Page 42 of Owning Nicci

It comes back to me then, what I knew about Barca and his family. Barca’s father was a capo for Antony Gallo, I know that. He tried to lead a coup and failed. Barca survived and started his own gang, the Crows, trying to undermine Gallo and the other families. My father used that desire to make Barca believe he could make a play against Gallo with my father’s help—if he killed Evelyn and forced the marriage between Dimitri and me.

Of course, none of that worked out. Barca is dead now. I’m his brother’s prisoner. And now it seems that Savio is walking his brother’s former path in more ways than one.

“You can’t get mixed up with Gallo’s affairs,” I whisper. “He’s not—you can’t win that fight.”

All the tenderness flees from Savio’s expression, his face going cold and hard again, the face of the captor that I recognize. “Let me worry about what fights I can win,principessa,” he growls. “Get cleaned up. I’ll come back to check on you when you’re done.”

I swallow hard, feeling suddenly, oddly bereft at his renewed iciness. I still haven’t come to terms with what happened between us earlier, which feels like a fever dream now, after everything else that’s happened. I was angry with him. Hurt. Angry with myself for wanting him so much, for being so utterly, completely willing while it was happening. Disgusted with myself, even, because for that brief span of time between when he kissed me and when he left me in the car afterwards, I wanted all of it.

Savio pauses at the door, looking back at me. “Whatever is happening,” he says slowly, “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Nicci. I’ll keep you safe.”

I stare at the door as he closes it, my pulse beating in my ears. He might be able to keep me safe from others, but he can’t keep me safe from himself.

And eventually, he won’t be safe from me, either.

—

I stayin the shower until it runs cold and my skin is pruned at the edges. When I come out, the room is clean, as if nothing ever happened. The bedding is changed. My clothes are gone. And the door is once again locked.

I go straight to the bed, sliding under the blankets and trying not to think of the weight of that man on top of me here, trying to erase it from my mind as I close my eyes. Thankfully, I’m so exhausted that sleep comes more easily than I expected. Before long, I’m completely insensible to everything, even my own dreams.

When I wake up, I can tell that it’s late in the morning. My breakfast is cold, but I eat it anyway. I both want Savio to make an appearance and take me todosomething, and don’t want to see him, all at the same time. I have a feeling that he’s going to ignore what happened between us last night, and I don’t know if I can.

At the very least, I need something to throw myself into, instead. I need something else to focus on—because I don’t want to think about how it felt to have him inside of me. How—for those several minutes—Iwashis. I wasn’t fighting him.

When I hear the lock click open on the door, I feel a wave of mingled dread and relief. Savio walks in with my workout clothes, and it’sallrelief then, knowing that I’m going to have an outlet for how I feel right now—even if it involves him.

He doesn’t say anything about how I cried last night, or how I defied him. Or how things nearly came to a breaking point for us before the penthouse was attacked. He doesn’t say anything about the attack itself. He just puts the clothes on the bed, silently, and leaves.

That silence stretches out between us all the way through practice at the range and the workout session. It’s punctuatedonly by Savio’s flat, insistent orders to repeat the routine he puts me through over and over again. And then he takes me back to the penthouse.

It’s like that for three days. He barely says a word to me, and the ones he does say all have something to do with training. There’s no mention of what happened that night at all, and no mention of what comes next. But clearly, since my training regimen hasn’t let up, our deal isn’t off.

I throw myself into it fully. Everything else that happened that night aside, I’m ashamed of myself for faltering, for being so terrified that I crumpled and hid. It feels as if all the training Savio gave me before went to waste, that I was barely able to defend myself against the one man who barged into my room, that I couldn’t fight back the way I wanted to. I panicked, and I’m determined not to let that happen again.

I want to be strong enough to fight back, no matter what, no matter who it is. Whether it’s a Crow, or my family, or Gallo’s men, or Savio himself…I don’t want to fail a second time. So I practice, over and over again, pushing myself beyond what feels possible for me to do. Even when I’m drenched in sweat and my muscles are screaming, I keep going, and it feels like an outlet. Like something to lose myself in, so I can block out everything else.

This, and my revenge. Two men down. That’s what I try to focus on. After the workout on the third day, Savio finally speaks to me for more than just instructions, showing me a list of names.

Francis Novak. Martin Torres. Vince Rivera. These are the three remaining men that Savio’s aware of who both worked for Barca and are here in Manhattan.

“I remember Francis and Martin,” I tell him, my throat tight. I try to keep space between us as I look at the names; after what happened a few nights ago, I don’t want to be too close. Hesparred with me yesterday during our workout, and every brush of his body against mine reminded me of his hand on my neck, his hand between my legs, his body thrusting into mine. It made me ache and made me angry all at once, and I almost managed to win our sparring session—for once. “They were friends. If they still are, we might find them at the same time.”

“And Vince?” Savio taps the name, and I swallow hard.

“He was one of Barca’s enforcers. He’s dangerous. We should go after him next, in case word starts getting out that the former Crows are starting to disappear.”

Savio looks at me keenly. “That’s smart,” he says after a moment, and the compliment startles me. Even more so because he doesn’t follow it up immediately with a command or a remark meant to remind me of my place.

Back at the penthouse a little while later, in the shower, it all comes rushing back—just like it has every time I’m alone for the last three days—which is most of the time. I can’t stop thinking of the look in Savio’s eyes when I said his name after he shot Marco, the desperate, hungry need there, that moment when I saw the taut thread of his self-control snap. I can’t stop thinking about how it felt when he kissed me, most of all.

No one has ever kissed me like that—devouring, needy, like he needed to kiss me in order to breathe. It’s the kind of kiss that I used to fantasize about, and it makes me angry that it was him who finally kissed me that way…and it makes me ache to feel it again. Every time he comes into the room, I feel myself tense, wondering if he’ll come to me like that again. If he’ll grab me, devour me, fuck me until it’s all I can feel or think about.

But he’s barely spoken to me since then, let alone touched me, not even to punish instead of pleasure. And every time I think about it—I’m torn. Between arousal at the memory of how good it felt and an inexplicable, ridiculous feeling of hurt that he was so rough with me. That makes me angry, every time I feel it,because that’s worse than me wanting him. Being shocked that he would be that rough with me,hurtby it, even, is stupid.

And I thought I stopped being stupid over men a long time ago.

15

---