35. Valentin
35
VALENTIN
“She’s not ready to be taken out yet,” I snarled at my lover after I’d fed her. “She only obeyed me yesterday because she thinks there’s still a chance of escape.”
“Luca Russo wants a meeting, and I need to show him that she belongs to me,” Angelo snarled right back. “They were lovers.”
I blinked.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve been stalking her for a decade, you fucking idiot.” Angelo grinned at me, his expression so boyishly pleased with himself I had to return the smile. “He’s her escape plan,” he continued. “He has to be.”
“Set the meeting up for Friday. That gives us three more days.” Too soon, and it’d undo the effects of our patience. Too late, and it wouldn’t serve as a reward.
I turned on my heel and went to rummage through the drawers in the room we’d set aside for her, this one with a mirror in the bathroom, clothes in the closet, and a shelf full of books on the wall.
A moment later, I stood outside Ana’s cell, taking deep breaths. I thumbed open my phone to stare at her, surprised to find her doing yoga in the middle of the room. Something had changed.
The click of the lock caught her attention, and she settled down into her expected position, on her knees, with her hands behind her back.
“Up,” I told her. “Time to take another shower.”
Her face lit up with surprise and pleasure. “Is it because I—” she cut herself off and lowered her eyes. “Sorry, ma?tre .”
I held out my hand to her. “Good girls get rewards,” I said, answering her question anyway.
Her fingers curled in mine, and not for the first time, I wondered at her trust.
When I led her to the shower in Angelo’s and my room, she slipped in without a word, and I left her alone with the door cracked open. I couldn’t watch, lest I forget that she had days of training left before she earned my cock.
Even so, blood rushed to my cock at the sound of the water pouring over her body, her soft sighs as she washed off the sweat from the last few days, and her laugh of delight as she found the lotion we’d left her.
Ana finally appeared at the door, still dripping, a towel in her hand. Water trailed over her skin, rivulets dancing over her breasts and her rosy nipples, then down her soft stomach, to fall over her luscious thighs, a waterfall of delicious temptation.
She opened her mouth and then shut it, pressing her lips together.
That’s my good fucking girl. “What do you need, princess?”
Ana smiled ruefully and lifted the towel, dangling it from her elegant fingers. “ Ma?tre , I wasn’t sure how you wanted me after—” Her voice caught, before continuing, “After my shower.”
She was trying so goddamned hard to submit, fighting against her instincts to fight and rebel. Pride squeezed my chest, unfamiliar and warm, and a smile curved across my face.
“You can dry off,” I told her.
She smiled softly and stepped back into the bathroom, though I stopped her from closing the door.
“Let me watch.”
Ana held my gaze as she slid the towel across her body, her breath catching when it scraped over her nipples, then turning so I could watch her drag it over the curves of her back and ass.
“Stunning,” I said softly.
Her delighted smile slayed me. I wanted to give this woman so much more fucking joy, and if that wasn’t the most fucked up thought I’d ever had, I didn’t know what was. She was a toy that Angelo and I were training to slake our kinks, nothing more. She couldn’t be anything more.
We should have started training her like this in Nice, instead of wasting a week hoping she’d submit because she wanted to.
I handed her the bundle of clothes I’d retrieved from her room.
Ana’s eyes widened as she unfolded a dusky rose silk peignoir and a short gown to wear beneath it. The clothes would hide nothing from us but would give her the illusion of modesty.
“Is this—? May I—?” She paused, “ Ma?tre ?”
At some point, we had to allow her to speak more freely. Yes, I wanted her on her knees, her ass bared to me and weeping with pain, always. But I wasn’t quite ready to inflict the mental pain that a punishment would entail, not today, when she was so sweet and malleable before me, determined to earn a “good girl.”
“Put it on, princess.”
Ana dashed back into the bathroom to get a smaller towel, then carefully wrapped her hair in it. I watched her, amazed at the pleasure she took in such small actions. She slipped the gown over her head, and it did nothing to hide her already hard nipples or the curves of her hips from my gaze.
“Come here,” I said, wrapping my fingers around her hip and tugging her to me. I took a nipple into my mouth, unable to resist the temptation, and sucked hard through the fabric. To my delight, she clutched her fingers around my head, holding me there, as I teased and worried at her nipple, then whining plaintively when I pulled away.
I handed her the robe, and she slid her arms into it and tied it around her waist. The woman in front of me didn’t look like the scared waif I’d rescued from a casino cell a few weeks before. Instead, a calm, cool, and collected princess looked at me through bottle green eyes I wanted to drown in.
“Come,” I commanded her.
Without complaint, she unwrapped her hair from the towel, loosened the robe so it flowed behind her, and dropped to her knees, ready to follow me where I indicated.
My cock hardened at her easy compliance, the sight of her on her hands and knees waiting for me. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t only want her pain—I wanted her obedience, I wanted her smiles. Fuck me, I wanted her .
That sentiment was neither here nor there. Ana was a spoiled brat, and the only place for her in our household was if she continued to please Angelo, to calm Angelo. And that required her total submission.
She didn’t deserve another reward—a shower and modesty were more than enough, but a tendril of warmth wound through me at the thought of making her happy. After the shit day I had interrogating assholes who thought they had the right to the Costa empire because Angelo was only the don until we married Ana off, I didn’t have the energy or desire to deny myself.
I walked to the living room, where Angelo paced and made phone calls.
“Up,” I said, patting the couch beside me.
Ana didn’t question me, just clambered up and pushed herself under my arm so it rested on her shoulders as she curled up with her head on my chest. I should have pushed her off and enforced distance between us, leaving no doubts as to our roles as master and slave.
But when she curled her fingers in my shirt and hid her face against my chest, I found myself frozen, unable to move, unwilling to push her off and set her apart.
“ Ma?tre ,” she whispered against my chest. She sounded so small, so unsure of herself, so unlike the confident brat I’d been driving Angelo away from for the last several years. My chest tightened as I stroked my fingers up and down her arm.
“Oui, princesse?”
“May I speak, please?”
“ Oui, princesse. ”
“I need to know what happened to my compound.”
I ignored her.
“Valentin,” she growled, and I reached around to swat her on the ass.
Angelo’s attention snapped to us, and a feral grin lit up his face. “I’ll call you back,” he said to whomever he was speaking with, then slid his phone into his pocket.
Ana glared up at me, adorable in her rage, and relief flooded me that we hadn’t broken her spirit—just tamed her a little bit. “ Ma?tre , would you please tell me what happened to my family compound?”
“Tchérnov burned it to the ground,” I said, not bothering to mince my words.
She searched my eyes, looking for I don’t know what. “Everything?”
The vulnerability in her gaze undid me.
“Everything, princess.”
She nodded, then pressed her face against my shirt, an unsubtle attempt to hide the tears that streamed down her face. Silent for a long moment, I stroked my fingers up and down her arm, wishing I knew how to comfort her.
“Who’s taking care of the families of the men who were killed?” she asked.
Angelo stopped his pacing.
“Presumably, the organization—” he said.
Ana pushed away from me and sat up, wrapping her robe tightly around her, and lifted her chin. “What do you mean, presumably ?”
Angelo stared at her. I stared at her. My business was quasi-criminal, but we didn’t operate like the fucking Cosa Nostra. Angelo did. Angelo should have fucking known.
“It’s been four days!” she cried out. “Who is meeting with the families of all the people that Tchérnov killed when he burned down my fucking home?” Her voice ended on a ragged shout, but she didn’t cringe. “Who is paying for the funerals and giving the widows funds to feed their kids?”
To my shame, she was right.
“Angel,” Angelo began.
“Don’t angel me,” Ana sneered. “You fucking idiots. You’re here trying to hold an empire together and you can’t even do the basic shit that keeps its citizens loyal.”
She stood up, her eyes sparkling with anger. “You assholes. You kidnapped me, you fucking locked me away, and then you didn’t bother taking care of the people who suffered for it.”
Angelo whipped around and grabbed her chin, towering over her, and emphasizing her small size compared to him. “Don’t push me, toy. We took you in to keep you safe. Anytime you want us to hand you over to Boris or any of the other assholes who’d marry you in a heartbeat for your inheritance, you let me know.”
Ana slapped him.
He grabbed her wrist, Angelo full of menace, Ana’s chest heaving with righteous fury that slowly turned to trembling fear.
Did she not realize that he would rather tear out his own heart than hurt her?
“Fuck you, Angelo,” she whispered, despite the fear that made her hunch her shoulders, as if ready to ward off a blow. “Those men and women raised me. And they’re dead. And everything I own in the world is fucking gone .”
Angelo remained silent, his face blank, and his grey eyes revealing nothing.
“Sir,” she said, bowing her head as a tear slipped down her cheek.
Oh, what a good fucking girl, even as she was losing her mind with grief and worry and anxiety. Maybe she was more ready than I thought.
“Sir, please let me help you fix this. It’s my family .”
Angelo rubbed his cheek where she’d clocked him and stared her down, waiting.
She dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around his legs, and triumph speared through me. She was learning.
I held my breath, waiting to see how my lover would respond.
He tangled his fingers in her hair as she kissed his thighs and murmured, “Please, sir,” over and over again.
When he looked at me with an eyebrow raised, I nodded. It was time, and to my displeasure, she was right. Ana was a resource we’d been ignoring because we were too focused on training her to be our fuck toy. Her training wouldn’t stop, but we could take advantage of her skills and her knowledge while we did it.
Ana backed away from Angelo and lowered her face to the floor, stopping only when Angelo’s fingers tightened in her hair.
He dragged her back up to kneeling, forcing her to meet his eyes.
“All right, angel. What do you need?”