Page 14 of Twisted Addiction
Before I could recoil, he caught my hand, bringing it up with a grip that was both gentle and unyielding.
His lips brushed the back of my palm, but there was no tenderness in the gesture. It was a claim, a warning dressed as intimacy.
“Don’t forget what you are, Penelope,” he murmured against my skin. “Mine. Divorce. Freedom. Rights...” His mouth curled into a dark smirk. “Pretty illusions. They don’t apply to you.”
“You belong here. With me. Always.”
Then he released me abruptly, as if discarding a token, and turned on his heel.
He walked away without looking back—because he didn’t need to. In his mind, I wasn’t going anywhere.
My heart plummeted, caught between his words and that strange, disarming gesture. “Divorce. Freedom. Rights. Pretty illusions. They don’t apply to you.”
The sentence gnawed at me, echoing like a curse.
I hated the warmth of his kiss on my skin—hated the way it disarmed me, made me soft when I wanted to stay furious.
And yet... some wretched part of me, heavy and aching, dreaded the thought of him not coming back.
Shaking it off, I snatched the keys from the hood, slid into the driver’s seat, and started the SUV.
The engine roared to life, loud in the silence he left behind.
I pulled out of the hospital garage, the winding road to the mansion stretching ahead, Lake Como glittering in the afternoon light.
The serenity outside mocked the storm inside my chest.
I hadn’t been driving five minutes when headlights slid into my peripheral vision.
A sleek silver car crept up beside me, matching my pace with surgical precision. My pulse quickened. Instinct told me not to lower my window—but I did, just enough to see.
Alexei leaned lazily against his door, one arm draped out the window, tattoos shifting as his fingers tapped the metal. The wind tousled strands of his dark hair, but his eyes—those sharp hazel eyes—were fixed on me with predatory amusement.
His smile unfurled dangerously.
“Penelope,” he drawled, my name rolling off his tongue like he was savoring something stolen.
His gaze flicked over me, invasive. “So Dmitri let you out on the road alone? Brave of him... considering how often you dream of running from him.”
I struggled to keep my eyes on the road, my head flicking between the curve ahead and the silver car pacing me like a shadow I couldn’t shake.
The road stretched out like a vein along the lake, quiet and gleaming in the late light.
Lake Como wasn’t like anywhere else—it was its own island, walled in by mountains and water. Only four families lived here. Four clans. Which meant the roads were almost always empty, reserved for men like Dmitri, Alexei... and, by extension, me.
I should’ve felt safe in that exclusivity, but instead it made the silence oppressive. No traffic, no strangers, no chance of being interrupted.
Just me. And him.
I tightened my grip on the wheel, pulse skittering.
“What do you want, Alexei?” My voice came out tighter than I meant, strung taut with suspicion.
He leaned a little closer to his window, his smile deliberate. “I think we should talk,” he said, as if suggesting a harmless detour.
“Now?” I asked, keeping my grip firm on the wheel.
My knuckles whitened as I matched his pace.
