Page 51 of Owning Nicci

The guard that I’d left to monitor the inside of the house—a tall, broad man with close-cropped dark hair—has Nicci cornered against the desk. She’s gripping the edge of it, trying to twist away from him, and his head comes up from where it was buried against her neck the instant he hears the sound of me barging into the room.

If there was any remaining question of what was happening here, it’s gone the instant I see the fear and guilt in his face. He stiffens, on the verge of lurching back, and I see his mouth open as if to offer an excuse.

I act on pure instinct. Before the thought of what I’m going to do about it even fully enters my mind, my gun is in my hand, pointed at him. My finger curls around the trigger, and I hear thecrackof the gun as if it’s coming from somewhere else, as if I’m watching this happen out of my own body as I shoot him right through his open, lying mouth.

The man staggers backwards, blood splattered on the dresser behind him, and crashes to the floor.

Nicci lets out a shuddering sob and drops to her knees. I shove the gun back into the holster in my jacket, rushing over to her, and I hear the sound of boots on the stairs a moment later, as the other guard that I left downstairs bolts into the room.

“What’s happened, boss—” he freezes, the words dying on his lips as he sees his coworker dead and bleeding on the floor.

“What’s happened,” I growl out from between clenched teeth, “is that he was fucking touching something that belongs to me.Myfucking woman. Do you understand? If any one of you somuch as looks at her again, I’ll blow your brains out too. Fucking got it?”

The man has gone bone white. He nods, speechless, and I sweep Nicci into my arms, picking her up as I push past him. “Fucking clean it up,” I snarl, and carry her down the hall to my room.

Nicci is shaking like a leaf. I carry her into the bedroom, kicking the door shut behind me, and I set her down on the bed. Tears are streaming down her face, and she looks up at me, her mouth trembling. “You—you killed him,” she whispers, and I lean down, sinking to my knees next to her as I look her over for injuries.

“What, are you going to tell me I shouldn’t have fucking done that?” I glare at her, tipping her chin up. There’s a mark on her throat where his mouth was just before I burst in, but I don’t see any physical injuries. “He was touching you. No one fucking touches you but me,principessa?—”

“No.” She shakes her head, swallowing hard. Her voice is still shaking. “I’m glad you killed him. He—he was going to?—”

“I know what he was going to do.” I smooth her hair back away from her face, and her lips tremble again.

“I can’t believe you protected me,” she whispers. “You hate me. You threw me out the other morning…I thought you might just give me to them. I thought?—”

“Why the fuck would you think that?” I reach for her, pulling her down onto the floor with me, into my lap. My hands smooth through her hair, tipping her delicate face up so that she’s looking at me. “You belong to me, remember? Why the fuck would I let any of them touch you?”

“If you’re done with me—” She bites her lip, hard. “That’s what Barca would have done.”

“I’m not my fucking brother.” As I say it, Nicci looks away, and I grasp her chin between my fingers, turning her face back to mine. “I’m not him.”

“Aren’t you?” She looks up at me. “You own me. Punish me. I’myours. You say it all the time. You use me however you please. How are you different from any of them?”

My jaw clenches. “Any ofwho, Nicci? Who else has hurt you?” I look down at her, feeling my heart pound in my ears. “Who was that nightmare about?”

Tears are welling in her eyes, and I can feel her starting to shake again. She starts to cry, her entire body trembling as sobs spill from her lips, and I know she’s on the verge of falling apart completely. Since the morning she woke up here in my penthouse, she’s been resilient, tough, stubborn—more so than any woman I’ve ever known. She’s refused to let anything break her. But I can see that she’s breaking apart now, and my chest tightens, a desire to piece her back together swelling in me that I try hard to fight back.

She might belong to me, but she’s not mine in that way. I’m not going to be the one to make her whole again, if anyone can. I’m not capable of it, any more than she’s capable of making me into the kind of man someone can love.

“My father sold me to you as a punishment,” she whispers brokenly. “And you bought me so that you could take out all your pain on me. That’s all I’m good for any longer, to be a punching bag for everyone else. And why not? I’m the villain too, right? I tried to help have Evelyn killed. I helped your brother plot against her and Dimitri, tried to facilitate her death. So I deserve all of it, right?”

I frown at her as the words spill out between sobs. “Why did you do it?” I look at her curiously. “Did you hate Dimitri that much for breaking off the engagement? Or was it that you wanted my brother?” My stomach curdles as I say that last—thethought of her wanting Barca making me feel sick. The thought of her panting, begging for my brother’s touch the way she begged for mine in the car.

“No!” Another sob spills from Nicci’s lips. “I didn’twantany of it. I wanted Dimitri, I thought. I was disappointed when he broke things off between us. But my father was furious.” She wipes a hand across her face, taking a shuddering breath as she tries to stop crying. But it sounds as if she can’t. As if it’s impossible for her to keep in any longer. “He called me into his office and berated me. Hit me. When my brother came in, he made me get on my knees for him while my father watched, told me that he’d show me how to keep a man. When he was finished?—”

She sobs again, her shoulders curling inwards, and my jaw tightens until I think a tooth might crack. I want to leave her here, right now, go to the Armand mansion, and kill them both. Not quickly, like I just killed the guard, but slowly. I want to take them apart piece by piece.

“My father told me,” she whispers brokenly, “about his plan with Barca. About how I’d be given to Barca as an incentive. That it was my job to keep him happy, and help him get Evelyn. That if I succeeded, Dimitri would still marry me. I didn’t evenwanthim by then,” she gasps, running her hand over her face again. “I wanted things to work out between us—before. But if Dimitri didn’t want me, if he was in love with someone else, then I didn’t want him. I didn’t want to marry someone who hated me, and definitely not someone grieving the woman he loved. Especially if he ever found out?—”

“So why the fuck did you do it?” I look at her, and she narrows her eyes, jerking out of my grasp. She squirms out of my lap, and I let her go, seeing the creases of anger around her eyes as she pushes herself up to sit on the bed.

“Fucking men,” she spits. “You think—what? That I could just say no and leave? That my father wouldn’t have come after me? That he would have just let me go?” She shakes her head, a fresh wave of tears spilling down her cheeks. “I had to do it. He told me that if I didn’t, it wouldn’t just be my brother that I’d be forced to please, it would be him, too. That he’d beat me black and blue while my brother had me and then take me for himself. He promised—” Another shaky sob spills from her lips. “He promised my brother wouldn’t touch me again, if I went along with it. That no one else would hurt me. I had to let Barca do as he pleased and make sure Evelyn was killed, so that Dimitri would fall in line with my father’s plans. And then I’d be Dimitri’s, and I’d be safe. He wouldn’t love me, but I knew he wouldn’t hurt me. He wasn’t the type.” She swallows hard, curling in on herself as she wraps her arms around her stomach.

My jaw is clenched so tightly that it hurts, sparks of pain shooting through my skull. My hands are curled into fists, every muscle in my body locked up. I can’t recall ever being so angry. What she’s telling me about is the worst kind of abuse, monstrous and depraved, and I’m furious that I ever did business with her father. That I ever had a hand in any of this. Guilt sweeps through me in a heavy wave, and I reach for her, but she jerks away.

“I failed, of course,” she says dully. “It didn’t matter that I did everything Barca asked. I let him do what he pleased. I never talked back or fought. I went along with it all, but Dimitri got Evelyn back and killed him. So I went back to my father. I failed. And he did everything that he’d promised he’d do if I failed.” Her face is pale, and she’s shaking, her voice choked. “He gave me to my brother for a week. Then they both used me—I don’t know how long. A few days, I guess. I was black and blue by the time they were done, completely broken. And he sent me to the club, after that. I was a prisoner—or might as well have been.”She shoots me a look that cuts me straight to the bone. “Just like here. I went to the club, and I was brought straight back to the mansion. I wasn’t allowed to leave—not until he sold me to you.”

She looks broken. Defeated. This woman that I thought was unbreakable looks as if she’s shattering into a million pieces, and I know she wants no part of my comfort or touch. I want to ask her about the bruises I saw when I first stripped her naked here—a memory that now makes my stomach twist with guilt—but I don’t. She didn’t need to answer anything else, not right now. And I can guess at where they came from.

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