Page 56 of Beautiful Enemy

“Please,” Anya begs. It’s a strange sound coming out of her. “Just let my sister go. Don’t torture her.”

“Have I tortured you?” Dante asks me. “I didn’t cut off your finger, did I?”

“You torture me every day when you keep me as a prisoner.”

He makes a small sound in the back of his throat. “You’re getting braver, baby. I like that. Now, say goodbye to your sister.”

“Anya-,”

“Nadia-,”

“That’s all,” Dante says, dragging me away. “Come along, Finn.”

He looks Anya up and down with a vicious grin before following Dante and me out the door. The last sight I have of my sister is her crying out for me.

And then Finn kicks the door shut and Dante forces me into his car and I’m leaving Anya’s home before I can even fully processed all what happened.

Finn takes his own car so that leaves me and Dante to ourselves.

“You thought you could really escape?”

“I had to try.”

“Aria helped you.” It’s not a question.

“She has a lot of anger in her but I think most of it is pain and fear. She realized we’re not that different. She had the power to change. Why can’t you?”

His laugh is so dark, it makes me freeze in my seat. “You really think I can change? I kidnapped you, Nadia. I am not a man who can be changed. You are my enemy. Your family is my enemy and I will do everything in my power to make Erik and Anya and Sergei suffer before I ever let you go.”

“You saw my sister back there. She’s innocent in this, Dante. You’re hurting another innocent woman. Please don’t do this. Just let me return home.”

“Erik offered himself up to me in exchange for your freedom. If that wasn’t enough to tempt me, then nothing will. You areminenow, Nadia.”

I sit back in the seat with a sudden exhale. The way he said ‘mine’ sounded so… possessive. Like he views me as more than just his prisoner. Almost like he views me as… his.

His property. Or his lover.

I fall silent as he drives me back to the ranch house. We stop and change cars along the way to avoid any of Erik’s men tracking us.

Dante fumes the entire ride to the house.

“Am I just your prisoner?” I whisper.

He looks at me like I’m crazy. “You are my prisoner.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

His hand slides onto my knee where he keeps it planted like he’s claiming me as his own. “I’m not letting you go again. You need to learn a lesson.”

I gulp. “What lesson?”

“That you are mine and I will break you. I will make you beg me for pleasure. For my attention. I will make you utterly mine that you will never want to return to your sister.”

“Impossible.”

“You messed up, Nadia. You just gave your sister hope and that was the cruelest thing you could have done to her. Now she’ll think there’s a chance to save you and there won’t be. Not ever again. You just crushed her heart.”

I stare down at Dante’s hand on my knee, feeling the urge to push it off me and yet pull it higher up my thigh. My conflicted feelings for him don’t make any sense. He’s evil.

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