Page 37 of The Last Vendetta

“I need information.”

“That you couldn’t have fucking asked me for?”

She scowled, slamming her back against the door frame to my bedroom. “Oh, yeah, right. Cut the shit. I can’t ask you for information.”

“The hell you can’t.” I shoved her toward the bed, letting her climb back up to sit.

“Because we’re great friends now, huh?”

I clenched my teeth, pinning her to the bed. “If you had to know something that goddamn badly, you could have fucking asked me.”

She pressed her lips together tightly, staring up at me with hatred.

“Spying in there like that…” I growled and shook my head. “How fucking stupid are you? They would’ve recognized you and known you snuck in there.”

“I had a mask on,” she argued.

“So fucking what? I recognized you immediately.”

“Because you know?—”

I slitted my eyes. “Because I know you? Huh? But you thought you could sneak in there undetected?”

She looked away, turning her head on the bed, and I grabbed her chin again, pressing my body weight down on her until I got her attention. “Don’t you know your fucking place?”

“Of course, I do! I’m just a supposedly stupid woman stuck in a vulnerable position while my Family falls apart. That asshole in there might want to make me his wife. His plaything, like he did that other dancer. And unless I can figure out who killed my father, I have no leverage to get out of anything like that!”

“You’re crazy,” I growled. “You’re fucking insane.”

She pushed her head up to yell louder. “I don’t care! I don’t care if you think I’m the stupidest woman on earth. All I wanted to do was figure out something—anything—that could explain why I’m facing marriage to that bastard.”

“So, that’s your answer. You think you can disguise yourself and spy and get ahead.”

“I don’t want to get ahead. I just want to avoid a worse fate than what I already have.”

“They were going to kill you,” I said, wishing I could shake sense into her. “They captured you, suspicious of why you ran out of that room.”

“Because I was afraid,” she shouted, likely hating to admit it. “I was afraid he’d turn to me next, take my mask off, and see that I was there.” She sucked in a quick breath, riled up from fighting my hold and shouting.

“You should’ve been terrified.” I leaned up, looking her over. Feeling her breasts rubbing against me threatened my determination to scold her. This skimpy dancer’s outfit taunted me.

Caught between fury and desire, I lost the willpower to resist this urgency to teach her a lesson she’d never forget.

“If Nickolas knew you were spying…” I ground my teeth as she scowled at me.

He would’ve killed her. Raped her and tortured her, then slowly taken her life.

This bold, brave woman. One I couldn’t imagine seeing gone.

“What the fuck were you trying to learn?”

“Anything,” she snapped. “Anything. I need to know what the hell is going on. I have to figure out who killed my father.”

“And listening in to me and Nickolas would’ve revealed that?” I grabbed her wrists in one hand, stopping her fighting. “How’d you know we would even be there?”

“My uncle.”

“He—” I ground my teeth. “Dario fucking sent you there to spy?”

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