Page 59 of Vicious Rule

Angelo walks over to me and grabs my face so hard tears well in my eyes. “You have a smart mouth on you. Does that mouth do anything else but talk shit?”

I twist my head out of his hold as I struggle to hold back the tears. “Not for you, fucker.”

He looks back at Andre and laughs. “She’s as feisty as you said. How come my brother never mentioned she’s a live wire?”

Andre shrugs. “Maybe she wasn’t like that with him?”

When Angelo returns his focus to me, he brushes my hair back off my face and sighs. “Oh, I’m going to enjoy you later. For now, though, I have some business to handle. Sit tight, little girl. I’ll be back to have fun with you in a little while.”

He turns to walk away, and I say, “Did you know that Alex’s father once woodchippered a guy live? Yeah, he was alive when he stuffed him into a woodchipper. You don’t grow up around that kind of viciousness without having it rub off on you. Fair warning. You’re in for a world of pain tonight.”

I keep saying things like that in the hope that Alex will show up at any moment. If he doesn’t, these bastards are going to use me for God only knows what. And that part about Helix Rule and his vicious ways rubbing off on his kids is only partly true. Gideon never turned out fucking insane. I don’t think Autumn did either.

God, I hope Alex is as brutal and mad as he claims to be, or I’m a dead woman.

My warning makes Angelo stop just as he reaches the door, and when he looks back at Andre I see a hint of worry in his eyes. “I’ll be back. Watch her. I want her alive for when I’m ready for her.”

My captor nods, and when the door closes, I look over at him. “Am I supposed to do tricks? These guys aren’t the sharpest tools in the box. I’m tied up, for fuck’s sake. What are you watching for?”

He ignores my questions and simply stares at me like he often has at the villa. Jesus, to think that I thought he had a crush on me. Sasha, girlfriend, your ego has gotten the best of you this time. All that time you believed he was just a shy guy who liked you, the son of a bitch was sizing you up to see how best to smuggle you out from under Alex’s nose.

Then again, now that I see him looking at me with something that resembles interest in his eyes, I wonder if I can use that to my advantage. It can’t hurt. If I can get him to see me as something more than a prisoner, maybe he’ll let me go.

Not that I’m counting on that. No, I’m counting on Alex, but until he gets here, I’m on my own.

Hoping I don’t look too worse for wear, I put on my sexiest smile for Andre. “Do you know I thought you liked me? Guess I read those signals all wrong, huh?”

Something that looks like guilt comes over his face, and he winces before saying, “I didn’t dislike you.”

“There’s a ringing endorsement right there,” I say with a giggle I force from somewhere deep inside me.

Andre stretches his legs out in front of him and sighs. “What’s not to like? You’re gorgeous, sexy, and if the rumors are correct, a freak in the bedroom. There aren’t too many guys who wouldn’t like that.”

Ordinarily, that kind of compliment would get a snarky comment back from me, but I’m trying to seduce him, so I simply act demure and wish I could muster up a blush. I’ve done far too much in this world for that to happen, though.

“No snappy comeback? I would have thought you’d say something back to me, especially after that freak crack.”

I shrug as best as I can with both hands tied behind my back and smile. “Not much to say to the truth.”

That makes him sit forward toward me, and he seems genuinely curious when he asks, “So it’s not just a rumor?”

I may have found Andre’s weakness, and I plan to exploit it as much as I can. “No. All true.”

“Like what?”

As much as I don’t want to give him a rundown of my sexual past, if it helps keep him from harming me and possibly gets me free, I’m more than willing to brag about what I’ve done in bed. “Men. Women. Groups. Whatever I feel like doing. I’m not someone who likes to rule anything out, if you know what I mean.”

“But you never participated in your boyfriend’s orgies every night. Why?”

I hate betraying Alex this way, but I don’t have a choice. “He gets jealous. I’m thinking it’s because I was with his brother before him. They have a pretty bad sibling rivalry situation going on.”

Silently, I apologize to Alex for sharing that, even if it is likely true. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

“But he was with all those women,” Andre says, almost as if he’s bothered for me.

“It’s okay. I don’t get jealous. Anyway, I figure I owed it to him since I was with his brother.”

With a big smile, Andre says, “You might be the perfect woman, you know that?”

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