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The door creaked open. Before I could figure out what was happening, Rafael was standing in front of me, pointing a gun at the doorway.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Lucas snarled.
Lucas worked for Antonio, and they often collaborated with my father, who was at the party too. For a moment, I panicked. But my father wouldn’t have sent Lucas. He would have come himself, and the consequences would be staggering.
“Get out,” Rafael roared, putting away his gun while still blocking my naked form from the intruder.
“I saw you slip away with her. I’m not the only one who noticed. You need to get her back to the party. And you need to be smart about how you do it. Do you want my help?”
“Get the fuck out of here,” Rafael barked.
After the door closed, Rafa turned to face me. “He’s right,” he admitted, the regret weighing down his words. He pressed a small kiss to my head. “I shouldn’t have brought you here. And I certainly shouldn’t have touched you the way I did.”
There was a finality to his words, and my heart shattered into a million jagged pieces as he spoke.
I was embarrassed, still aroused, and on the verge of tears as he used the bottom of his shirt to clean my thighs and helped me dress. “I’m sorry,” he apologized again, humiliating me further. “I should have taken better care of you.”
No man I’d ever been with had taken better care of me.
As awful as the moment was, it became more painful. Much more painful.
Rafael didn’t spare me a glance for the rest of the night, or during brunch the next morning, and he never contacted me. In the beginning, I showed up in places I thought he’d be, but our paths never crossed. At Valentina’s birthday dinner earlier this year, he smiled and nodded from across the room, but otherwise he avoided me like a mistake he didn’t want to repeat.
But what made it impossible for my heart to fully heal was that he wanted me. He did. He called me his angel. It wasn’t simply the fanciful thoughts of a woman who believed in fairy tales and hung on to words carelessly spoken in a moment of passion.
Rafael Huntsman told me he wanted me. He told me I was his filthy fantasy.
10
RAFAEL
Misha is fully clothed, tied spread-eagle to a rack that hangs on the wall. It looks awfully uncomfortable. She wasn’t beaten and she won’t be, but that doesn’t mean we’re not going to make her life miserable.
The petite Romanian blinks several times when she sees me, but she doesn’t whimper or shed a tear, not even crocodile ones.
“Comfortable?” I ask, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
She doesn’t reply, and I move to within inches of her.
“I asked you a question, Misha, and I expect an answer.”
She shakes her head.
“Good. I hope your arms and legs burn like a son of a bitch. It still won’t be as bad as the life you lured innocent women into.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” she whispers.
“Everyone has a choice,” I reply, but I know it’s not true. Women often find themselves in our crosshairs because they didn’t have a choice. Misha could be one of them. But I’m in no mood to show her mercy.
I hold my knife against her throat. The blood drains from her face, and she lowers her eyes.
“Who do you work for?” I demand roughly.
“I-I don’t know,” she says softly, staring at my wrist, like she could will it to drop the knife. “I’ve never seen him. But he has a lot of power.”
I don’t make too much of the information, but file it away. A man who has power over her is not necessarily a powerful man. It’s unlikely she’s rubbed elbows with the man at the top.
“How do you get your instructions?”
