Page 20 of Plus-Size Bratva Possession
“I was talking to my family!” My voice rose with each word. “You could have given me that, at least! But no, your ego just had to get involved. You just had to threaten them, taunt them!”
“They needed to understand the situation,” he said calmly.
“The situation?” I repeated incredulously. “The situation is that you've messed up and are refusing to acknowledge that!”
He slammed his hands on the desk and leaned forward. “Watch your mouth.”
“Or what?” I stood, kicking back my chair. “What are you going to do to me, Gastone? Lock me up? Oh wait, you've already done that!”
“I've been more than generous with you,” he growled.
“Generous?” I laughed bitterly. “You’ve ripped me away from my life!”
“I let you make that call,” he pointed out.
“And then ruined it!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “God, do you even hear yourself? You think you're entitled to control everything and everyone around you, but you're not. My brothers are going to get me out of this hellhole, and there's nothing you can do to stop them.”
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes, and suddenly he was standing right in front of me, so close I could feel the heat radiating from his body.
“We'll see about that,” he said, his voice low and rough.
My breath caught in my throat. I'd never been this close to him before—close enough to see the flecks of darker green in his eyes, to smell his cologne, and to notice how his pupils dilated as he looked down at me.
For a split second, the air between us changed, charged with something that wasn't entirely anger anymore. His eyes dropped to my lips, and I felt a jolt of something hot race through me.
I took a step back, desperate to break whatever spell had momentarily fallen over us, to run away from this confusion. “Stay away from me.”
His lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile. “Gladly.”
I turned and walked out of his office, my heart pounding. I refused to analyze what had just happened, refused to acknowledge the way my skin still tingled from his proximity.
He was my captor. The fact that my body had momentarily forgotten that fact was irrelevant. It was just the Stockholm syndrome setting in early, I told myself. Nothing more.
Chapter 8 - Gastone
Dino and Carlo convinced me to let the Lebedevs in for a conversation. For a while, I was reluctant. But something in their words toyed with my mind.
“They're going to burn the city down if you don't at least talk to them,” Carlo had said on the phone a few days earlier.
I'd told him to fuck off, but then Dino had called, and I could hear the genuine fear in his voice. I still said no, until they came over last night.
“What is it you want, Gastone?” Carlo demanded.
“Seek your revenge, but think of that innocent woman you’re keeping,” Dino insisted.
“Even the Lebedevs gave Larissa more freedom. What’s your grand plan here, to keep her with you until you die, never let her out?” Carlo added.
“Whatever it is you want from them, an apology, remorse, you won’t get it without communication,” Dino said softly. “If you keep this up, we’re going to shoot ourselves in the foot.”
My brothers drove home a fair argument, and after last night, I knew I couldn’t keep the Lebedevs from coming to the table. My brothers were all I had. If my stubbornness put them in danger, that would be on me.
To gain anything, doors of communication had to remain open.
But now, as we sat in the living room together and waited for them, I wondered if I might have made a mistake. Elena had spent the whole evening preparing snacks with such excitement that it felt like her friends were coming over. The part-time maid, too, had been convinced to stay the full day.
I looked at my watch while Elena wiggled in her seat, her foot tapping and tapping, giving me a headache.
“Can you please stop that?” I snapped.
