Page 11 of Owning Nicci

I can feel myself starting to shake. It’s a fine tremor, running up through my body, through every limb, threatening to make me fall apart. I stare at Savio, begging myself to wake up, for this to be some kind of nightmare. I reach up with a trembling hand, pinching my forearm hard, but nothing happens. I don’twake up. And Savio is still standing there, looking at me as if he’s waiting for me to figure it all out.

“What do you want from me?” My voice is laced with anger, every word as sharp as a whip cracking in the air between us. “Why would you pay amillion dollarsfor me? For what every man who walks into the Gilded Lily has had? For what yourbrotherhad?”

That last was too far. I know it the moment Savio’s gaze hardens, the moment he strides towards me, his cold green eyes locked on mine as he reaches out and grabs my chin, holding me in place and unable to look away. His fingers dig into my jaw, and I look up at him, fear beating heavy wings in my chest.

“I want information,” he growls. “I want to know what my brother was doing while you were with him. I want every little thing you were privy to while you were in his bed. Don’t deny that you were, I know that’s a lie. And furthermore, I wantyou.”

“Why?” I whisper, the word choked out between his pressing fingers. “Why do you want me?”

A cold smile slides over Savio’s lips. “Because I want everything he had,” he growls. “And I’m going to take everything he wanted.”

He pulls me closer, flush against him, and I can feel how hard he is. Rock-hard, straining against the front of his trousers, a long, thick ridge that shocks me with just how big it feels against my thigh. He looks down at me, a dark, furious heat in his eyes, and his hand slides around to the back of my neck, exerting pressure to try to put me down onto my knees.

Fuck that.I’m on my own now. My father has sold me to this man, who clearly has no love lost between him and his late brother, who wants me for what I know and for some kind of twisted revenge. There’s no consequences any longer except for what Savio will mete out, and I don’t think he can hold a candleto what my father did to me. I don’t think he can hurt me worse than I’ve already been hurt.

I wrench back, fighting his effort to push me down. “Let go of me!” I screech, twisting in his grip, and Savio’s jaw hardens as he glares at me.

“You belong to me now, Nicci,” he snaps, as if I haven’t understood the transaction that brought me here yet. “If I want you on your knees, you go down on your knees. And right now, I’m so fucking hard I can’t think—So I want that taken care of before I start questioning you the way I planned.”

“Fuck you,” I spit, and Savio’s grip on the back of my neck tightens.

“What do you think happens to you if you disobey?” he growls. “I would have thought you were better at being obedient than this,principessa. What happened to the little whore that let every man in that club have her holes without question?”

My hands are still free, and without letting myself think twice, I take full advantage of it. I slap him across the face, hard enough to leave a stinging red mark. He jolts back, startled, and flings me towards the bed, hard enough that I topple and fall against it.

Fear pulses through me, but there’s a strange exultation behind it, too. “My father’s orders got your brother killed,” I spit at him. “And yet you’re working with him? None of that makes sense,Savio.”

“I bought you from him. I’m notworkingwith him. There’s a difference. And I’m the one asking the questions.” Savio stiffens, and I can see him struggling to find that easy calm that he had every time he came into the club. I’ve gotten under his skin, and I can tell he hates it. Hates that I’m fighting back—and loves it, too, I think. In a manner of speaking. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a man as rock-hard as he is right now.

“So you don’t care about my father? He’s not your associate?”

Savio’s face smooths. “No,” he says calmly, some of his composure returning. “I don’t care about your father at all,principessa, or his business, or anything else having to do with him. I purchased you from him to avoid any unnecessary consequences of taking you for my own.”

“For amilliondollars?” My family is rich, and I lived in the lap of luxury for most of my life, and yet I can’t wrap my head around how casually he threw money at the supposed problem of making me his.

Savio shrugs, as if it’s truly nothing to him. “It was a minor amount,” he says, gesturing dismissively. “I’d rather that than deal with your father attacking me in an effort to get you back. Stealing his beloved daughter seemed more difficult than simply paying for you.”

The slight sarcasm that I hear behindbelovedmakes me wonder how much Savio has gleaned about my relationship with my father. He obviously must realize that it’s not a loving one—no good father would put his daughter to work at the Gilded Lily or sell her to a man like Savio.

“A million dollars isn’t aminor amount.”

He shrugs again. “It is to me.” The heat of the moment before has faded, his demeanor cool and poised again. “I want information from you, Nicci. I want to know about my brother. I want to know about his plans. I want to knowwhyhe went up against a family as powerful as the Yashkovs, what made him believe he could pull that off. Everything he ever said to you, I want to know. And you’ll give it to me. One way or another, I’ll get it out of you.”

It’s not a threat. It’s a promise.I never really understood that saying until now, even though I’ve heard my father say it a hundred times or more. Savio’s words could be interpreted as a threat, but they’re not. Not really. They’re a promise. He doesn’tneed to threaten me, because he knows he’ll do it. There’s no bluff.

“I will get it all out of you,” he repeats. “Easy or hard,principessa, you’ll give me everything.”

I look at him, and I know he means it. I try to think of options, of ways out, but I don’t come up with anything. Not until a small voice, a sliver of the old me, the person I used to be, whispers in the back of my mind.

Turn this to your advantage. You used to be good at that. Or are you just so completely broken now that you can’t any longer?

Nowhere in any of this did Savio say anything about the Crows, Barca’s old gang. He hasn’t mentioned them once. And so, I suck in a breath, and gamble with that knowledge.

“I hate Barca too, you know. Or I did.” I say it calmly, matter-of-factly, and I’m gratified by the moment of startlement that I see in Savio’s eyes.

“I never said?—”

“You didn’t have to. I can tell from the way you talk about him that there’s no love lost there.” I push myself back up to standing, forcing myself to stiffen my spine and look Savio directly in the eyes. “For some reason, you hated your brother. You’re angry at him. Angry enough to buy me, to want to take everything he had or wanted to have. Your words.” I tilt my chin up, hoping he can’t see the faint tremble there, willing myself to hold his gaze. “But you haven’t said anything about his men. The Crows. The gang he used to run.”

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