Page 23 of Merciless Sinner

“What is your offer?” I ask.

“You get to hear it if you drop this Alice bullshit. I know you’re Olivia.”

I look away, then my gaze drops to the floor.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I was never the bad guy, so you have nothing to fear from me, or the people at home who want you back.”

I return my gaze to him, my entire body tense with a cacophony of emotions. Fear, terror, sadness, emptiness.

“It’s people at home who wanted me dead in the first place.” I speak the words that have lived in my head for so long they’ve hardly become distinguishable from my thoughts. “It was someone fromhomewho was responsible for the attack that killed my parents.”

I just confirmed I’mOlivia—a name unfamiliar to me—but Virgo’s brows snap together and his face fills with rage on hearing my accusations.

“What do you remember?” he demands.

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing at all. But that was the warning I was given by the man who saved me. He was part of the team my father put together to help us, but he didn’t know who we were. Only that my parents were running from danger, and the person they were running from knew them.” I rest my back against the wall again. “According to what happened during the attack that killed my parents, he knew it had to be an inside job, so he told me to run from anyone who recognized me from home.”

Virgo seems to contemplate this, but his expression becomes infused with the same kind of anger you’d see on a psychotic murderer. It’s strange witnessing such emotions on someone you don’t know. Or don’t remember.

“Where is this guy now?”

“I don’t know. He stuck around for a few weeks after I woke up and paid for my medical care.”

“He paid?”

“Yes. I figured my father would have paid him a lot, but he took care of me because I reminded him of his daughter, who’d died years before. I guess that was why he took compassion on me.” Regardless to who I reminded Kevin of, I know I was lucky to have him. He didn’t have to do any of what he did for me because he didn’t know me.

Swallowing hard, I breathe steadily through my burning lungs, deciding to focus on what’s important now. “What’s your offer, Virgo Antonov?”

He returns a hard stare to me. “Your freedom from this mess, along with the repayment of any debts you owe. You get that if you come back to New York with me. And be my wife.”

His words slam into my chest as forcefully as if he’d hit me with a sledgehammer. I gasp then stare back at him, blinking at first, then not as my brain struggles to process his request.

“What?

“You heard me. Your freedom and the repayment of your debts in exchange for becoming my wife.”

“You want to marryme?” My voice comes out rusty, as if I haven't drunk water in centuries.

“Yes.”

“Why would you want to marry me?” I lean forward, my hands coming free of the grip on the seat. “What's in it for you?”

“We will discuss that later, but let's just say our union will be very profitable for both of us. Especially you. You're in no position to make any other demands. Are you?”

“You know I’m not.”

“Then the only answer I want from you is yes.”

“But it’s marriage.”

“Yes, it’s marriage.”

“I… I don’t know you.”

The intense blue of his eyes darkens, reminding me of the evening sky before a storm. Watching that power rippling around him like electricity hits me with a new kind of fear.

“You don’t know me now, but you did.” The smile he gives me is wicked and dominating. “Sweetheart, I’m the same guy who bled the cherry from between your legs. The same guy who knows your body inside out, and everything about you. What you like. What you don’t like. Iknowyou in every sense of the word.”

---