Page 20 of About Love and Revenge

I doubt either of them know exactly what kind of man Naim is.

I open the safe and take out my gun.

The first certainty I have is that my meeting with Naim won't be pleasant.

The second is that he won't take Elina.

I try to convince myself that the only reason I'm going after her is that with her father on the run, I need some kind of insurance.

What could be better than having someone close to him who knows the bastard’s ways?

As I expected, there are three security guards in front of Leandros's house.

The sheikh's arrogance knows no bounds. He knows he's on my property, and yet he thinks he's leaving here with a woman against her will?

The bastard is such a coward that he doesn't even dare to face someone half his body weight alone.

My men quickly neutralize his bodyguards, but as soon as I enter, I see that there are two more inside and no sign of Naim. I've never been to the house, but after watching the footage as much as I have, I can walk through the place with my eyes closed.

While my team takes care of the other two men, I try to figure out where Naim and Elina could be. I know where her room is, even though I ordered no cameras installed there.

In none of the bedrooms, actually.

Was she still sleeping when he walked in?

The thought of Elina being subdued in a situation of even more vulnerability makes me quicken my pace, so I start taking the stairs two steps at a time.

After finding her suite empty, I give up guessing.

“Elina, it's Odin! Tell me where you are!”

I start down the stairs again, and one of my men points to a door on the left. As I approach, I hear the noise of furniture being overturned. I go in, and I don't need more than two seconds to see the whole picture.

I keep my emotions in check.

Due to the history I bear, if I allowed people’s reactions to overwhelm me, I wouldn't be able to carry out my plans.

Pity, empathy, love, and affection are rare emotions for me and ones I only access in minimal doses, but something happens to me the moment I see Elina with the mark of a slap on the pale skin of her face, her mouth bleeding and nightgown ripped, almost exposing one breast.

She runs away from Naim, hiding behind a heavy wooden table. What I feel right now is something I can't identify, nothing like what I've experienced as an adult so far, but a mix of emotions.

Guilt because she is in danger due to my actions forcing her father to leave. Hatred because Naim has touched her, hurting her again. And soon after, the desire to kill him.

There is one other thing, however, that already flirted with me yesterday, peeking from behind the curtain, but that now settles in for good.

Admiration for the woman who, even against my will, makes my blood boil.

The physical disproportion between the two is ridiculous. Even though Naim is at least eight inches shorter than I am, being six-foot-two, he's still a lot bigger than she is.

The woman's arms, bare and reddened by the bastard's grip, look so thin they could be broken with a tighter grip. She's hurt, and I can see in her eyes that she's terrified too, but she still doesn't back down. She wields a card cutter, holding it in front of her body as if it were a weapon.

“What are you doing in my house?"

It seems that the bastard was in such a lust trance that he didn’t even notice my presence.

He turns and looks at me like a rabid dog.

Letting emotions rule oneself is a sort of vulnerability, but that's not what makes Naim weak. Now, in the morning, dressed in Western clothes and lacking all the poise of a ruler of his little Emirate, he's nothing more than a damn worm. An unfortunate person unable to accept anofrom a woman and who needs to humiliate her and physically attack her until she bends to his will.

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