Page 3 of Cruel Master

My fingers gripped the glass in my hand tighter as I recalled the betrayal of my sister and my current predicament. She was the reason I wasn’t able to enjoy being home or even attend college. Even if I could have tried to do something online once I was away from her and the Price Empire, it wasn’t like I could keep up with a curriculum when I was too damn busy running from her and building a business to keep myself safe. It had nothing to do with my forced marriage but everything to do with her jealous, vile act of cruelty.

Without a second thought, I put the glass back to my lips and downed the rest of the liquid in one gulp. Just like that, too, the sweet-ish taste turned bitter and the alcohol burned a path into my stomach. I had been a mess the night I’d run away, but I’d done better the second time than the first. I’d learned a valuable lesson. Sometimes, you had to accept the reality and lean into what you were capable of or risk everything.

I was an ex-Mafia Princess and now a criminal. I no longer had the choice of normalcy. If I wanted to survive my sister’s wrath, then I’d had to accept that part of myself. In the last three years, I’d donned several masks—different identities—and even taken on this new business of mine. The kind of business that allowed others to disappear somewhere else in the world, starting new lives as their old ones were irrevocably ended.

Carefully, I set the empty glass down on the bar top and sighed as I turned towards the rest of the lounge area. I’d learned, too, how to read people. Who would be dangerous to involve myself with, and who would be beneficial. If I hadn’t learned and learned fast, then I’d be as good as dead. As it stood,someonewas getting far too close.

My husband.

“Nice night, isn’t it?” A smooth baritone sounded at my side, but I didn’t jump. I’d noticed a man in a tight black suit, tall and broad, with a no-nonsense expression plastered on his face approaching a few minutes ago. At first, he’d sidled up to the end of the bar, and then with each passing second, he’d edged closer and closer as he worked up the courage to talk to me.

Casting a look at the man, I took him in. He was young—at least in his mid-twenties with thick dark hair gelled away from his face. Perhaps it was the cut of his jawline or his height, but somehow, he made me think of Gaven. Despite the sharp, handsome contrast of his skin tone, though, he looked nothing like the man I remembered in my bed, between my legs.

It had been three years since I’d seen Gaven, and three years since I’d even contemplated sex. We hadn’t really known each other, he and I, but he’d left his mark on me, burned deep enough past my skin and into my soul that I couldn’t forget what he’d done to me. The way he’d made me feel and the desire my body felt towards him. In reality, the two of us had been thrown together to continue the lineage of the Price Empire. It was a marriage in name only; it was about bearing an heir, not dedicating my life to him. Not really. Somehow, though, I’d never, in the last few years, been able to erase the oath I’d taken when I’d said ‘I do.’

Now, it felt wrong to be staring at this man and contemplate … well, what exactly was I contemplating?

Not sex with him, that was for sure. If anything, the nearest thing to sex I was going to have tonight would be back in my apartment with the vibrator I’d bought online two weeks ago. It was the sole source of comfort I’d had—toys that were sometimes too hard and had none of the heat and vile, wicked words that my husband had.

My insides squirmed with memories. Between my thighs, I felt a wetness beginning to build. I couldn’t deny that ever since Gaven had fucked me—ever since he’d introduced me into the world of sexual deviancy, it had somehow made me want more. More seemed impossible, though,without him.

It didn’t make any sense. We didn’t love each other. Still, I felt bound to him. As if he were this great and powerful being and the only thing that could bring me back to that otherworldly pleasure.

“—buy you a drink?”

I blinked my eyes open, realizing belatedly that I’d closed them as the thoughts and memories swarmed me. “What?” I looked back at the man.

“Would you let me buy you a drink?” he asked again.

I was already shaking my head before he finished. “Thank you,” I said, “but no.”

His face fell. “Oh, well, if not a drink, maybe I could—”

“I’m married,” I told him. “But thank you for the offer.”

Disappointment etched into his face. I didn’t normally pull the married card, but it wasn’t a lie and that was something I was used to doing now that I was a fugitive on the run. Behind the puppy-dog-like man sitting next to me, I spotted a tall shadow moving along the back of the room. I sat up straighter.

No,I thought to myself. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be there. I’d been careful with this location. I’d wanted to stay for a while. But there was no denying the race of my heartbeat now galloping in my chest. I knew that shadow. I knew it well—all too well.

Whipping around, I slapped a fifty dollar bill—the shimmering Australian money’s color catching in the low lighting as I do—on the bar top and snatched up my purse.

“Wait!” the man cried out, but I ignored him as I made a beeline for the exit.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Though the man hadn’t been Gaven, he worked for him. I’d seen him far too many times in the last three years. Always too close. Just like now.

Outside, I hailed a cab. “Where to?” the cabbie asked as I snapped the backdoor closed behind me.

“Mascot,” I said. “Holiday Inn.” There were no more flights out today. It was far too late for that, but I couldn’t risk returning to my apartment.

The cab driver twisted back to his wheel and steered us into traffic, the car picking up speed as he cut through the lanes toward the highway. Heart racing in my chest, I quickly glanced back to see if the man had followed me outside. It was too dark, though, even with the city lights to see more than figures on the street. I turned back around and forced myself to relax into the seat before closing my eyes and sending a prayer up to the sky.

I knew it was pointless. I wasn’t much of a believer in God. Certainly not anymore. I knew, though, how other members of the mafia could be—how the great Prezzo Italian family that the Prices once were—had been. With so much death around them, so much betrayal and loss. It made sense that they would seek out a power higher than themselves.

For me, that power is none other than Gaven Belmonte.

My hunter. My husband.

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