Page 26 of Sin & Sapphire

“She’s in Monaco,” he announced, just a short helicopter ride away.

“I’ll go,” I decided abruptly. She needed a firm hand and Angelo’s obsession made him too fucking unpredictable to deal with the Monégasque. He might grind her under his heel, but he’d go in guns blazing to get her out of there.

“No, we’re both going.”

I slammed my fist into his solar plexus, then knocked his feet out from under him as he tried to straighten back up. “The fuck you are. You might be salivating for a head-on confrontation, but opening a war on another front is a shit idea.”

Angelo stared at me, his stormy grey eyes furious under salt-and-pepper brows, and not for the first time, I cursed the hold that stupid girl had on him.

I’d make her pay for fucking up Angelo and pay for the millions of dollars of equipment and deals Tchérnov sent up in flames as retribution for her blowing up his yacht. And I’d have her on her fucking knees, begging for my cock, before I handed her off to someone else in marriage.

“I’ll bring her back safe and sound,” I promised, softening my voice so he wouldn’t hear the burning need for retribution that sizzled through my veins. “Wait for me.” I pressed my lips to his temple before donning my suit jacket. I smoothed my hands over my hair, as if the tight coils needed my touch to arrange them, then strode out of the room.

Julian Moreau metme at the VIP entrance to his casino, despite the early hour.

“I didn’t know,” he said as we shook hands, not even bothering with pleasantries.

I stared at him, as if not knowing was an excuse. I didn’t have any scruples about torturing women, but the only person who had a right to torture Angelo’s fuckingangelwas Angelo. And me, of course.

“She was running a con with a known criminal,” he continued when I didn’t respond. He walked me through the secluded hallways and then down an elevator that took us deep under the earth.

We walked through a maze of hallways that looked like any other basement for wealthy criminals—concrete, flickering fluorescent lights, steel doors that concealed rooms for torture, confinement, and worse.

My skin itched from being so deep underground, as if I hadn’t escaped the confinement of my youth, but I suppressed the discomfort I’d long since conquered. I’d had to in the military—my path to French citizenship after I was imprisoned as an undocumented immigrant running scams as a teenager.

Finally, we reached a door with bars over a window, and I peeked in. A blonde woman lay curled up on a messy bed, her knees drawn up to her face, and a blanket draped over her, covering all of her most interesting bits.

We must have made a sound because she looked up at the viewport, hate shining out of her brilliant green eyes, even though one of them was swollen and bruised, and a deep cut on her cheek bled. The fury that lashed through my veins and coiled deep in my gut shocked me. She didn’t deserve my sympathy, and she definitely didn’t deserve my anger on her behalf.

Ana leapt out of the bed, twirling the blanket as if to turn it into a whip, revealing the short, sequined dress she’d worn into the casino that night.

My eyes traced down long legs, and the bruises on her thighs sent fury sluicing through my veins like gasoline in search of a match.Non.She was a troublesome brat, and it didn’t matter how fucking gorgeous those legs may be—my job here was retrieval.

When Julian banged on the door and she flinched in fear, I’d had enough. I would take care of her, and then I would rip out the hearts of the men who’d hurt her. But first, I would punish her for eliciting these feelings in me, so she’d never know how tempting I found her. SoAngelowould never know.

“Leave us,” I snarled as I strode in.

Ana’s eyes widened as she took me in, then narrowed again when she saw Julian behind me.

She raised her tightly coiled rope of blanket in front of her like a staff, as if it could shield her from what was to come.

“Leave us!”

The door slammed shut behind us.

“You!” I snapped, hating the way I wanted to gather her in my arms and check her wounds, hating how much I admired the lift of her chin despite her obvious fear, hating how every goddamned inch of her was built to appeal to sinners like me. She was temptation personified.

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’ve caused?” I ached to tame her, to show her how sweet obedience could be.

“Uncle Valentin,” she murmured, instantly changing into a seductive siren and looking up at me through long lashes, the smear of mascara under her eyes not doing a goddamned thing to diminish her allure. “Have you come to rescue me?”

I laughed shortly. “I should leave you in here to rot. You’re a mafia princess, and instead of protecting your family, you’re in goddamned Monaco running scams like a street rat?”

I didn’t mention that I’d been arrested for doing the same goddamned thing in Paris decades before, that I’d been where she was, scared and on the run from human traffickers, and desperate to pay my way. She didn’t deserve my sympathy. Not after the millions she would cost me to clean up this mess, to pay someone to take her off of Angelo’s hands and marry her, and to appease Boris Tchérnov for the humiliation of losing her.

Ana’s shrug was the match that set me aflame. I stalked toward her, determined to teach thisconnasse,thispute,a lesson. Ana had no power over me, and I itched to prove it to her before I brought her home to Angelo and handed him this dangerous, cunning woman, who I was certain would ruin the both of us.

“Valentin?Oncle?” She eyed me warily, and her breath sped up as I approached her, towering over her, even in her heels. I snatched the blanket out of her hands, then wrapped my hands around her waist and threw her over my knee.

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