Page 43 of Owning Nicci

SAVIO

For three days, I keep my distance from Nicci as much as I possibly can. I’m disturbed over how much control I lost, how quickly seeing Marco with her like that reduced me to something feral, something animal. How I reacted after seeing her being attacked, giving in to the desire to comfort her. For a moment, looking at her covered in blood, I was terrified for the first time in years. Afraid that something had happened to her, that she was hurt—not because she’s a possession, an investment…but because I was afraid forher.

I should punish her for how she reacted after I fucked her. She ran from me again, she talked back to me, and she told me she didn’t care what I did next. But I don’t dare touch her until I get myself back under control.

I don’t want to admit to myself that the real reason I haven’t broken our deal is that I don’t want to lose her. Without this game of dominance and submission, without our plan to take out the remaining Crows, there’s no reason for me to keep Nicci here. But I’m not ready to let her go yet.

That alone should be reason enough to do it. But I don’t. Ican’t.

When I bring her breakfast in the morning, I let her know we won’t be going to train today, that I have a meeting. I can see that she’s disappointed. She’s fidgety, and I can tell that she’s slowly going crazy, kept here in this room. She clearly looks forward to the training sessions as an outlet, and I feel a flicker of guilt, like I’m letting her down.

I shake it off and leave, forcing every thought of her out of my head. I have a meeting with Padraigh Gallagher, the head of the Irish mob here in New York, and how it goes matters to my plans. After how my meeting with Dimitri went, having the Irish on my side will change things.IfI can make that happen.

All of the families have had their conflicts over the years—I know that. Antony Gallo has never been well-liked; I know that, too. I thought they might welcome the possibility of new blood—a fresh perspective, with money, connections to bring to the table, and new businesses to infuse the Italian portion of New York’s crime empire with. I thought they might welcome a change. Not a change like my father and brother tried to enact—one that was reckless and born from anger and passion—but change that came with a plan. Change that I’d been preparing for over the last several years.

I expected some pushback, but Dimitri shut me down completely. My hope now is that if Padraigh shows interest, Dimitri will come around.

That hope is quickly quelled, not long into the meeting.

Much like the meeting with Dimitri at the restaurant, Padraigh arranged to meet me at a pub, one that he owns. I’m well aware that it’s a slight—that neither of these men will meet with me at their homes, that it’s their way of saying, plainly, that they don’t consider me an equal. Wealth and connections or not, I’m not part of one of the families. But I put that aside in hopes that they can be swayed—and our next meetings will take place on more familiar ground.

“Things are fine as they are,” Padraigh tells me when I broach the idea that perhaps Gallo’s rule over the Italian mafia is stifling their progress. He’s a tall, lean man with sharp eyes that miss nothing. “Gallo is difficult at times, yes. But my word is my word, lad. I’ve got a treaty with the Italians, and I mean to keep it. I expect Yashkov would say the same. You’ll find no support here for your attempts to overthrow Gallo.”

I tense, well aware of Padraigh’s men in the room with us. “I didn’t say anything about?—”

Padraigh waves a hand. “You don’t need to, lad. I’m no idiot. I know what your father tried to do—and how your brother tried to follow in his footsteps. You’re wiser than they are, coming to Yashkov and me with evidence of what you can bring to the table, rather than trying to take it all by force. But I’ll tell you, lad, if you move forward with this, you’ll start a war. And there’ll be no one on your side in it.”

“I’ve looked at the numbers.” My jaw tightens. “Gallo’s businesses bring in the least revenue of any of the three families. Your alliance with him maintains the status quo; it doesn’t improve anything. I can rejuvenate his holdings, add new ones of my own.” I lean forward, abandoning the pretense that I’m merely asking Padraigh’s views on the current hierarchy, rather than seeking to take over a part of it myself. He’s already seen through me, and something tells me that he might prefer honesty to carefully shrouded half-truths. “Like you said, I want to do this through diplomacy, not force.”

“I appreciate your gumption, lad.” He rubs a hand over the greying stubble on his chin. “But alliances are alliances. My word means something. If I break it to support you, who’s to say I wouldn’t do the same for another? What would an alliance between you and me mean, then?” He shakes his head. “There are other ways to go about it, though, lad. Gallo has an unmarried daughter. There could be an arrangement betweenthe two of you. I would support it, put a good word in Gallo’s ear, if you approached him. I would encourage Yashkov to do the same. There’s a bloodless way to have what you want, and no one’s word needs to be broken.”

“I’ll think about it,” I promise him, and he seems satisfied, even pleased with that idea. But I feel a deep, stubborn resistance against the idea from the moment he proposes it, one that stays with me as I leave.

I haven’t considered marriage since I was with Sophie, when I thought I’d found the love of my life, the woman I’d want to be with forever. Losing her—thewayI lost her, especially—soured me to the idea of all relationships, especially marriage. And I’ve always had a distaste for arrangements. I have no desire to be shackled to a woman who doesn’t want me, who has agreed to marry me because she’s compelled to do so. The thought of a lifelong arrangement like that, of being forced to have a family and children in that environment, makes me feel vaguely nauseous. And now there’s another layer to it all, one that I don’t want to look at too closely but that I can’t entirely ignore.

Nicci. I haven’t so much as thought about being with another woman since the night she came back to my penthouse. It occurred to me early on that the easiest way to deal with my desires might be to find someone else to slake them with, but I didn’t want anyone else. I wantedher. And now that I’ve had her, the desire hasn’t ebbed.

It occurs to me that I could marry the Gallo daughter and keep Nicci as a mistress. But that turns my stomach, too. I don’t want to marry a stranger. And beyond all of that, there’s the fact that I’ve spentyearsplanning my return to Manhattan, the moment when I would show the city’s crime families that I’m nothing like my father or brother. That my rise to power would be crafted through cunning, business savvy, and careful planning.

I refuse to let years of hard work be distilled down to a marriage arrangement. For all of that to mean nothing—unless I marry a woman I don’t know and have no interest in. I vaguely remember Estella Gallo, but she’s nothing more than a blip on my radar, someone I saw in passing but rarely ever spoke to.

That’s the reason for my reticence, I tell myself firmly as I unlock the front door of the penthouse and step inside. It has nothing to do with my frustrating desire for Nicci, and everything to do with wanting my achievements to be the reason I accomplish this—not whose finger I slip a ring onto. Nicci is a temporary arrangement, nothing more. Having her here was meant to be formypleasure, not to tie me up in endless knots, frustrating me to no end.

I should have punished her for her behavior days ago. Why didn’t I?The thought needles at me as I go about the rest of the day. It was a mistake to let her believe that she could get away with it without consequence. Was it because I was afraid I’d lose control again? Because I’m afraid of what I felt that night in the car—that hot, almost primal need that I’ve never felt with any other woman, not even Sophie?

Nothing about Nicci should make me afraid. She’s my possession, my finalfuck youto my brother from beyond the grave, and the fact that I’m spending this much time going back and forth over whether or not I should reprimand her the way she deserves is proof enough that it needs to happen.

And what better outlet for the day I’ve had? Anticipation curls through me at the thought, and I push down all the conflicting emotions that rise with it.

I need to remind both her and me of what her place here is.

—

Three hours later,I’m no closer to working out my frustrations. Nicci is strapped to the St. Andrew’s cross on one wall, naked and panting, her cheek pressed to the wood as she lets out a soft moan of pain. Her skin is streaked red from the flogger, glistening with my cum, and I’m still hard, still torn between aching desire and the need to command both her and myself. I’ve already come twice, already pushed her to the edge several times before denying her, and it all feels hollow. The release that I expected isn’t there.

“Sir,please,” Nicci begs, squirming in the leather cuffs, and my cock twitches. “Please?—”

I don’t know what she’s begging for—an orgasm, her freedom, for the night to end. It could be any or all of those things, and I don’t feel inclined to give her any of them yet. Not until I get what I want.

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