Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
We roll across the floor. Blood smears between us. Fists hammer into flesh—ribs, face, kidneys. Whatever target presents itself. This isn't the controlled violence of business. This is primal. Personal.
I taste more blood. Mine or his, I can't tell.
We struggle to our feet, neither willing to stay down. My punches grow wilder, fueled by thirty-one years of mafia blood and the image of his hands on what's mine. Pure savage instinct.
Jino is different. Technical. Each movement measured even in chaos. He redirects my momentum, turning my strength against me with joint locks and choke attempts.
I rip free each time, refusing to submit. Muscle over method. Rage over technique.
I drive him backward across the room. His head connects with the heavy oak door leading to the dungeon stairs. Wood splinters around his skull. His eyes lose focus for half a second.
Not enough. His knee drives straight into my gut.
Air abandons my lungs. I double over, trying to remember how to breathe.
We stagger apart, circling each other in tight arcs. Both breathing hard. Blood trickling from split brows, busted lips. Our eyes lock with the recognition of decades. I know the rhythm of his strikes, the angles of his feints. He knows the weight behind every one of my tells.
As children, we spent years circling each other on the mats, drilling the same patterns until they stitched themselves into muscle memory. Same teacher. Same flow. Same devotion to the routine that made us brothers in combat before it made us rivals.
Now we're trying to destroy each other.
And neither of us is going down.
Bodies wrecked. Knuckles torn. The initial explosion of rage burns out, leaving only the coals of something deeper. We stand locked in standoff, both refusing to yield.
"You're a traitor." The words tear from my throat, rough and raw. My breath comes in harsh pants. Blood slides warm down my chin, drips onto my chest. "You touched what's mine." I spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "With your fucking bare hands. You bathed her. You kissed her."
Each accusation lands like another blow. Jino wipes blood from his nose with the back of his hand. His lip is split at the corner, swelling already.
"You abandoned her," he throws back, chest heaving. "You left her alone after eleven hours of conditioning. Aftercare isn't a choice, Giovanni. It's the rule. That makes you unfit to collar her. You're too proud to meet her needs."
My veins thrum with fresh rage. I jerk upright, fists clenching. "You're finished." My voice drops to something lethal. "Fired. Done. Get the fuck out of my house."
Jino spits blood, drags the back of his hand across his mouth. The grin he gives me is half-mockery, half-memory. “There are rules, Giovanni. And they matter. At least to me. You signed our contract. And your pride isn’t enough to zero it out. You can't just fire me. Maybe you don't take this shit seriously, but I do. And if you try and cut me out—if you put your own ego over her well-being—then I'll take your motherfucking ass to court and make you pay—both literally and socially. I will splash your fucking name all over the news. And overnight, you will be 'that Bavga boy.' The one who hurts women. The one who can't control himself."
Did he just threaten me? "Did you just threaten me?"
Jino shrugs, still gasping for breath. "Take it any way you want, cousin. But you're not gonna break this girl through ignorance. You do it properly, or you don't do it at all."
For a moment, the words don't make sense. Then… clarity. "So all this blood is because you don’t like my fucking technique?”
"Of course. Why the hell else do you think I was touching her last night? Because I like her?" he scoffs. "Get a fucking grip, Giovanni. I'm in the business of producing subs. This isn’t about pussy, this is about product. I've done this hundreds of times. I've caressed more thighs than I can count. I've teased thousands of nipples. I don't want your fucking girl. I just want her to be… produced properly. It's my name at risk here. Not yours."
Which explains his weird outburst about seeding the news with rumors of my temper with women. "Well… why the fuck didn't you just say so?"
He throws up his hands. "You didn't give me a fucking chance, asshole. You jumped me as I walked through the door."
12
The crash jolts me awake. My eyes fly open to chaos-acoustics—furniture smashing, bodies colliding, something glass shattering against a wall.
God, that's not just fighting. That's attempted murder with sound effects.
I sit bolt upright. The see-through nightgown Master dressed me in last night clings to my skin with a clammy intimacy that feels both violating and oddly reassuring. At least I'm not naked anymore.
Another crash. Then voices—muffled rage filtering through the ceiling in bass vibrations I feel more than hear. One voice definitely Giovanni's. The other, deeper. Master.