Page 22 of Contracted

Serafino flipped open his jacket, revealing his firearm. “I can do what I want, when I want. So unless you have a death wish...?”

Charlie took a jerky step back, his hands up. “Whoa. Whatever man. I didn’t realize you felt that deeply about her.”

“Now you do.” His eyes hardened to granite. “Never go near her again.”

Charlie nodded, then turned and stumbled away.

I gaped at Serafino. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” he growled.

“You mean other than threatening my clients?”

“He isn’t your client. Not anymore.”

My stomach roiled. “What are you going to do—chase away every single one?”

He strode forward, taking me with him. “If that’s what it takes, then, yes.”

Though a miniscule part of me stupidly reveled in his possessiveness, a much bigger part burned with fury and resentment. I’d worked too hard to have this man dictate who I could see, or what I could do. That I’d be leaving the profession after tonight was neither here nor there. He didn’t know I was leaving, and that was all that mattered to me.

I lifted my chin as we stepped outside. He mightn’t realize it yet, but he couldn’t have me, either. He’d paid for my time, but after tonight he’d never see me again.

That the thought left me hollow inside wasn’t something I wanted to examine too closely. I was in a contrary crisis that left me swinging between wanting him and hating him.

As we approached the car, he shook his head at Emilio and the driver left his position by the back door for Serafino to open it. I gritted my teeth in a parody of a smile and slid into the backseat. Clicking on my seatbelt, I looked out the side window—away from him—as he climbed in beside me.

The tension could have been cut with a knife, and the driver knew better than to make conversation as he pulled out into the stream of traffic.

The push and pull inside of me was so perverse I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Serafino was a dominant asshole but he’d made me feel things no other man had managed to ever. That he was a client and I’d soon be a free woman meant that tonight really was the last time I’d see him.

I was glad, of course I was. So what was with this yawning abyss inside of me?

He put his big hand on my thigh, tingles immediately flaring to life. “Perhaps I was bit controlling,” he admitted in a voice that throbbed with intensity.

I refused to cede to what I supposed was a half-assed apology. I turned to him with narrowed eyes. “A bit?”

“What do you want me to say?” he asked, his stare burning with needs that were too hot even for me. “I’m not good with words. I’ve never been good at talking.”

“Yet you were so quick to voice your demands.”

His nostrils flared, his eyes hardening. “I’m a caporegime, it’s what I do.”

“It’s what you do with your soldiers. Not. With. Me.”

His hand clamped under my jaw, his tight face close to mine. “We shall see.”

Chapter Eleven

Serafino

I’d never been so furious, so close to losing my mind. Didn’t Delilah understand my emotional state? Of course she didn’t. She used men like me for our money, then she moved on, forgetting we even existed.

I was like a rabid wolf by the time the car pulled under the carpark. I only just managed to keep myself together as I climbed out and stabbed the elevator’s button, then stepped inside it with Delilah reluctantly trailing behind.

Not that I blamed her. I mightn’t be snapping and snarling, but I was close to it. I wanted to assert my dominance and force her to forget all the other men she’d had in her life as my alpha side brought her to heel.

At the back of my mind I knew I was losing it, a green eyed monster sending out its tendrils and crippling my iron will.

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