Page 13 of Viripotent

“Would you also like me to bark at your command?”

She runs out of space to escape and looks behind her as she hits the wall, losing the false authority. My voice is cruel as I call her attention back to me.

“Since you’re under the assumption I’m your bitch to train.”

Her hands come up, palms flat against my chest, and I look down. She doesn’t push me away, and her pulse jumps as she looks in a triangle between my eyes and lips.

Despite her physical retreat, she speaks with strength and fixes her eyes firmly on mine.

“I won’t allow you to hurt an innocent girl, not when it will impact my life.”

I harden with the reminder of how entangled she is. She doesn’t realize that she’s only the powerful piece on the board due to being caught up in the games of others.

Her tone is harsher as she gives a command, “Steorra will remain a neutral zone.”

Her charity isn’t my concern. It helps strengthen the bond with Verelli and the ‘Ndrangheta. The argument is moot when Inessa is asking me to protect something that’s in my interest.Wanting to see how important it is, I look down her body suggestively.

“What would you do to convince me?”

She doesn’t learn from her previous mistakes. Her hand comes up, and she gasps as I catch her wrist, pulling her closer.

Hurt and anger weave through her words as she cuts off my threat.

“I’m not a prostitute.”

There’s a part of my brain that thinks of the most absurd thing in every situation, and I want her to erupt, so I let it free.

“Iamspending a lot of money for you to be my wife. You can understand the confusion.”

I expect tears or a fist, a knee to the dick, or anything but pure pain on her face as she moves back like I’ve struck her.

A bitter laugh flows out from her plush lips, and the hurt is visceral, thickening the air. Disgust has her face contorting. She does the same scan of my body like it’s coating her tongue with salt every inch she travels. Flicking back to my eyes, her shoulders are straight, and her voice steel.

“It’s the only way a woman would tie herself to a fucking monster like you. Your mother should have swallowed you.”

My hand moves automatically, covering her filthy mouth. Pride wars inside me at her beautifully vicious mind. She’s strong, and in any other circumstance, I’d admire that strength. But she keeps directing at me as though I’m someone beneath her. The sound of heels clicking comes through the hallways and stops me from doing anything further. I’ve told her countless fucking times about her language, to speak with respect, but she’s fucking insolent. Dragging her with me, I don’t let go of her face, and I can feel her teeth through her cheeks as I push her to the end of the hallway away from the other bitch coming closer.

Inessa may be a spoilt fucking princess who overestimates her place, but no fucker deserves to deal with Anika. She’s thefinal level of hell reserved for the worst in existence. For once, there’s no remark as I shut her away and take silent steps, lurking in the shadows of my own home to see what the vulture is doing.

She stops at the mouth of the hallway and tilts her head to peer down it. It adds to my suspicions as she moves closer to Vitali’s door. She isn’t a loving mother checking on her son. The robe she’s wearing leaves nothing to the imagination of whichever fucker would turn his head to look at her. Her fingers have barely brushed the wood as I block her path, and her disgust can’t be hidden.

There’s no fear in her eyes. You don’t fear what was forged within the hell you created. She’s pissed at my existence and her own sins walking freely. She attempts to move past me, and I’m fucking fed up with these women thinking they can do whatever the fuck they want when they are unwelcome guests.

Her face turns red instantly as I grab her throat. It makes me smile as I feel her windpipe constrict. It gets wider when her head knocks into the plaster and her hands slapping against my arms weaken. Dragging her up the wall, I feel the lightest I’ve ever felt in my life. This is what was missing from my childhood and pure joy comes over me as her heels clatter against the tile.

Loosening my hold slightly when blood vessels pop under her skin, my voice is deadly.

“Stay the fuck away from him.”

There’s no threat she’d take it as a compliment, and I can’t get my fingers to move after finally getting so close to the one thing I dream of. I flirt with killing her, it would be so easy, but I haven’t worked so hard all my life to end it before I get every single one of the cunts who took everything from me in the first place. It will happen at the perfect moment. Once I know that the three people who are under my responsibility are the safest theycan possibly be, I’ll be in the position to have one final purge of the planet.

Her lashes start to droop on the edge of unconsciousness, forcing me to let go, and she falls in a heap, choking and rubbing her neck.Taking a step back when my foot begs to fly into her fucking face, my bark has her stumbling.

“Get the fuck up.”

We were put through worse and still fucking stood. She can see what it’s like when the position is reversed. She feigns emotional pain staring off into the distance as the bitch commands her tear ducts to produce one measly tear and scrambles, searching for her shoes.

Anika never lets anyone get the last word. She’ll be covered in blood, and her dying breath will be cruel to get one final scar against someone’s soul. The silence has me filling with unease as she drops her chin to her chest and walks away. Tapping in threes against my thigh, I chase it away and go to deal with my own business. The blood will relax me, and I’ll be at ease.

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