Page 61 of Savage Sin

I need to make sure his eyes stay on me and not the gun in my lover’s hand.Lover. Mine.Power filters into my brains and seeps into my blood. A possessive wave winds itself around my resolve and determination. It is a breath of fresh air from living with all the fear pumping into my system.

“What job are you here for, Stefano?” I faced this little shit’s father and survived. His son is nothing and I don’t believe him for a minute that my sister is dead.

Yeah, nice pep talk.

Defiance lifts my chin. I suck with guns and I can’t fight worth anything. The only thing I have going for me are my words. The longer I talk, the more time Rage has to figure out a freaking plan because I havenada.

“No. Don’t want to say? Okay, what happened to my sister?” Don’t psychopaths like to talk about all the evil shit they’ve done to others? Let’s see if he can hold up the lie.

“How did she die?”

To my left wood cracks, eves give and heavy logs fall in the cabin’s interior. Embers dance in the space between us.

He flicks my questions away like pesky gnats. “I tried to get Father to let me keep you the night he put that blade in your side. I was sad to see you dumped in the bottom of that boat. Truly,hermana.” He places a hand over his heart like that should move me. He simply wants another play thing to torture and take his frustrations out on. Cortes Sr. didn’t let him have my sister because he knew the value we brought to the criminal empire as Castel blood. It’s why he took her himself. As twisted as it is to think it, our last names brought pain and protection in equal parts to me and my sister. Where his father is a bastard snake, the son is twice as worse.

“We have another chance to be together.”

“There’s no way your father will let you touch me.”

His lips curl into a snarl before flattening out. He’s working hard to control himself. “You wound me.” Like some petulant brat, Stefano works a frown onto his face and looks close to tears one second, and then grins like the Joker having a mental breakdown in the next.

I’ll end my life before I let him touch any part of me.

I risk a bullet and say, “You and me? Together? You sick bastard? I don’t see that happening.”

His toothy smile resembles his father’s and is made of evil intent. “You’ll come around,hermana.”

“Step-sister. We do not share blood.”

Sadistic laughter peels across the morning, curling my insides into the fetal position. “We will after I breed you.”

In front of me, Rage is silently checking the gun. I have all of Stefano’s attention, so Rage is only biding his time for the right opportunity.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice the smoke shift unnaturally. I keep my eyes glued on the known danger, but my senses are on high alert.

“I wouldn’t make a good mother.”

He has zero impulse control, so I know better than to tell him to kill me now because I will never let him touch me. There’s not a chance in hell I will spread my legs for him or let him impregnate me with his monster seed. I’ll die first. But telling him to put a bullet in me will result in Rage getting one, too. First one problem, then I will handle the other.

One step at a time, I’m easing myself away. “You have me now. What are you going to do? Take me back to thehacienda? Lock me in the basement?”

Keep him talking.

Stefano is dressed in the typical attire my step-father provides for his men—cargo pants, black boots and matching black T-shirts. I guess they think the color makes them more intimidating.

They are not wrong. But what has my attention are the grenades on his belt and his bullet-proof vest. Another gun is velcroed to his chest. He’s come for war.

Stefano cocks his head to the side and considers me through narrowed eyes in a way that has me shivering. “I have much better plans for you than a dirt-floored basement.” Ice coats his words. They’re so frigid my entire body threatens to freeze on the spot.

“How did you know where to find me, Stefano? You said Ghost helped, but how?” Focus on that and not the idea of being locked in a room with this man.

Stefano grunts like I’m asking the obvious. “Rage has been on Father’s radar ever since we found his brother as a mole. And then cut his head off. Don’t you remember,hermana? You heard the whole thing.”

Not the answer I was expecting.

Blood drains from my face and I feel as if it’s left my body completely. My nightmare. The horrific screams and then sudden silence. It was Rage’s brother I heard dying.

Over Stefano’s shoulder, the shadows from a second ago advance on us from the direction of the burning cabin. Dark silhouettes morph into human forms, moving silently over the lawn.

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