Page 10 of Tempted By The Queen

“But… why didn’t you?” That is a question I’m not prepared to answer right now so I deflect.

“Starting tomorrow, I’m going to train you to fight and learn how to hack so next time you won’t be easy prey.”

“You’re going to let me go?” I give her a don’t be stupid look and watch as her shoulders slump.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. Until I have all the facts and every ounce of information I need, you will be safe, for now.”

* * *

Carlina and I spent the rest of the afternoon with her exploring around my house. I had the motion sensors switched on just in case she tried to make a run for it again. Fool me once and all that shit. I spent my time inside, combing through the dark web to try and dig up any more information I could about her. I spoke with Marco earlier to see if he had any luck. He’s still digging but he doesn’t sound optimistic about our chances. He’s pissed as hell at me because I won’t just kill her and be done with it, his need for her end is unsettling. Marco claims to know nothing about Carlina and yet he is hell bent on me taking her out and instigating a war with her family to go after my father, Vincent Murelo Senior.

I have never doubted Marco before, not for a fucking second. Yet, I lay here next to the sister of my enemy wondering if my own blood has set me up. I shake away those thoughts, I’m spending too much time fucking thinking about this girl! I climb out of bed, careful not to disturb her, and make my way over to the wall near her. I place my hand against the wall and once the computers are up, I get to work. I search everything there is to know about Carlina and her brothers. I even go as far back as to digging into what her father was up to and who her mother was.

I’m scouring through all the information when the sun begins to peak across the horizon. I sigh and scrub a hand down my face in frustration. So far I can’t find shit on Carlina. Her brother King is Bishop’s underboss and does all the dirty work for him. Bishop may be a ruthless son of a bitch but he does it for the greater good. His future father-in-law has the means and power to wipe out all of Bishop’s enemies but he hasn’t called upon him to do that. That tells me that the Don of the Murdoch family wants to win on his own and prove himself worthy to lead his family. He gets a small amount of my respect for that. Her twin brothers go to the school she used to with her friend Kiara. I managed to find out she has another half-brother, Gage.

“You could have just asked.” I swivel around on my seat to see her sitting up in bed and staring at my monitors that have hers and her family’s pictures plastered all over them. I don’t bother to hide them or try to make excuses. She already knows that she is a job and it’s best that she andIdon’t forget that fact.

“Would you have been honest?” I challenge. She shrugs her shoulders and yawns.

“Wouldn’t know. You never gave me the chance, so I guess we’ll never know.” It’s too fucking early in the morning for this shit. I stand and stretch out my tired, achy muscles. I cut a glance to her and find her eyes are glued to my naked torso. A smirk finds its way to my lips before I turn and head to the kitchen to switch the coffee pot on. Tired of being hot and trying to make her suffer, I decide to turn the air on. I grab the remote from the drawer in the kitchen and hit the button. “Are you freaking serious?” I quirk a brow at her in questions. “I have been sweating in places no women should ever sweat, and this whole time you have had this hut fitted with AC?”

“You behave, you get privileges. You fuck up and I take them away.” Her mouth drops open and before I know it, I’m blurting words out I should never have. “Unless you want my cock in that open mouth, I’d close it.” I expected her to blush, or balk at my crass words. What I didn’t expect was her sassy as fuck reply.

“Baby, the needle dick God cursed you to walk this earth with wouldn’t even make me gasp when you slid in.” I choke on my own fucking spit!

I shoot her a glare before I go about making some damn fucking coffee. This girl is becoming a fucking pain in the ass and a distraction I don’t fucking need. I don’t bother to make her a cup. I pour my own and head back to my desk ignoring the scowl she shoots me. It may be petty but she needs to learn to do shit on her own. I won’t wipe her ass like her family did… or maids or whoever the fuck raised her. I feel her at my back peering over my shoulder as I scan through the information I have. I need to find a link that connects Bishop to the sale of my sister. A thought hits me, I can make a trade. His sister for mine?

“You know that shit is a lie, right?” I turn and peer over my shoulder at her. She points to my screen where it says King was found sleeping out the front of cemetery a couple nights ago.

“How do you know?” She shrugs her shoulder.

“King never visits the dead. He’s never even been to our mother’s grave and he doesn’t know anyone who would be buried there.” I decide to focus on that bit of information and work an angle on King, he may just be my way in. I tap into the cemetery video surveillance and follow King’s movements. The guy doesn’t look like his normal brooding self, he looks distraught. He stops near a gravestone and the gasp that comes from behind me has me spinning around to focus on her. She leans across me and gets as close as she can to the monitor. Her scent assaults me, she smells like fucking cotton candy and raspberries. “Oh, King.”

“What does that mean?” She points to the gravestone completely unaware of how fucking close we are now. Fuck it, if I’m not going to kill her today, I may as well enjoy the fucking time I have with her until I decide otherwise. I grip her waist and pull her to me so she is sitting on my lap. She is stiff as a board but doesn’t pull out of my hold. I reach around and pause the video, I rest my chin on top of her shoulder and relish in the shiver that rolls through her delectable body. “Gucci?” She shakes her head slightly and clears her throat before answering.

“That’s Christine. She’s King’s nutcase ex-girlfriend. The bitch was nothing more than a gold digger, but I guess he loved her in his own weird… King way.” Interesting. By the looks of things King had no idea she was dead either so something more is at play here. I may not be able to get an insight into Bishop or find out anything on Carlina, but I sure as shit can work an angle on her other four brothers to find a way to get what I want.

We sit here for hours scrolling through video after video of her brothers. I bring up information I have gathered about them and she tells me if it’s true or not. She even goes as far as to tell me about things that don’t exactly impact her family but give me a better insight into who they are. The picture she paints of them all is hero like. I can tell from the bitterness that coats her tone when she speaks of her father that she hates him. She says they didn’t really know their mom, she died when the twins were one and that’s it. She was barely two when she died so she says you can’t mourn someone you didn’t know. Thing is, I did know Selena so I mourn the loss of my sister every fucking day.

“Wait, stop.” I pause the video and try to see what she is looking at. We’re no longer watching her brothers but watching Pauly, Vinny, Mike and Donny. She leans forward slightly, shimming her ass to get a closer look, I wrap my arm around her waist to keep her still but she doesn’t heed my fucking warning. “Vin, I need to see––”

“You keep wiggling your ass like that and my cock is going to be rock fucking hard.” She freezes and I sigh in relief, the last thing I need…My thought is cut off when the dirty minx shakes her ass again and shoots me a wink over her shoulder.

Carlina

Three weeks later…

Vincent and I have been dancing around the tension that pulses between us for weeks. We rise at the ass crack of dawn before it’s too hot and he teaches me to fight, track, defend myself, and how to build traps and bombs. After training we each shower and have breakfast before gathering as much intel on all the families, including mine. I only give him information to keep him from finding the whole truth. I don’t know what his obsession is with my family but no matter what, I won’t let him hurt them.

There may be raw need and sexual tension between us but neither of us trust the other enough to let our guard down. I won’t lie and say the sight of him shirtless and sweating each morning as he trains me doesn’t get to me. Especially when he pins me to the ground and makes me submit to him, that shit gets me wet. I am washing laundry daily, because of this bronze God, my panties never seem to stay fucking dry when he is around.

Oh my God, do I have Stockholm syndrome?

“Why would you have that?” My eyes widen as I peer over my shoulder to look at him. Whenever we work together my seat is always on his lap. I’m never allowed my own chair. I mean, I’m not exactly opposed to feeling the hard ridges of his muscles pressed up against me or feeling his thick thighs beneath. Shit! I’m fucking wet again.

“I need to stop saying shit out loud,” I grumble which just causes him to laugh and me to huff out my annoyance. His grip around my waist tightens as he pulls me back flush against his chest burying his nose in my hair. He seems to do that a lot, almost like he can’t get enough of my smell or touching me. He has been finding any chance he can to brush against me or hold me close. It’s exhilarating and exciting but at the same time it freaks me the hell out, because I like it. Ireallylike it and that isn’t good sign.

“Don’t ever hold back what you’re thinking. I like it when you say random shit.” I feel the blush coat my cheeks. I clear my throat and focus back on the screens in front of me to avoid saying anything to him. I lean forward further when a live video feed with the others Dons of the family and their underbosses begins to play out. It’s not them that captures my attention, it’s the guy in the back who hangs in the shadows. There is something so familiar about him but I can’t quite pinpoint where I know him from.

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