Page 56 of Ruthless

Maybe he reads the truth in my eyes, because he wraps his hand around my neck and squeezes, as if to choke any inconvenient confessions away. For good measure, he spits into my gaping mouth. The unexpected filthiness of his action, combined with the thumb stroking my clit, triggers a detonation. When he releases my throat, light explodes in my vision, and my orgasm tears through me.

“Tesoro.” He climaxes one thrust later, pulsing inside me while burying his face in my neck. As we ride out the waves with his breath hot against my sticky skin, I nearly miss what he mutters.

“Siamo fatti l’uno all’atra.”

I don’t understand enough Italian to catch every word, but I can piece the meaning together well enough.

You and I are meant for each other.

Despite everything—how far we’ve come and how far we’ve fallen—I can’t help but agree.

Chapter 21

Dante

By the time I carry her back to her cell, Sara’s unconscious. Round after round of hate sex on an empty stomach will do that to a person. Not to mention the emotional toll she underwent from watching me tear apart the chameleon. Hot water will cleanse her of the blood and cum, but the bite marks and bruises I left all over her body will remain for days.

A pair of borrowed sweats and an old t-shirt protect her modesty, and I file a mental note to send Angela in with clean clothes once Sara is awake and ready to shower. A new blanket won’t hurt either.

Part of me longs to deposit her in my room and tuck her into bed—mybed—which gives me all the more reason to return her to her cell. Not trusting myself to think clearly at the moment, I pick her comforter up off the floor and drape the material over her body. When I walk out a few minutes later, I find my captive from upstairs watching me from his chair in the middle of the room. Luca must have strapped him in place and hosed him down because he’s wet and shivering.

On any other day, I would leap at the chance to have another go at him, but I’m drained, exhausted in a way that goes beyond the physical. So, I leave without a second glanceand head upstairs. I wait for rage to flood my veins over Sara’s interference and my failure to obtain the necessary information, but for the first time in five years, there’s no wild storm brewing inside me.

The relief flooding through my nervous system rattles me. I want nothing more than to crawl between my sheets, but I’m still covered in blood and…other fluids. I shower quickly before perching on the edge of my bed in only my briefs and the towel draped around my shoulders.

That’s when the dam breaks.

Curling in on myself, I grip my hair with painful force. I’m repulsed by my own weakness. Why did I tell her any of the details about what happened to me? Am I really so far gone that I thought talking about the experience, withSaraof all people, would ease the memories of the horrors I endured?

Like a fool, I allowed Sara to distract me from my revenge yet again. Every time I get close to unmasking the Ghost, her actions somehow veer me off course. What have I been doing these last five years if one woman’s touch is all it takes for me to shove the past aside?

A rusty manacle sits on my bedside table. I reach for the metal and turn it over in my hands. The ring’s a reminder of the day I escaped. Because my captors considered me barely alive, they had fewer people keeping tabs on me. One night, they forgot to lock my chains to the wall, and I repaid that hubris by strangling the guard at my door with my bare hands and fleeing for my life.

I staggered through the woods, half-starved and with no idea of where I was. Upstate somewhere, in the Hudson Valley. For miles, I stumbled through the bramble with bare feet and nothing to shield me from the elements except the tattered, soiled clothes I’d worn for weeks. The wounds on my chestand legs festered, seeping blood and puss, preventing me from traveling quickly.

I spent three nights in that fucking hellscape, delirious with fever and unsure if I’d live long enough to return home. To Sara. Every time I closed my eyes, I’d jerk awake from nightmares, terrified my captors would catch me and drag me back to the dank darkness of my cell.

By the time I finally collapsed outside of a little diner in the middle of nowhere, I was determined to make each and every one of those fuckers pay.

Then I learned that Sara truly was gone, and the pain of her betrayal almost killed me where torture couldn’t.

After that, the vow of vengeance sustained me. If I hold the manacle long enough, maybe I can rekindle that anger and rediscover my backbone.

Instead, I find myself thinking about her, mypiccola conigliettta.

What happened between us in the interrogation room should solidify her hatred of me. I’ve never been so feral, so animalistic.

I should feel relieved, vindicated even.

Lying down with the manacle clutched in my hands, I pray for restful sleep to claim me.

A few hours later, a knock jars me from slumber. I rouse in an instant, the hypervigilance a remnant from my time in captivity.

I open the door to Luca and immediately recognize the tension in his stance. We’ve worked together too long for him to hide things from me. “What’s wrong?”

Luca appears a little shell-shocked as he rubs the back of his neck. “It’s our guy, Jackson. Your chameleon. He just sang like a canary.”

“What? I ripped his fingernails out as well as a few teeth, yet he never even gave me his initials. How the fuck did you manage that miracle?”