Chapter 10 #3
"I want my King," she continues, the words spillin' out now, faster.
"I need—I need to be fed. I need his fingers in my mouth while I sit at his knee.
I need him placing food on my tongue. I need—" She chokes on the words, tears spillin' down her cheeks.
"I need Jino. I need his direction," she's sayin', voice breakin'.
"I need his crop. His training. I need—"
"Wait." I hold up a hand, cuttin' her off mid-sentence. "Stop. Go back. What did you just say?"
She blinks at me, confused, tears still streamin'.
"Jino," I repeat slowly. "You need Jino?"
She nods, frantic now. "Yes. I need Master. I need my King. I need—"
"Hold the fuck on." Confusion spikes into disbelief. "Giovanni's sharin' you with Jino Moretti?"
She doesn't answer.
Just stares at me with those black pupils, waitin' for permission to speak again because apparently I didn't give her explicit clearance for follow-up questions.
I laugh—short, humorless, more bark than sound. "Since when does Giovanni Bavga share anythin'?"
Suddenly, Emmaleen's hands are reachin' for me—cuffed wrist stretchin' as far as the chain will allow, fingers grasping at air between us.
"Help me," she whispers, and the desperation in her voice cuts straight through my irritation. "Please. Please help me."
I stare at her, exhausted. "I'm tryna help ya. That's what this whole bloody mess is about."
But she's not hearin' me. Not really. Her eyes are unfocused again, slippin' back into that glassy distance.
Christ, I'm tired. Bone-deep, soul-weary tired in a way that has nothin' to do with the hours I've been awake and everythin' to do with the fact that I have Giovanni bavga's sex slave in my bed.
I should've minded my own business when I saw her in the hallway.
Should've just called Giovanni in that instant, fessed up to what I was doin', tell him his slave was wanderin' maybe he'd like to punish her for that, I dunno.
His call. And then got the fuck out of there, drove home, lied to the Irish mob about not findin' anything.
Lied to the Italian Mafia about not findin' anything. And I'd be grand right now.
Because this isn't a rescue.
I'm not sure what it is, but rescue seems like the bloody antithesis of what's happenin' here.
I reach into my jeans pocket and pull out the handcuff key. The metal catches the dim light as I step toward the bed.
Emmaleen's breathin' changes immediately—faster, shallower, anticipation and relief crashin' together in her exhale.
I unlock the cuff with a soft click.
She scrambles toward me the instant she's free, all that stillness and perfect positioning dissolvin' into frantic movement. Her arms wrap around my waist before I can step back, huggin' me tight, her face pressed hard against my stomach.
The contact is sudden, overwhelming—her bare skin against my jeans, her breasts crushed against my abdomen, the heat of her breathin' through my t-shirt in rapid, desperate bursts.
"Help me," she begs again, the words muffled against my body. "Please. I need—I need them. I need my Master. I need my King. I need—"
Her grip tightens, fingers diggin' into my back like I'm the only solid thing in a world that's spinnin' too fast.
"Emmaleen—"
"Please," she whispers, over and over. "Please, please, please—"
She tilts her head back, lookin' up at me.
The movement stretches her throat wide—long, pale, vulnerable. Giovanni's collar sits tight against her skin, the leather dark against the column of her neck. I can see her pulse hammerin' beneath the surface, rapid and erratic, visible proof of whatever storm is ragin' inside her.
Her soft breath ghosts across my stomach even through the fabric of my shirt—warm, intimate, too close.
Instantly, I'm hard.
The response is immediate, visceral, completely beyond my control. My cock thickens against my jeans, pressin' uncomfortably against the zipper as blood rushes south and every rational thought I've been clawin' onto for the past sixteen hours evaporates.
Old urges bloom inside me—familiar, insidious, powerful as any drug I've ever watched men destroy themselves over. Except, it's not just an urge, is it? Not just some fleeting thought I can dismiss with enough willpower or distraction.
This need I have for puttin' my hands on the throats of women, feelin' their pulse flutter beneath my fingertips, watchin' their eyes go hazy with oxygen deprivation and somethin' else—somethin' darker that lives in that space between control and surrender as I fuck them into oblivion…
It's an addiction.
Pure and simple. Clinical. The kind of craving that sits in your bones and waits patiently for moments exactly like this—when a beautiful, broken woman is beggin' you for somethin' you know how to give her, when her vulnerability is laid out like an offering, when every instinct you've spent years trainin' yourself to master suddenly whispers that maybe just this once wouldn't hurt, that maybe she needs it as much as you want it, that maybe this time will be different.
My brain supplies an image before I can stop it—my hand wrapped around her throat.
Not gentle. Not careful. Fingers pressin' into the sides of her neck just above Giovanni's collar, applyin' pressure to the arteries, watchin' her pupils dilate even further as the blood flow restricts and her body goes pliant and trusting beneath my grip.
I can picture it so clearly it feels like memory instead of imagination.
Her head tiltin' back further, exposing more of that vulnerable stretch of skin.
Her lips partin' on a gasp. The way her eyes glaze over, not with fear but with somethin' worse—relief.
Surrender. Like my hand on her throat is exactly what she's been cravin' since the moment I dragged her out of Giovanni's mansion.
No.
I shove her away—hard, rougher than I mean to.
She stumbles back onto the bed, the force knockin' her off-balance.
"Don't," I snap, voice comin' out harsher than intended. "Don't fuckin'—just don't."
Emmaleen curls into herself immediately, knees pullin' up to her chest, arms wrappin' around her legs. She makes herself small—impossibly small for someone who moments ago was reachin' for me like I was salvation.
And then she starts cryin'.
Not the performative tears from before, when she was beggin' for her King and her Master.
These are different—raw, broken, the kind of sobbin' that comes from somewhere deep and unreachable.
Her shoulders shake with it, her whole body tremblin' as she presses her face against her knees and just breaks.
I stand there, still hard, still breathin' too fast, hands clenched into fists at my sides.
Father Patrick's voice cuts through the chaos in my head, sharp and knowin'. Lorcan, mah boy, what've ya done now?
"Fuck off," I mutter under my breath.
Ya brought her here. Ya cuffed her to yer bed. Ya got hard lookin' at her throat. And now she's cryin' on yer sheets and ya don't know whether to comfort her or call Giovanni and beg him to take her back.
"I said, fuck off."
But he's not wrong.
I don't know what I'm doin'. Don't know if I'm helpin' or hurtin'. Don't know if draggin' her away from Giovanni was an act of mercy or just another layer of cruelty in a situation already so fucked up I can barely see the edges of it anymore.
All I know is that she's naked and broken on my bed, cryin' like the world's endin', and my cock is still thick and wantin' against my jeans because apparently I'm just as much of a monster as Giovanni.
I'm just better at pretendin' I'm not.
I suck in a deep breath.
Let it out slow.
And then I pull my phone out of my pocket and find his number.
Giovanni picks up on the first ring.
His growl is deep and his words are hard. "About fucking time."