Excerpt from Dante
Dante
Katerina’s arms and legs are crossed as she hugs her body and tries to make herself as small as possible, nestled against
the corner of the car so she’s as far from me as she can physically be. I decided to accompany her in the back in case she
tried to pull any kind of escape attempt. Given how feisty she was in her house earlier, I’m pretty sure we got ourselves
a live wire. There aren’t many people who would have the balls to try and shoot Max.
Speaking of my best friend, I can sense his eyes on me in the rearview mirror every few minutes, probably wondering what the
hell I’m even thinking, bringing her to my house instead of making an example of her.
Unfortunately I have no answer to that question for him.
No reasonable explanation as to why I’m taking her as payment for her brother’s debt.
Instead I should be doing whatever is necessary to get any information out of her that might lead me to the slippery little fuck.
But, I believed her when she said she had no idea where he was, and besides that, there’s something about her that intrigues me.
I did a background check on her when we were trying to find Leo.
She trained to be a nurse, and she worked as one in Northwestern Memorial for three years.
Seems she was good at it too. I read all her performance reviews.
Incredible with patients and respected by her colleagues.
Then two years ago, she quit, and nobody from the hospital ever heard from her again. She left her nice apartment block and
moved to one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. She took a night shift, cleaning empty office blocks. Besides that,
she rarely leaves the house.
She’s a mystery. A puzzle I want to solve. I’ve always been good at reading people. Usually, within a few minutes, I can figure
out their story, but not her. That’s what intrigues me about her. It has nothing to do with her bright blue eyes and the fire
in them when she stood up to Maximo and me. Nothing to do with her perky tits straining against that cleaning uniform she
has on beneath her coat, or her full pink lips and how good they would look if I was fucking her smart mouth. And absolutely
nothing to do with the way her blatant defiance and disregard for who I am made me harder than I’ve ever been in my life.
No. Not that at all.
When we pull up to my house, Katerina cranes her neck to get a full view of the place. It’s huge, with two wings, one for
me, and one for my brother and his wife. But he’s not living here right now. No doubt, she’s already looking for ways to escape.
She won’t find any.
Once Max has stopped the car, I climb out and walk around to her side. When I pull the door open, she scowls at me. I suppress
a smile. Feisty little kitten.
I hold out my hand to her. “You can walk into the house, or I will carry you in. And you can kick and scream for help and
not one single person here will stop me or come to your rescue.”
She glares at me as she weighs her options, and a few seconds later, she steps out of the car, ignoring my proffered hand.
Her jaw is set in defiance as she walks the few steps to the house beside me.
Max grabs her small suitcase from the trunk.
She didn’t bring much, just a few clothes and toiletries and a photo album.
My housekeeper, Sophia, opens the door as we reach it, having been informed of our expected arrival by Max.
“Mr. Moretti,” she says with a polite nod.
“Sophia, this is Katerina. Can you show her to her room?”
She doesn’t show any hint of surprise on her face, despite the strangeness of this situation. It’s not like me to introduce
my female houseguests to my housekeeper, and even more so for me to offer them their own room. “Of course, sir,” she replies,
opening the door and ushering Katerina inside.
Katerina turns to me, her eyes wide and full of anxiety. A shiver of excitement runs up my spine. I like the way she looks
at me. Here, I am the man with all the answers she needs. I’m the man who holds the key to her future. She is dependent on
me, and for reasons I’m not entirely sure of yet, I definitely like that.
“I’ll bring your bag up in a moment,” I tell her, and she nods, although her face is still understandably clouded in confusion
and uncertainty.
She obediently follows Sophia along the hallway and up the stairs and I watch her, drawn to the sight of her round ass swaying
in her skintight uniform. I’m not sure which side of her I like best yet—feisty or obedient. But I’m determined to acquaint
myself with both. I sink my teeth into my bottom lip to stop a groan from escaping.
A few seconds later, Max joins me.
“You sure you know what you’re doing, D?” he asks, giving me a look that suggests he knows my motives aren’t entirely driven
by my need to recoup the money that Leo Evanson stole from us.
As I always do, I answer him honestly. “No fucking clue, Max.”
He rolls his eyes. “So, what exactly is she gonna be doing while she’s here?”
“I’ll think of something.”
His lips twitch in the hint of a smirk. “I’m sure you will.”
I ignore his innuendo, not wanting to talk about her like that with him. And the truth is, I don’t only want her here because the thought of breaking down her walls and fucking her until she screams my name is so appealing. “She
was a nurse, right?” I remind him. “Surely, she has skills that will be useful to us?”
“Sure,” he says, but he’s still looking at me like he knows I’m thinking about another set of skills she might have. “You
haven’t forgotten your pop is coming for dinner later, have you?”
“Fuck!”
He chuckles. “You did forget?”
I screw my eyes closed and pinch the bridge of my nose, trying to stave off the headache that’s already building. “You know
I do my best to forget anything related to him.”
“Good thing one of us is on the ball though?” He nudges my arm, and I roll my eyes at him.
Anyone else tried to ride my ass like he does and I’d put a bullet in them. But Max is like a brother to me. He’s a year older
than I am and we grew up together. Our fathers were best friends until his was murdered when he was fourteen. He lived with
us after that. There was no official adoption—it just was. I would die for him and he’d do the same for me in a heartbeat.
Loyalty like that is hard to come by, especially in this life.
“Why do you think I keep you around here?” I say as I take Katerina’s bag from him.
“Because you couldn’t fucking function without me.” He heads off down the hallway to my study, whistling as he goes, while
I head upstairs to welcome our guest.
Sophia is leaving the room when I reach it, and when I walk inside, Katerina is staring out the window, looking at the courtyard below. She’s taken off her coat at least, so I figure she’s accepted she won’t be leaving anytime soon.
“How is the room?”
The sound of my voice makes her spin on her heel. She glares at me, eyes full of fury. “Kind of nice for a prison cell,” she
says, brimming with snark.
Goddammit, I want nothing more than to throw her on the bed and fuck that attitude out of her. Perhaps later.
“Well, it does have a very robust lock,” I tell her. “Not that you’ll need it.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
I take a step closer and she doesn’t flinch. “Well, nobody lives here, except me. And Sophia of course, but she lives downstairs.”
She arches an eyebrow at me and I would dearly fucking love to fuck that defiant look off her face. “It would take more than
a lock to keep me out if I wanted in here, kitten.”
She averts her eyes for a second, then hugs her arms to her chest, shivering as she rubs her bare arms as though she’s cold
despite the warm room. Is that from fear or something else? A few seconds later, her eyes are on me once more. “What exactly
do you want with me? Are you planning on just keeping me here forever, or am I only supposed to stay here until I pay off
this debt?”
“Yes.”
The spot between her brows pinches in a frown. “Yes what? You’re keeping me here forever or until I work off Leo’s debt?”
How about both? I roll my neck and take a breath. Something about this woman has gotten under my goddamn skin. She challenges me, and I should
hate that, but I really fucking don’t. “You’ll work off your brother’s substantial debt and then you can leave,” I say instead.
“And just how do I do that? And how long will it take? What about my actual job? My house?” She fires off the questions, arms
still crossed over her chest.
“Your employer will be informed of your new circumstances. Your house will be maintained until you’re ready to return to it.
And as for how long that will take, that all depends on how good you are,” I say, crossing the room until I’m standing so close to her I can smell her scent.
It’s not a perfume. It’s sweet like chocolate.
The cocoa butter lotion I saw her throwing in her bag earlier.
“Good at what?” she whispers, and her lip trembles slightly.
I don’t know what makes me harder—feisty Katerina or trembling-with-fear Katerina. I’m going to have plenty of fun with both
of them. But not today. Not yet.
I could pin her down on this bed and fuck her senseless and there wouldn’t be a single thing she could do about it. No matter
how hard she fought me or how loud she screamed, nobody would come to her aid. But as much as I want her, and despite the
kind of man I am, I’m not in the habit of forcing myself on women.
“Whatever it is I tell you to do.”
Her lip wobbles again and I step closer until I’m invading every inch of her personal space. She sucks in a deep breath, making
those goddamn tits strain against the snaps on her uniform even more. One flick of my wrist and that damn uniform would be
open and her chest would be completely exposed. I ram my hands into my pockets to stop myself from touching her. I can tell
that she wants to step back and give herself a little space, but she’s too stubborn to back down. And that only makes me want
her more.
“I am not having sex with you,” she snarls.
“I don’t force women into having sex with me. I certainly don’t have to pay them for the privilege.”
Relief shines in her eyes momentarily, and because I’m a twisted fuck who likes to see how far I can push her, I say, “My
men, on the other hand . . . Well, they are a different matter.”
“I—I’m not having sex with anyone,” she stammers, and tears well in her eyes as she steps away from me, pressing her back
against the window. “I’d rather you kill me than keep me here like some paid whore to entertain your men.”
There’s a terror in her eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago.
Something deeper and more primal than anything I’ve seen from her already.
She’s hiding a secret and it’s shimmering just beneath the surface now.
I can almost feel it, but she keeps it well hidden.
And I find myself doing something completely out of character—giving her some reassurance.
“You were a nurse, right? So I’m sure you have other talents that will come in useful instead, Katerina. ”
Without waiting for her reply, I walk toward the door. I don’t want to give her any further indication that I am anything
but the monster she believes I am. It’s better for both of us if she goes on believing that.
“My name is Kat. I hate Katerina,” she calls after me.
Is this what déjà vu feels like? Because I’ve heard those words before. It stops me in my tracks and I turn around and face
her once more. And suddenly it’s six years ago and I’m looking at someone else’s face. We stood here in this room, just like
this, and she said almost those exact same words. Except Nicole preferred Nicci, and she was never my prisoner. She was here
through choice. Until she wasn’t.
My chest tightens as five years of rage and guilt surges up from my gut, threatening to spill out until I push it all back
down where it belongs.
“Are you okay?” Kat’s voice snaps me from the past, reminding me that that time in my life has long gone. “You look like you’ve
just seen a ghost.”
“Maybe,” I mumble, and she blinks at me in confusion. “Anyway, make yourself at home until I figure out what to do with you.”
Something unreadable flickers in her expression.
“Except for my study, you’re free to explore the house. But you try and escape and I will hand you over to my men to do with
as they please. You understand me?”
She offers a single obedient nod. “Yes.”
Fuck! My cock is twitching with the idea of pushing her and seeing exactly how submissive I could force her to be.
I blow out a breath and try to clear my mind of images of her on her knees.
“Sophia makes dinner around eight. You can eat wherever you like, but my father is coming this evening, so I’d prefer you eat in your room. ”
“I’d rather eat in here anyway,” she snipes.
From docile to full of sass in a heartbeat. Kat Evanson fascinates me. “Of course you would. Not much of a people person, are you?”
She rests her hands on her hips. “Well, you tell me since you seem to know a hell of a lot about me, Mr. Moretti.”
Whatever glimpse of vulnerability she allowed me to see a moment ago has vanished, and her armor is firmly back in place.
I remind myself that’s a good thing; she’ll need that armor while she’s living here. “I make it my business to know everything
there is to know about my enemies, Ms. Evanson.”
I walk out the door and close it behind me. I need to do something to take my mind off the fiery wildcat because walking around
my house with a semipermanent hard-on isn’t my idea of a good time.
Maybe I should just fuck her and get it over with. Get her out of my head so I can focus. Except that I don’t want to simply
take Kat; I want to own every single part of her. And the worst of it is, I have absolutely no idea why.
*****