Page 52 of Auctioned to the Mafia Don
“Did he hurt you?”
“No,” she says quickly, rubbing her wrist absently.
Liar.
I catch her wrist before she can hide the flex of her fingers. She resists for half a breath, then lets me turn her hand palm-up beneath the light. Her pulse is fast against my thumb. Not from Alistair now. From me. From the argument. From whatever thing has been growing between us since she looked at me on that stage.
There is no bruise.
“You don’t pull a gun every time someone touches me,” she says.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Maya.” Her name quiets her, enough to make her hear me.
“You wanted me to play the role,” she says. “You told me to stay in cover. You told me not to improvise. That was me doing the job.”
“That was you allowing a man to put his hands on you because you thought enduring it made you useful.”
“It did make me useful. He was talking.”
“He was escalating.”
“I had it handled.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?—”
“Because I didn’t like watching it.”
The truth lands between us with more force than the gun did. I could have chosen my words more carefully. Said something strategic, instead of honest. Something about optics, reputation, maintaining the fiction that I am possessive enough to kill over a purchased woman. But the truth is, I didn’t like watching it.
Maya stares at me as if I have handed her a weapon and she is deciding which end cuts deepest.
The car moves through Miami traffic, lights dragging gold and red across her face. She looks too composed in the black dress. Too sharp. Too much like a woman who would rather be furious than admit she understands the difference between a man who wants to own her and a man who will destroy anyone else for touching her.
Both are dangerous, and I know which one I am.
“You don’t get to not like it,” she says.
My thumb pauses against her wrist.
“You don’t get to act like that was about me when you’re the one who put me in that room. You left me there. You made me bait.”
“Yes.”
I will not insult her by denying the truth, no matter how much I hate myself for it in this moment.
Her fury comes back hot enough to fill the car. “And then you punished him for taking the bait?”
“I educated him quickly.”
“You could have blown our cover.”
“No.”
