Page 63 of Ruthless Desire

"Excellent," I nod, already shrugging on my jacket. "Have the car brought around. It's time to collect what's mine."

The ride to the parkway is quick, the late-night traffic parting before us like the Red Sea. I use the time to make a few more calls, setting other pieces of my plan into motion. By the time we reach the flashing lights of the police barricade, everything is in place.

I step out of the car, buttoning my suit jacket with practiced ease. The scent of fear is palpable, emanating not just from the huddled figure in my Escalade, but from the officers shifting nervously behind their cruisers.

"Mr. Corleone," one of them calls out, his voice wavering beneath a thin veneer of authority. "Please, step back. We have a situation here-"

I silence him with a look, my eyes boring into his with all the cold menace of a cobra's stare. He falters, swallowing hard, his adam's apple bobbing like a buoy in a storm-tossed sea.

"The only situation here," I say softly, each word a shard of ice, "is the one my foolish fiancée has created for herself. A little lover's spat, nothing more. Certainly nothing to trouble New York's finest over."

I can practically hear the gears turning in his head, the calculations of risk and reward. He knows who I am, what I'm capable of. The lives I can crush beneath my heel like so many insignificant insects.

In the end, prudence wins out over principle. He lowers his weapon, stepping aside with a curt nod. "Of course, Mr. Corleone. We'll give you some privacy to... sort this out."

I stride past him, my focus laser-locked on the trembling figure behind the wheel of my Escalade. Oh, Natalie. My sweet, stubborn Natalie. When will you learn? When will you accept the inevitable, the inexorable truth of my possession?

I reach the driver's side door, wrenching it open with a casual brutality that belies the anticipation thrumming through my veins. Natalie flinches back, a whimper tearing from her throat, and it takes every ounce of my control not to drag her out by her hair and toss her over my shoulder like a conquering warlord of old.

But I resist the urge, if only barely. There's a time and a place for such primitive displays, and this is not it. No, this requires a more delicate touch. A subtler punishment to remind her of her place, her utter belonging to me.

"Get out," I say, my voice deceptively soft. A serpent's hiss, lulling its prey into lethargy before it strikes. "Now, Natalie. Before I lose what little patience I have left."

She hesitates, caught between the twin demons of fear and defiance. I can see it in her eyes, the futile flickering of her dying autonomy. She wants to resist, to scream her hatred and claw the flesh from my bones.

But she can't. She won't. Because deep down, in the darkest recesses of her being, she knows the truth.

Her body is my temple, her mind my altar. And soon, very soon, her soul will be my sacrament too.

Slowly, she slides from the car, her movements stiff and stilted. She's favoring her left side, wincing with every breath. Broken ribs, most likely. A small price to pay for her little stunt.

I take her arm, my grip gentle but unyielding. She tenses, her pulse fluttering wildly beneath my fingertips. I can smell her fear, her anger, rising from her skin like perfume.

It's intoxicating. A dark ambrosia that I could drink from for eternity and never have my fill.

I lead her to the waiting town car, its doors open like a gaping maw. She balks, digging in her heels, but it's a token resistance at best. We both know how this ends.

"Please," she whispers, her voice cracked and raw. "Please, Dante. Don't do this. Just let me go."

I pause, turning to face her fully. Tip her chin up with one finger until she has no choice but to meet my gaze.

"Let you go?" I repeat, incredulous. "After all I've done for you, all I've given you? You would throw it all away, throw me away, like so much garbage?"

Natalie swallows hard, her eyes glassy with unshed tears. "I never asked for any of this," she rasps out. "Never wanted your gifts, your twisted idea of love. You've taken everything from me, don't you see that? My art, my freedom, my very sense of self."

I stroke the delicate line of her jaw, marveling at the play of terror and longing in her gaze.

"No, solnyshko," I murmur. "I've given you everything. A life beyond your wildest dreams, a dark prince to worship at your feet. It's not my fault you're too stubborn, too blinded by your own narcissism, to see it."

I lean in closer, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. "But you will see. I'll make sure of that. And when you do, when you finally embrace your place at my side..."

She shudders against me, a choked sob lodging in her throat. But beneath the fear, the revulsion... I feel something else. Something molten and hungry, pulsing in time to the dark beat of my own desire.

She wants this. Wants me, even as she despises herself for it. And that knowledge, that delicious irony, is a greater high than any drug, any conquest.

I bundle her into the car, sliding in beside her and pulling her tight against my side. She stiffens but doesn't resist, her exhaustion and injuries sapping the last of her fighting spirit.

For now.

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