Page 31 of The Price of Power

“Well, that puts me in an impossible situation,” I told him. “One minute, you tell me that you want me to tell you the truth, and the next, you’re saying I should be careful not to make you angry. I can’t do both.”

“You’re an intelligent woman,” he said. “You’ll figure something out.”

“Right,” I said in understanding. “So you want me to placate you—pretend that I’m telling you the truth when really all I’m doing is saying what you want to hear.”

Gabriel’s gaze darkened, his lips pressing together in a tight, straight line. “People who lie to me live to regret it…but not for long.”

There was no missing the deadly threat in his words.

“Okay, so I’m starting to get it,” I pushed my luck. “If I lie, you’ll have your scary brother downstairs break my neck like he did with your uncle.”

“Wrong brother,” Gabriel informed me coldly.

“You have another one?”

“Yes,” he said. “And if you think that Matteo is scary, then just looking at Dorian would make you shit your pants.”

I had no trouble believing that. Just one more horrific fear to add to the pile that had been growing since I’d answered Theo’s phone call a few days ago.

“So, lies are punishable by death,” I recapped with a nod. “But what about mild annoyances?”

The muscles lining his jaw jumped and ticked.

“Keep asking stupid questions if you want to find out.”

I mustered up the last few drops of my courage and somehow met his gaze without flinching. “What the hell do you think I’ve been doing?”

Chapter Nine

GABRIEL

Liv hadn’t been in my home for more than ten minutes, and she was already testing me.

I should have expected this. If what I wanted was submissive compliance, I should have picked another woman. I knew plenty of pretty faces who wouldn’t dare talk back or play at the boundaries of my patience. So many that I’d be hard-pressed to pick the one who deserved the opportunity to spend her days and nights surrounded by pleasure and luxury.

I’d brought plenty of that kind of woman home before. They didn’t last more than a day or two before I grew tired of them and showed them the door.

Unquestioning obedience might be nice in the moment, but it was also dead boring.

Liv, on the other hand, was anything but. She’d been surprising me from the moment I met her—even if some of those surprises were maddening as hell.

“You want to know about consequences?” I asked, closing in on her slowly. “Fine. I’m happy to teach you.”

For every step I took toward her, she shifted one back. I couldn’t help but smile at her hypocrisy. Her mouth might have been brave, but her body most definitely was not.

She kept retreating until she ran out of room. Eventually, her back hit the wall, and her eyes widened in alarm. I quickly closed in on her, pinning my arms on either side of her shoulders, trapping her in place.

Still, I had to give her credit. She did her best to put on a brave face as she lifted her shaking chin to look me in the eye.

“What now?” she asked. “Are you going to smack me around? Rough me up a little for daring to speak my mind?”

Despite the fire burning in her emerald gaze, it was easy to see her display of courage for what it was—nothing more than an act. Her voice quivered with every word, and her lips trembled as she spoke them.

“Is that what you want?” I asked softly, lifting my hand to trace the back of my fingers as lightly as possible down her cheek.

She stared up at me like I’d lost my mind.

“Of course not,” she said. “I just want to know what the next three months of my life are going to be like. I need to know what kind of monster I’ll be living with.”

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