Page 16 of Owning Nicci

You belong to me now.

I’m still furious with him, but it feels different than it did before. I’m still locked in this room, and I’m still a captive, but I feel as if I’ve gotten a little of my power back. As long as I submit to Savio and follow his instructions, he’s agreed to help me. The fact that he was willing to entertain the idea at all gives me back some of my confidence.

And not only that. He’s agreed to teach me what I need to know in order to get my revenge. For now, I only intend to useit on the targets we’ve both agreed on, but when I’m finished? When he’s tired of me and no longer has any use for me?

Then what’s stopping me from turning on him?

He’s thought of that, too. He must have. Savio is arrogant and entitled, but I don’t think he’s stupid. He must know that any knife he hands me could end up buried in his back. So he’ll have contingencies against that, I’m sure, but still…

I’ll find a way. WhenI’mthrough withhim,I’ll teach him what happens to men who think they can treat a woman like me as if she’s their slave. I’ll put him on his knees forme, and I’ll bathe in his blood.

And then, I’ll be free.

I’ll leave this city and never come back. I’ll find some other place, somewhere that has no bad memories for me, only possibilities. A fresh start. I’ll become someone else, and I’ll shed all of this misery like an old skin.

A laugh bubbles to my lips. Without realizing it, Savio has potentially given me a way out. In buying me, he might have handed me the keys to my freedom. I’ll need to figure out other obstacles, of course—like identification and money—the things that kept me from ever escaping my father’s clutches, but I’ll find a way. What matters is that Savio will have given me the one thing I couldn’t get before, while my father had me locked away in his mansion, under his thumb.

The ability to fight back…and my father dead, so that he can’t ever come after me.

And he still thinks he’s the one in control.

It’s a strange thing to think when I’m standing in a strange room naked, locked in with no clothes and nothing to do. But I feel a rush of something that feels like power.

I can’t let him see it, though.He wants my submission, mytruesubmission, and I have to make him believe he has it. Otherwise, the deal is off.

I walk to the window, looking out over the view of the city. It’s beautiful, stretching out in a sea of skyscrapers all the way to the horizon, but I feel hollow as I look at it. There was a time when this city held a great deal of pleasure for me. A luxurious home, endless shopping, pampering whenever I wanted it, five-star meals, and plenty of parties. I was my father’s treasure, his beautiful daughter, a gorgeous ornament for him to display. He had plans for me, and I was happy to try to enact them. I was happy to marry who he told me to, the handsome Bratva heir, the eldest Yashkov son. I didn’t love my future fiance, but he was good-looking, and charming, and even if I could tell he despised me, I hoped that he might at least turn some of that hate into passion. It’s not as if I wasn’t beautiful and talented enough in bed to please him, even if he didn’t really wantme.

But he hated me enough to spurn me. He never even fucked me—he kept giving me excuses, putting off the consummation of our relationship until the wedding night, as if traditions like that really mattered to him. I know for a fact they didn’t. And my failure to keep him snared was the beginning of the end.

Exhaustion sweeps over me, and I retreat to the bed, yanking the covers back and sliding under them. If Savio didn’t want me covered while I slept, he would have taken the bedding, so I have no worries about hiding under them. I wonder if he’ll bring me food at any point— or come back wanting me to get him off again—and my thoughts wander back to that moment when I sank down onto my knees for him, as willing as I could possibly be under the circumstances.

Would I want him if those circumstances were different?

I can’t say for sure. I don’t even know if I remember what it’s like to want someone, toreallydesire them. I wanted Dimitri, but I don’t remember what that felt like. It’s too obscured by everything that came after, all the hurt and abuse and violation.

I felt something in Savio when I touched him. Something strung taut and vibrating, on the verge of snapping, something he’s holding back. I’m afraid to find out what might happen if it did snap, andyet…

The memory of his hand knotted in my hair, holding my face against his heated skin as he came down my throat, sends a shudder through me. Ihatehim for using me like that, but my thighs squeeze together, unbidden, and I ball my hands into fists.

I don’t want to know if I’m wet. I don’t. I haven’t even touched myself in so long—and I haven’t given myself an orgasm in months. And there’s never been a man who was able to make me come.

Savio isn’t going to be the one to do it, even by proxy. I refuse to touch myself while thinking about him, and something tells me that if I reach down and slide my hand between my legs right now—if I find out if I’m wet, my clit swollen and pulsing with long-unfulfilled need—I’ll be thinking about his hand in my hair. About his thick length filling my throat. About how, even while he suffocated me on his cock, I felt something hot and needy stirring in my core, aching for something that I’ve forgotten.

It was the desire for revenge. The need to please him so that he’d give me what I want. That’s all.

I tell myself that as I roll over onto my stomach, ignoring the steady throb between my thighs. I close my eyes, and I’m asleep almost instantly, despite the bright daylight streaming into the room.

—

I sleep until evening,when I wake up to find that someone has left a tray of food just inside the door. There’s a piece of roastedduck breast with a berry reduction, honey carrots, and a salad with dried berries and a balsamic dressing, all neatly arranged on a porcelain tray sitting on the desk opposite my bed. I realize I must have been sleeping hard because I didn’t hear it brought in.

Well, at least he doesn’t intend to starve me.It feels strange, sitting down at the desk to eat naked—I feel more vulnerable and exposed than I ever have in my life—but I’m too hungry to let it bother me for long. I haven’t eaten since before I went to the club last night, and my stomach is growling loudly.

The food is delicious. I know Savio didn’t make it himself—either he has a cook, or he ordered it. A man like him doesn’t cook, not for himself and definitely not for a woman he’s bought as a plaything. But I don’t care. I eat every bite, savoring it, because I have no idea what kind of meal schedule he intends to keep me on.

Despite having slept all day, I’m still exhausted, and I fall back into bed as soon as I’m done eating. When I wake up in the morning, there’s a new tray on the desk—oatmeal with blueberries, a lemon yogurt, and a cup of hot tea—and no sign of Savio.

I eat it hungrily, remembering what he said about training. I wonder if he’ll bring me clothes or if he expects me to learn how to shoot and fight naked. Either way, I’ll need as much energy as I can manage, so I eat every bite of the food and sip the tea, looking out over the city skyline beyond the large window.

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