29. Matti
Matti
W hen I see Siena tied to a chair, blindfolded, the monster inside me takes over.
The sunlight filters through a high, hazy window, reflecting off the cement floor and casting fractured beams of light across her trembling body. The room is muggy, oppressive, despite the drop in temperature outside.
I’m still wearing most of the suit I put on this morning in Chicago, and I shove my rolled-up shirt sleeves higher up my arms as I circle her, fuming.
She stiffens at the sound of my footsteps. “Who’s there?” she demands, her voice sharp, laced with fury. “Untie me! Let me the fuck out of here!”
I can’t believe she has the balls to be angry. She should be on her hands and knees, fucking begging me for forgiveness.
Storming across the room, I throw the small table out of my way so that it crashes against the wall and splinters into pieces with a deafening crash. Siena flinches violently, gasping as the sound reverberates through the space.
I lean in close to her, so close she can feel my breath brush against the side of her neck. “You’re not enjoying your stay?” I murmur, my voice low, almost taunting.
Her scream is pure rage, raw and guttural. She thrashes against the bindings, the chair creaking beneath her. Sweat beads on her brow, one drop sliding beneath the fabric tied over her eyes. “Leave me the fuck alone, asshole! I don’t fucking belong to you! You can’t just—”
“Except that I can, kitten,” I cut her off, my voice cold and even. “I can do whatever the fuck I want with you. And given how hard you’re working to get yourself killed at every turn, you’re far better off in my hands than on your own.”
She lets out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Oh, so you’re trying to keep me safe?”
In one fluid motion, I grab the back of her chair and yank it off the ground so only the back legs balance on the floor.
She gasps, her knuckles turning white as she clutches the seat. Her breath quickens, but I hold her there, suspended, watching the tension in her jaw, the way her body tries to shrink into itself. Then I let the chair drop forward with a jarring thud.
“Yes,” I say simply. “And you’re doing everything you can to make that harder.”
Her bitter laugh is quieter this time. “Kind of hard to protect someone when you’re never around,” she mutters under her breath.
I pause, caught off guard by the venom in her voice. I study her face, searching for a hint of vulnerability beneath the blindfold.
Her mouth is pressed into a tight line, and there’s a slight tremor in her jaw as she bites the inside of her bottom lip. She almost looks… hurt? Am I reading that right? Does she feel li ke I abandoned her?
The realization sends a pang of guilt through me, sharp and unexpected. But it’s quickly swallowed by anger. She was the one who made it clear she was using me to get off in the shower. She was the one who ran.
“What the fuck business is it of yours?” I growl into her ear, then stand, pacing around her and loosening my tie. “You were on your way out, remember?”
“You fucker!” she spits. “You’re a murderer. A barbarian. A fucking monster—”
I grip the chair again, yanking it back with enough force to cut her off. Her breath catches, and the sight of her tied there—angry, defiant, her dress riding high on her thighs—hits me like a freight train. The same little dress I took off her in the shower.
I can’t stop visualizing pushing that dress up around her waist and burying my face between her thighs.
Her breathing is ragged as I let the chair slam back down again.
“A monster?” I echo, pulling off my tie and wrapping it tightly around my knuckles.
Slowly, deliberately, I walk around her, unbuttoning the top two buttons of my shirt. “I am who I am, kitten. I don’t apologize for it. If you didn’t realize that from the start, maybe I’ve been too nice to you.”
“Yeah, I’m sure your girlfriend wouldn’t describe what you’ve done with me as ‘too nice.’”
Her defiance grates on me, but I ignore it, continuing my slow circuit around her. Sweat glistens on her collarbone, a bead sliding down to disappear between her full, heaving breasts .
Stepping in close to her, I drag the back of my hand over her chest, slowly wiping away the drip of sweat, watching as she squeezes her thighs together. She shudders involuntarily under my touch and lifts her chest slightly to press back into me.
“I did nothing to you, kitten. If I recall, you did it all to yourself.”
I dip my hand lower, hooking my finger under the edge of her bra. Her breathing starts to quicken as I slide my finger across her wet, warm skin, slipping farther under the lacy fabric until my fingertip just barely skims over her nipple.
“If you were mine and you let another woman touch herself like that in front of you, I’d fucking kill you both.” Her voice is raspy and low, and it hits me like an electric jolt to my system.
If you were mine…
Fuck. She’s perfect.
Lightly brushing my fingertip over her nipple, I close my eyes briefly. “I don’t have girlfriends.”
She looks like she’s losing her battle to hold on to her anger, working to ignore the effect I’m having on her body.
“Olivia,” she whispers, setting her jaw.
What? I pause, frowning. “Olivia Neroli? The girl who’s like my kid sister? No. Not even remotely.”
“Bullshit,” she snaps, though her voice falters as I remove my hand from her bra. “You’re a monster.”
“Maybe. But I’m not Olivia’s monster,” I say, my voice dropping as I drag the back of my knuckles down her chest, wiping away the trail of sweat.
She shudders, her chin dropping to her chest, her forehead brushing against my forearm.
“The only reason you didn’t see that side of me in the shower was because you were hurt.” Her breath hitches as I lean in, my lips brushing her ear. “But you’re all healed up now.”
She swallows hard, lifting her chin up toward me and arching slightly, pressing into my hand. “I thought it was because I said ‘no.’”
A cruel smile tugs at my lips. “It was a mistake offering you the illusion of control,” I growl. “A mistake I won’t be repeating.”
Her next words hit like a whip: “You fucking killed my sister!”
The rawness in her voice stops me cold. Her breathing is tortured, like she’s holding back sobs. The sound tears through my soul.
As much as this is about punishment and not pleasure, breaking her down so that she thinks twice before trying to leave me again, I won’t let her believe that lie, the one thing that I know will always stop her from letting me in.
I yank the blindfold off her face, needing her to see me, to understand.
“I need you to hear me,” I say, crouching to meet her gaze.
She blinks rapidly, adjusting to the light, her face defiant.
“If I killed your sister, I wouldn’t be standing here right now.
My partners would’ve been the first in line to take me out.
You may hate the Demonios, but we are a family.
That includes Mikey. It even includes your sister.
Kitten, like it or not, it includes you, too. ”
I leave out the fact that the head of this family is claiming to have killed her sister and would rather see her dead than alive. It’s a problem I’m planning to fix on my own before it ever lands on her doorstep.
“But you were there,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “You were at the crash site before I was, and I left from New Jersey right when it happened. How did you get there before me? How did you even know where to go?”
I grab her chin, forcing her to look at me. In her eyes, I can see the crushing pain she’s living with, and it kills me.
“We were tracking him, Siena. We had feelers out everywhere. When I heard about that plane going down, I had a gut feeling, so I flew down to check it out. Just because I was at the crash site doesn’t mean that I caused the plane to go down.”
Her tears spill over again, but her voice is soft, resigned. “It doesn’t matter. If you didn’t do it, someone in your family did. He was running from you. And he should have. Because you’re a monster.”
The rage that flares inside me is instant, burning, in spite of myself. In spite of my desire to remain calm with her, controlled.
I grab her throat, my grip firm but not menacing. “You’re right. I am a monster,” I hiss. “But I’m your monster, kitten. Not Olivia’s. Not Mikey’s. Not your sister’s.”
Her pupils dilate, and as I watch, the defiance flickers into something else, something like desire.
“My monster…” she whispers.
My heart squeezes in my chest. She’s letting me in, but it feels like a lie.
For the first time since Liana, I don’t feel like the monster I am.
The truth is that I’m her savior. But if believing that I’m the one she has most to fear will allow her to accept my protection from the true monsters out there trying to kill her, then I’ll take it. For now.
My grip softens, my thumb brushing her jaw. “I never lie, kitten, because I don’t have to. Which means I will never lie to you. In fact, I intend to find the person who hurt your sister and deliver him to you. Based on what you did to Franco, my guess is that you could do some damage.”
Siena gives me a small smile, the first real smile I’ve seen from her, and I feel like my heart is going to explode. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, and immediately my life’s purpose becomes making this woman smile every day of her life.
“Do you trust me?” I ask, my voice low and commanding.
She hesitates, staring into my eyes for a moment, really seeing me. I’m almost nervous, not knowing what she’s going to say. I hold her gaze, waiting. Her chest heaves and she looks away for a second. My heart drops. Then she nods slowly.
I lift her chin so she’s looking at me again and shake my head, tapping her bottom lip with my finger. “I need you to say it.”
She swipes her tongue over her lip where I touched her and heaves in a breath as if she’s mustering up the courage to say the words. My cock hardens, pressing against my suit pants, as she opens her thighs slightly within the bounds of the restraints. My girl likes to be told what to do.
“Yes, Matti. I trust you,” she whispers.
Holy fuck. The sound of my name in her mouth, and all I want to do is push her dress up and shove inside of her. “Good girl,” I murmur. “Now brace yourself, kitten. I’m going to punish you for running away.”
Her eyes widen, and she shivers as I pull the blindfold back over her eyes.