Chapter 11 #2
He doesn't even bother pretending now. He is fully arousing my sub on purpose. He pleasures her between her legs. He massages her large, firm breasts. He makes her bite her lip, and blush, and moan, and whimper and I cannot believe what I’m fucking seeing.
"Why do you keep touching me like that?" Emmaleen's question is dripping with want. Like she's about to come.
He starts washing her hair, smiling a little when he responds. "To make you love me. To confuse your brain so you see your Master as love, not pain."
Your Master as love?
No, Jino. No. Her King. Me! Me! I am her love! Not you!
"If you were my sub, I'd be fucking you slowly tonight. Telling you sweet things. I'd make you come many times to take away the sting of the day."
I miss what comes next—my mind shooting off into some alternate version of outer space where the vacuum is filled with rage. But then I hear my name again. "Giovanni is using it in all the wrong ways."
Nothing about my ways are wrong. That's the point of being the fucking King! I'm always right!
"Stand up." I glance at the screen again. Jino is helping Emmaleen out of the tub. She takes his hand—is she… is she looking at him with… desire?
Holy fucking shit. My cousin is literally trying to steal my sub. And he knows this is all being recorded. The fucking audacity.
He's talking again. Admitting his treason outright when Emmaleen asks why the towel is so small. "So that I'm forced to touch every inch of your body. So that my touch will be the only thing you dream about tonight."
Then, he combs her hair.
My hair. That's my hair to comb not his.
He puts my sub to bed. Dropping the tiny cotton nightgown over her head and arranging it like she's a doll. Her hard nipples press against the translucent fabric as Jino leads her over to the bed and carefully helps her lie down.
My rage is racing down an endless highway on full throttle when Jino kisses her on the lips.
Kisses her.
Emmaleen then has the nerve to smile at him.
She fucking smiles at him.
I replay the footage. Freeze on her face. The soft curve of her lips. The relaxation in her features. The trust.
I replay it again. And again. And again. Each viewing carving the betrayal deeper.
Every touch was a theft. Every word an undermining of my authority. Every moment a reminder that Jino sees himself not as my instrument, but as a replacement.
The earlier calm evaporates, replaced by a rage so cold it burns.
The rules are simple: what's mine is mine. Jino serves at my pleasure. Emmaleen belongs to me.
These boundaries aren't suggestions—they're law.
Laws that have been broken.
In my house.
Under my roof.
On my fucking cameras.
I sit perfectly still, my breathing measured.
The smile lingers on her lips as the screen flickers.
It’s the last smile she’ll ever give another man under my roof.
Jino has crossed the line into treason.
And treason has only one sentence.
I stand in the corner of the control room wearing nothing but black boxer briefs.
The cool air prickles my skin, but I barely register it.
My body is a live wire—every muscle coiled, ready to discharge.
This isn't about releasing anger. This is surgery.
Precise. Calculated. A cancer needs to be cut out.
The betrayal loops on endless repeat in my mind. Jino's hands on Emmaleen's body. His fingers between her legs. Her smile. The fucking smile.
The slam of a car door outside. Boots on gravel. The front door opens, closes. He travels the hallway and all the anger inside me bubbles up. His footsteps are unhurried. Casual. The sound of a man who believes his day will unfold according to plan.
I flex my fingers. He opens the door, carrying a bag over his shoulder. Same all-black outfit. Same fucking arrogance.
He doesn't see me until I'm already moving.
I explode from the shadows, driving my shoulder into his ribs with every ounce of my weight behind it. The impact slams him against the wall with a satisfying crack. His breath rushes out in a sharp gasp. His bag hits the floor.
Good. Feel what the sting of betrayal is like.
His recovery is too quick, but I’m ready. I launch a barrage of short, hard punches aimed at his torso—liver, ribs, solar plexus. The kind of shots that fold a man regardless of his pain tolerance.
But Jino turns his hip, creating space. His blocks are tight, practiced. The counter elbow across my jaw comes out of nowhere.
Crack.
My head snaps sideways. Teeth click together. Copper floods my mouth.
He just hit me in the face. My fucking face.
The fight spills across the control room. The bank of monitors showing the rear of the house flicker as we crash into them. Glass cracks. An alarm beeps pathetically.
I grab Jino by the throat, driving him backward until his spine connects with the brick column running through the center of the room. His windpipe compresses under my thumbs.
He twists violently, fabric tearing as his shirt comes away in my hands. A feint, a hook, and suddenly my ankle is swept out from under me. The floor rises up to meet us both.
We roll across the floor. Blood smears between us. Fists hammer into flesh—ribs, face, kidneys. Whatever target presents itself. This isn't the controlled violence of business. This is primal. Personal.
I taste more blood. Mine or his, I can't tell.
We struggle to our feet, neither willing to stay down. My punches grow wilder, fueled by thirty-one years of mafia blood and the image of his hands on what's mine. Pure savage instinct.
Jino is different. Technical. Each movement measured even in chaos. He redirects my momentum, turning my strength against me with joint locks and choke attempts.
I rip free each time, refusing to submit. Muscle over method. Rage over technique.
I drive him backward across the room. His head connects with the heavy oak door leading to the dungeon stairs. Wood splinters around his skull. His eyes lose focus for half a second.
Not enough. His knee drives straight into my gut.
Air abandons my lungs. I double over, trying to remember how to breathe.
We stagger apart, circling each other in tight arcs. Both breathing hard. Blood trickling from split brows, busted lips. Our eyes lock with the recognition of decades. I know the rhythm of his strikes, the angles of his feints. He knows the weight behind every one of my tells.
As children, we spent years circling each other on the mats, drilling the same patterns until they stitched themselves into muscle memory. Same teacher. Same flow. Same devotion to the routine that made us brothers in combat before it made us rivals.
Now we're trying to destroy each other.
And neither of us is going down.
Bodies wrecked. Knuckles torn. The initial explosion of rage burns out, leaving only the coals of something deeper. We stand locked in standoff, both refusing to yield.
"You're a traitor." The words tear from my throat, rough and raw. My breath comes in harsh pants. Blood slides warm down my chin, drips onto my chest. "You touched what's mine." I spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. "With your fucking bare hands. You bathed her. You kissed her."
Each accusation lands like another blow. Jino wipes blood from his nose with the back of his hand. His lip is split at the corner, swelling already.
"You abandoned her," he throws back, chest heaving. "You left her alone after eleven hours of conditioning. Aftercare isn't a choice, Giovanni. It's the rule. That makes you unfit to collar her. You're too proud to meet her needs."
My veins thrum with fresh rage. I jerk upright, fists clenching. "You're finished." My voice drops to something lethal. "Fired. Done. Get the fuck out of my house."
Jino spits blood, drags the back of his hand across his mouth.
The grin he gives me is half-mockery, half-memory.
“There are rules, Giovanni. And they matter. At least to me. You signed our contract. And your pride isn’t enough to zero it out.
You can't just fire me. Maybe you don't take this shit seriously, but I do.
And if you try and cut me out—if you put your own ego over her well-being—then I'll take your motherfucking ass to court and make you pay—both literally and socially.
I will splash your fucking name all over the news.
And overnight, you will be 'that Bavga boy.
' The one who hurts women. The one who can't control himself. "
Did he just threaten me? "Did you just threaten me?"
Jino shrugs, still gasping for breath. "Take it any way you want, cousin. But you're not gonna break this girl through ignorance. You do it properly, or you don't do it at all."
For a moment, the words don't make sense. Then… clarity. "So all this blood is because you don’t like my fucking technique?”
"Of course. Why the hell else do you think I was touching her last night?
Because I like her?" he scoffs. "Get a fucking grip, Giovanni.
I'm in the business of producing subs. This isn’t about pussy, this is about product.
I've done this hundreds of times. I've caressed more thighs than I can count.
I've teased thousands of nipples. I don't want your fucking girl.
I just want her to be… produced properly. It's my name at risk here. Not yours."
Which explains his weird outburst about seeding the news with rumors of my temper with women. "Well… why the fuck didn't you just say so?"
He throws up his hands. "You didn't give me a fucking chance, asshole. You jumped me as I walked through the door."