Page 12 of Owning Nicci

“Didn’t Dimitri Yashkov kill them all?” Savio raises an eyebrow, his expression still cool, but I can see a hint of eagerness there. The desire for the information that he said he wanted.

“Most of them.” I swallow hard. “Some of them escaped, as far as I know. There are at least a handful of them that I think got away.”

Savio shrugs. “So maybe I’ll track them down for answers, too. I’m less concerned with a handful of former gangsters that my brother controlled. I have bigger fish to catch,principessa.”

“Maybe you do. But you want my cooperation, don’t you? One way or another, you said. What if we could help each other?”

My heart beats hard behind my ribs as I see Savio raise an eyebrow. I have very little to bargain with, here. He has all the power, and I have none. He doesn’t have to go along with anything I ask for. He can have me no matter what—it’ll just be by force, which I’m not sure he’ll mind. All I have to go off of is the hope that he’d rather have me willing…and how intriguing he finds my offer—if I amuse or interest him enough to convince him to go along with my suggestions.

“What are you saying,principessa?” Savio’s voice is controlled, slow, a dangerous purr. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. His gaze is cool, bland, everything that he’s feeling hidden behind a careful mask.

I draw in a breath, forcing myself not to tremble. Not to crumble apart. Savio might be a devil, but if I can bargain with him, I might get what I want—what I’ve dreamed of in the silent, lonely hours of the night, when anger has been the only thing keeping me from disappearing into a shell of myself.

Sometimes, spite is all there is to keep a person going. Sometimes anger is all you have to hold onto. And I’ve held onto mine.

“I have my own reasons to hate Barca,” I tell Savio, keeping my voice as empty and emotionless as I can. He has enough power over me already; I don’t want to let him know how badly I want this. “Just as I have more than enough reasons to hate my father.”

Savio’s expression doesn’t shift. “Is there a point to this,principessa? Or are you just giving me a sob story that I didn’t ask for?”

I grit my teeth. “Mypoint,” I manage, forcing myself to speak normally and not spit the words at him, “is that I will do whatever you want. I will tell you anything you want to know—although I don’t think I know as much as you think I do—and I’ll please you however you want…if you help me kill the Crows, and my father.”

There. I said it.The words hang heavy in the air between us, my heart thudding in my chest. I feel like I can’t entirely breathe. Now that I’ve said it out loud, I can feel how desperately I want that revenge, more than I ever realized before. The need crawls through my veins, heavy and aching, and Savio is my only chance to sate it. If he locks me away and tortures me into giving up information to him with nothing in return, there’s nothing I can do about it. And the thought of him saying no—losing this one small chance to take back something from the people who broke me—feels like what I imagine heartbreak must feel like.

Not that I would know. No one has ever broken my heart.

I would have had to let myself love someone for that to happen.

His gaze turns keen, interested. “So if I kill them for you, you’ll do what I want? You’ll answer my questions? You’ll obey me, submit to me, accept that I own you, and your purpose now is to serveme?”

I swallow hard. The beat of my heart in my chest is almost painful now. “No.” I shake my head. “Not if you do it for me. I want to be a part of it.” I tilt my chin up. “You’ll take me with you when you hunt them down. You’ll teach me how to shoot a gun, use a knife, and how to defend myself. Every time you find a Crow, I’ll be at your side when you go after them, and I’ll damn sure be at your side whenwego after my father. And in return…yes.” I feel a strange, shivery sensation go down my spine as I speak. “I’ll submit to you. I’ll do and give you whatever you want that’s within my power.”

Savio’s eyes gleam. He steps closer, and his fingers close on my chin again, but more gently this time. He looks down at me, and all I see in his gaze is heat and sin, swirling together in a pit of dark green desire.

“You have no idea what I want,principessa,” he murmurs, his voice curling around me like smoke. “What I can do to you.”

His thumb brushes along the edge of my jaw, and the softness of it surprises me. There’s nothing soft about the look in his eyes or the sound of his voice. “I was looking forward to breaking you. But somehow, the idea of you willingly submitting when you have no idea what it is that you’re getting yourself into is even more arousing. I think I’ll find even more satisfaction in that.”

My throat tightens. “Are you agreeing to my offer?” I manage, my words a little more strangled than I mean for them to be. A dark, wicked smile curves Savio’s lips.

“That depends,” he says coolly.

“On what?”

“On whether or not you can convince me, right now, that you’re serious.” His fingers tighten, ever so slightly, on my chin, and his thumb sweeps over my lower lip. “Show me how you’ll submit to me,principessa, and we have a deal.”

5

SAVIO

Nothing about this has gone the way I planned or imagined. I knew Nicci would fight. I thought she might collapse when she found out the truth—that her father sold her to me without much effort on my part, just the offer of enough money to make him see only dollar signs—that she might become a puddle of tears and pleas, though I doubted it. I’ve seen enough of her fire so far to think that she won’t easily break.

No, I expected to have to break her. To force her into submission, to teach her exactly what it’s like when a man capable of mastering both himself and others demands obedience and pleasure. To extract answers from her when she couldn’t take any more.

I didn’t expect her tobargainwith me.

Nor did I expect my littleprincipessato be so bloodthirsty.

Now, I’m curious. I want to know why it is she wants vengeance against my brother’s former crew so badly that she wants them dead, enough to bargain herself for it without fully understanding the terms. Her father, I can understand—it’s clear the man has treated her like chattel for some time, andhe sold her to me. But her hatred for the Crows—and my late brother—is interesting.

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