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)
Then, silence. The kind of silence that follows someone getting knocked unconscious. Or worse.
What the fresh hell am I doing here?
I hug my knees to my chest, creating my own little fortress of flesh against whatever horror show is unfolding upstairs. The institutional mattress crinkles beneath me, its vinyl surface somehow both sweaty and freezing against my bare legs.
Twenty-four hours ago, I was leaving a women's shelter with dreams of financial independence. Now I'm in a basement sex dungeon while my mob boss employer cage-matches his BDSM instructor. Why am I such a disaster magnet?
But then there's last night. Master appearing like some leather-clad Florence Nightingale to bathe me after Giovanni stormed out. The gentle way his hands moved over my skin. How he whispered that Giovanni was "doing it wrong." The way his fingers lingered places they shouldn't. The small, surprising kiss.
It wasn't a fever dream. It happened.
And judging by the symphony of destruction upstairs, Giovanni knows it happened.
My stomach twists into origami shapes. How much of this is going to land on me? Giovanni isn't exactly the "let's talk about our feelings" type. He's more the "shove you off a platform and storm out" type. And now I've somehow wedged myself between him and his dungeon employee.
Family is everything to these people. I'm nothing. A disposable toy they're fighting over like dogs with a bone.
The sudden thunder of footsteps on the stairs freezes my blood. Heavy, deliberate steps. Not sneaking. Charging.
I scramble out of bed, bare feet slapping against cold concrete as I retreat until my back hits the wall. My hands splay against the rough surface, seeking purchase, stability, anything.
The footsteps get louder. Closer.
This is not the life of a well-adjusted twenty-something woman.
The door detonates inward like someone kicked a C4 charge.
Giovanni fills the doorway, a living anatomy chart of rage. Bare-chested, furious, breathing like he's just sprinted through hell with demons on his heels. His boxer briefs cling low enough to make me question my life choices, which—let's be honest—have been questionable enough already.
But it's his eyes that pin me against the wall. Two glacial green lasers set to vaporize, scanning me with such controlled fury that I swear I can feel my skin heating under their gaze. The usual calculation is gone, replaced by something rawer, something primal.
This isn't business Giovanni. This is personal Giovanni. The kind who shoots people.
Then Master steps into view behind him, and oh—oh wow—no mask.
So that's what's been hiding under all that leather and mystery. Turns out, Satan's personal trainer is hot. Like, "why am I noticing this when I might be about to die?" hot. Split lip dripping blood. No shirt. Just miles of tattooed muscle, ink sprawling across his chest and down his arms in intricate patterns that somehow look both sacred and profane in the dim light.
And his face. Jesus. He looks like Giovanni's more dangerous brother. Same bone structure, same predatory stillness, but rougher around the edges. A Giovanni who doesn't bother with designer suits and boardroom politics.
My brain decides this is the perfect moment to helpfully replay the memory of his hands sliding soap across my skin last night. Touching places only invited guests should touch. His lips brushing mine.
The two of them standing together creates a perfect visual for my predicament: caught between identical versions of breathtaking and dangerous.
My pulse does some gymnastic routine that would qualify for the Olympics. Whatever war started upstairs has just relocated. The venue has changed, but I'm pretty sure I'm the new battlefield.
Giovanni's arm snaps up, finger stabbing toward the floor in front of him. "Here. Now." Two words, loaded like bullets.
My legs turn to wet newspaper as I push off from the wall. One step. Another. The nightgown clings to my sweat-slicked skin, transparent enough that I might as well be naked. Five more steps across concrete that feels like miles of Arctic tundra under my bare feet.
I'm waiting for the explosion—for Giovanni to grab me, shake me, throw me against something. For accusations about Master's hands on me. For questions I can't answer without making this infinitely worse.
But he doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Just watches with that marble statue stillness that makes the Medici sculptures look fidgety.
His silence is worse than screaming. It's a void demanding to be filled, but whatever I say will be wrong. I've accumulated enough demerits to spend eternity in Position Three with my forehead kissing concrete.
I stop in front of him, close enough to count the bruises blooming across his chest, to smell the copper tang of blood and sweat. Close enough to see the muscle in his jaw twitch with restrained violence.
I've never felt smaller. Never felt more exposed. And what terrifies me most isn't his anger—it's how desperately I want to fix it, to erase that cold fire from his eyes. That's the real danger here: not what he might do to me, but what I might do to make him stop looking at me like I'm nothing.