, watching the way her breath hitched when the leather left her skin. Red marks circled her throat. I brushed my thumb over them. “I’ll put it back on in the morning. Tonight you sleep without it.”

She finally turned her head to look at me. Her eyes were red-rimmed but clear. “Why?”

“Because I want to see what you look like when you’re not wearing my ownership like a threat.” I stretched out beside her on top of the covers, still fully dressed. She watched me like she was waiting for the next order, the next claim, the next hard thrust.

Instead I pulled her against my chest, careful of the places I had already bruised, and rested my chin on top of her head. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m cold.”

“You’re not.” I slid one hand under the shirt she was wearing , one of mine, and spread my fingers over her bare stomach. “You’re scared of what happens when the adrenaline wears off and you realize you’re still wet for the man who just fucked you in front of the entire mafia.”

She made a soft, angry sound. “You ruined my life.”