Chapter 1
One
NATASHA
My life has been a living hell for a month.
Okay, let’s be honest. It hasn’t been sunshine and roses for all of my twenty-two years, which is just par for the course when you’re the daughter, and only child, of the head of the Bratva. Especially when your father is . . . horrible. Mean. Unloving.
Yeah, my dad’s an asshole.
My mom is just as bad. Maybe worse because a mother is supposed to show affection, to be the nurturing one. My mother doesn’t have an unselfish bone in her body.
But I digress. It’s been a month since I was summoned to my father’s office and told that I’d be marrying Elliott Stavros, the son of Julian, the head of the Greek Mafia. One of the Kings of Vegas.
I don’t exactly know what all of that means, except that Julian is powerful and my father wants an alliance with him. Therefore, it’s up to me to be the sacrificial lamb, as if it’s 1592.
Elliott has taken me out on dates, and he acts like the doting fiancé when we’re around other people.
So attentive and sweet. He smiles at me, opens doors, gently lays his hand on the small of my back as we walk through a room.
If that were who he truly is, I wouldn’t have an issue with this arrangement.
But in private?
Fuck, life is going to suck if I really have to marry this guy.
“Are you even fucking listening to me, Tash?”
I hate that nickname. No one calls me that. I’ve asked him to stop, but he ignores me, so I finally gave up. Because a proper Mafia wife never questions her husband.
“I’m listening.” I sound like a mouse. My voice is small. I wish I had the nerve to speak up, to tell him that I’m standing six inches away from him, and of course I’m listening.
But I would never.
“I want to take you to Rapture tonight.”
I barely suppress a sigh. He mentions this almost every single time I see him.
The club isn’t a dance club or a bar. No, he wants to take me to Rapture, which he’s already told me about in great detail, several times.
It’s clearly his favorite place in the whole world, and every time he brings it up, I want to roll my eyes. It’s obviously a thing for him.
Rapture is a high-end sex club. And I have no intention of having sex with this man until it’s absolutely necessary, which I’m hoping is never, but I suspect it will happen no later than our wedding night.
Just the thought fills me with dread. I’m not attracted to Elliott. Sure, he’s handsome. Tall and dark with a muscular build. But he has meanness in his eyes. His palms are always sweaty, and he reeks of whiskey.
Not sexy.
“I’m tired—”
“You’re always fucking tired. Jesus, is this what it’s going to be like to be married to you? Boring, frigid, and useless?”
Pretty much. Get used to it, buddy.
“I’m just . . . it makes me uncomfortable.” The last word is said on a whisper.
“What does?” he asks as he slides his palm down my arm and squeezes my hand. He’s trying to be comforting, but I don’t like being touched by anyone, most of all my fiancé. “What makes you uncomfortable, beautiful?”
I don’t want to tell him. I don’t want him to hit me. Again. That seems to be his go-to when he’s frustrated with me, and my cheek still aches from the last time.
“Tell me.”
“Watching people have sex makes me uncomfortable.”
I don’t meet his eyes. I can feel my cheeks burn.
“You’re going to have to get used to it because I like it there, and I go often.
Unless you want me fucking other women, you’ll go with me, and you’ll do what I say when we’re there.
You’ll learn to like it.” He tips my chin up, leering down at me.
His eyes drop to my cleavage, and then up to my mouth.
“Besides, you’ll be with me, and I won’t let anyone else touch you. Unless we invite a third, of course.”
He smirks, and I almost wince at the thought.
“But you’ll touch me.” The words are out before I can snatch them back, and he narrows his dark eyes on me.
That was the wrong thing to say.
He looks so much like his father. I’ve only seen Julian a few times since that first meeting. When Papa first said that a marriage had been arranged, and I thought it was to Julian, I didn’t freak out. He’s handsome. He seemed . . . calm. Steady. He didn’t make my Spidey senses tingle with dread.
But then his son walked in, and that calm flew right out the window. Elliott is not like his father. After spending a month with my fiancé, that’s plain to see.
“Yeah, Tash.” His fingers slide along my neck and into the back of my hair, and it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
My first instinct is to pull out of his grasp, but that’ll only make things far worse for me.
I manage to keep my face stoic as he moves in closer.
“I’m going to touch you. I’m going to run my mouth all over you and fuck every hole you’ve got until you’re a bloody, cum-covered mess. Because you’re mine. I own you.”
I shiver at that, and not because his words are sexy. No, they’re said with a sneer, with malice, and his hand fists harder in my hair, pulling my head back.
“I can do whatever the fuck I want to you.”
“And if I say no?” I hate how shaky my voice is.
“You don’t get to say no.” His nose is almost touching mine. His voice is so hard, and there’s so much anger and violence in his dark eyes. “Didn’t you just hear me say that I can do whatever the fuck I want?”
I swallow hard. Is this really what my life has been reduced to? Honestly, I’d rather he went out and slept with all of Vegas if it meant he’d leave me alone.
“M-maybe we can have a marriage in name only, and you can get your needs met from other women.”
His eyes narrow, his jaw hardens.
“Are you telling me that you don’t want me, Natasha?”
“I don’t like to be touched by anyone.”
He leans in even closer, until his mouth is next to my ear, making me want to gag. If being this close to the man sets off my gag reflex, how can I ever possibly have sex with him?
“Let me make myself perfectly clear. I. don’t. Give a fuck if you don’t like to be touched. You’ve got a hot-as-hell body, and I’ll be using it. In private and in front of every single person at the club. You’re my whore, Tash. My father paid for you and gave you to me.”
I hear a door open, but I don’t move. I can’t. He’s holding my hair so tight, if I move an inch he’ll pull it out by the roots.
“I don’t want to have sex with you, Elliott.”
He shakes his head in frustration. “Tonight, or ever?”
“Ever.”
Crack.
His open hand slaps across my face, and then he does it again, sending me crashing to the floor. My knee catches on a coffee table, cutting the skin and making me immediately start to bleed all over the tile. Pain explodes across my jaw and mouth, and blood dribbles down my chin.
“You stupid cunt! I don’t fucking care what you want. Do you understand English?”
“What the fuck are you doing?”
The room goes silent, except for Elliott’s fast breathing and the blood rushing through my ears. I glance toward the doorway of the penthouse and see Julian striding my way, and I flinch, cowering close to the floor.
But he doesn’t hit me.
He grabs Elliott by the collar of his shirt and shakes him.
“I asked you a fucking question. I won’t repeat myself.”
“I’m putting her in her place.”
I’m not looking at them. I can’t. I’m so damn embarrassed, and all I can do is sit here on the floor, my face down, willing myself not to cry.
Don’t let them see you cry, Natasha.
“That is not how I taught you to treat women.”
There’s no response. I see Elliott’s feet just turn and walk away, and soon a door slams upstairs.
Oh God, I’m alone with Julian.