Page 106 of Savage

“Sex is always better when you’re high,” Dylan tells me.

I’d have agreed with him once, but I think about the other night when Hunter and I had laughed our way through sex and pleasure, rolling into bed together like we were lovers instead of master and slave.

Dylan sets the gun down so he can get the syringe up against my arm.

This is my chance, I realize.

I’m terrified, but I yank my hand out of his grasp and sit back to kick him. Dylan gasps, and the syringe clatters onto the floor.

“You fucking bitch!” Dylan shouts.

“Leave me alone!” I yell, scrambling away from him—but the leash is still tied around the post. I tug, and by some stroke of luck, it comes free.

Dylan never learned to tie proper knots. I laugh desperately, but I don’t have time to dawdle. I start running, down the hallway and toward the front door. I hear Dylan catching up to me, but I reach the door.

It doesn’t open—because of the dead bolt. Fuck. I turn it as fast as I can, and I pull the door open to get a taste of fresh air.

Before I can take a single step outside, Dylan manages to grab the end of the leash and tug on it so hard that I choke and fall backward.

“Ungrateful cunt!” Dylan shouts as he slams the door shut. “You think you’re better than me now? Is that it?” He wrestles me onto the ground, and I kick and scream, but he’s bigger and heavier than me.

I cry out when he punches me in the head so hard that I see stars.

My body goes limp as I try to catch my breath.

I can’t do anything to stop Dylan from jabbing the syringe into my elbow and pushing down on it.

“Stop fucking pretending you aren’t the same gutter trash as me,” Dylan snarls.

I try to say something in response, but the words die in my throat as the drug—as the poison—pumps into my veins.

The woman I hoped I could become is gone just like that, a single instant eradicating all of the progress I’ve made and tearing away any future I could’ve had with Hunter.

He’d never want me back now.

But it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t want me anyway.

No one does except Dylan, and when he forces my mouth open so he can shove his cock inside, I part my lips and cry even as the euphoria of the high threatens to overtake me.

CHAPTER 27

Hunter

I don’t like my current patient.

She’s a tall woman, with long brown hair, brown eyes, and a flat chest. There’s nothing about her that stands out in particular, other than the fact that she’s accompanied by Damien Rossi, Giulio Pavone’s consigliere.

This is Vanessa Pavone, Giulio’s… wife? Girlfriend? The mother of his future child, in any case.

More importantly, she’s the one Stef seemed to like.

“The heartbeat is strong, just like I told you two weeks ago,” I say with impatience. “If there hasn’t been any trauma, there’s no reason to think otherwise. I don’t need to see her for another month.”

Damien either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care about my irritation, because he gets closer and places his hand on Vanessa’s belly. She flinches and squeezes her eyes shut. “We appreciate your care with her. Giulio wants to be sure nothing will go wrong.”

But the way Damien looks at Vanessa, I suspect it isn’t Giulio who’s so concerned.

I have no interest in detangling whatever is going on there, though. I turn the screen toward Damien so he can see the ultrasound images.

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