Page 48 of Revenge & Ruin

There are certainly worse places to find yourself in the early hours of the morning, so I don’t complain as I hop off the seat.

“Thanks,” I throw him my best disarming smile. “You really got me out of a tight spot. I’m gonna head to the train, but I’ll see you around.”

What I don’t expect is for his arm to lash out and grab my arm.

“Hey, what are you?—”

But the rest of the sentence burns up in my throat.

With his other hand, he whips off his helmet, and those endless, midnight eyes glare at me angrily.

“You’re going fucking nowhere,belle.”

13

TEO

“What the hell, Teo?”

I could kill her.

Iwillkill her if that’s what it takes.

But she’s looking at me like that, with her big chocolate eyes all wide and innocent. As if she hadn’t just thrown herself into a den of vipers. That is what pushes me over the edge.

“The only thing that should be coming out of your mouth is a fucking apology,” I growl as I throw my helmet to the ground.

She has the audacity to look startled. “An apology? For what?”

“The cartel, Isabella?” I run a hand through my hair. “Do you have any idea what they would have done to you?”

“I didn’t ask you to follow me,” she seethes back. “I’m not going to apologize for the fact you don’t know how to stay out of my fucking business!”

“So you had a way out? Bat your eyelashes until they roll over for you, was that the plan?”

“I can handle myself,” she sneers. “The Princes' Hand has no quarrel with the cartel. That’s the Guild’s mess, not mine.”

This fucking woman.

“You’re stillItalian,sweetheart. It doesn’t make a shred of difference to them.”

Her eyes narrow. “I can handle myself.”

“I don’t have time for this.”

I readjust my grip on her arm and start to drag her up to the house.

“What the HELL are you doing?” she all but screams as she fights against my grip.

“I told you, you’re not going anywhere.”

“LET ME GO!”

I ignore her, dragging her, kicking and screaming through the front door, making sure to hit the button that will close the gates behind us. Huge, twenty-foot metal gates groan shut behind us.

Without thinking too much about it, I throw her into the living room. She turns on me the second I let go, but I step backward and shut the door in her face.

The banging that follows is to be expected. The screaming, too. But it’s not my fault she doesn’t try the handle. Maybe then she’ll figure out she’s not locked in at all.

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