Chapter Thirteen
Nikolai's POV
I couldn't sleep worth a damn.
The bed was too empty, the room too quiet, and my mind kept circling back to the little spitfire down the hall. Nina. The girl who'd nearly drowned herself trying to escape. The girl who looked at us like we were monsters but couldn't hide the way her body responded when we got close.
I'd been the one to pull her from the ocean. Felt her go limp in my arms, dead weight dragging us both down. Breathed air back into her lungs while my heart tried to claw its way out of my chest.
She had no idea how close she'd come. How I'd torn through that water like it was trying to steal something that belonged to me.
Thirty seconds later and she would've been gone.
The thought made my jaw clench hard enough to ache.
I threw off the covers and pulled on sweatpants. Maybe a drink would settle the restlessness crawling under my skin. Maybe a cigar on the balcony would burn out whatever the hell this obsession was becoming.
Instead, I heard voices as I reached the stairs.
Low. Tense. Coming from the living room.
Old instincts kicked in. Years of wetwork, surveillance, staying invisible when you needed leverage. I moved into the shadows without thinking, silent as smoke.
Then I saw them.
Enzo had Nina bent over his lap in the leather chair by the fireplace. Her small body draped across his thighs, that oversized shirt riding up to expose thin sleep shorts that might as well have been nothing. His hand came down hard. The crack of palm against flesh echoed through the quiet room like a gunshot.
"Doce," she whimpered.
Every muscle in my body locked tight.
My cock went from half interested to painfully hard in the space of a heartbeat. I should leave. Should give Enzo privacy to discipline what was ours. Should not be standing here in the dark watching him touch her while jealousy and lust fought for control in my chest.
But I couldn't move. Couldn't look away.
Another slap. Her body jerked, then arched. Seeking more even as she trembled. Even as she counted.
"Trece."
Enzo's voice was pure command, steady and controlled. Everything I wasn't feeling right now. "That's it. Keep going."
I wanted to be the one sitting in that chair. Wanted to feel her weight across my lap, her skin heating under my palm, her voice breaking as she counted for me in that soft Spanish that made me think of her mother. Of everything she'd lost. Everything that made her vulnerable.
Everything that made me want to protect her and ruin her in equal measure.
I pulled a cigar from my pocket with hands that weren't quite steady. Lit it slowly, the flame briefly illuminating my face before I snapped the lighter closed. I drew in smoke, let it fill my lungs. Tried to use the ritual to find control.
It didn't work.
Fourteen. Fifteen. Sixteen.
Each count breathier than the last. Her fingers gripped the armrest until her knuckles went white. Her breathing had gone ragged. Needy.
She was getting off on this. On Enzo's hands. Enzo's control. Enzo's attention.
The realization made something dark and possessive coil in my gut. Made my hand drift to my cock before I could stop myself. I palmed the length through thin fabric, squeezing hard, trying to ease the ache building there.
Blyad. I was losing my mind over a girl half my size who hated us.
"Diecinueve."
One more. Just one more and this would be over.
The twentieth slap landed dead center. Nina's whole body went rigid. She bit down on her hand, but the moan tore free anyway. Loud. Desperate. Absolutely unmistakable.
I squeezed myself harder and bit down on the cigar to keep from making a sound. From walking over there and putting my hands on her too. From starting something with Enzo that would end bloody.
He was my brother in everything but blood. I respected him. Trusted him with my life.
But watching him touch her made me want to break his fingers.
Enzo helped her up with surprising gentleness, adjusting her shirt like she was something fragile. Then he walked her toward the stairs, his hand possessive on her lower back. Guiding her. Owning her.
The jealousy was a living thing now, hot and irrational.
I should go back to my room. Should leave before they spotted me lurking in the shadows like some obsessed fool. Should take care of my problem in the shower and forget this ever happened.
My legs carried me toward her door instead.
What the hell was I doing?
I stood in the hallway outside her room, the cigar burning down between my fingers. Forgotten. My cock still throbbed, demanding attention I wouldn't give it. Not yet. Not until I knew she was settled. Safe.
Mine to watch over, even if Enzo had been the one to touch her.
Then I heard it through the door.
A sound that made every thought in my head go quiet.
She was touching herself.
I moved closer without meaning to. Pressed near enough to hear her breathing quicken. Small sounds escaped her throat, muffled like she was trying desperately to stay silent. My hand tightened around the cigar until I felt it start to crack. Until ash dusted my knuckles.
Then came a gasp. A whimper. A moan that went straight to my balls and made my vision blur at the edges.
"Fuck," she whispered on the other side of that thin door. "What's wrong with me? I hate these motherfuckers for making me feel this way."
The words should have cut. Should have reminded me that we'd bought her like property, that she had every right to hate us.
Instead, they made me smile in the darkness.
She hated us. Hated what we made her feel. Hated that her body was betraying everything her mind believed.
Good. That made two of us, kotyonok. That made two of us.
I turned to leave. To give her privacy. To go deal with my own need before I did something stupid like kick down her door and show her exactly what those motherfuckers could make her feel.
Then I heard the click of her door opening.
Just a crack. Just enough for her to peek out into the hallway, checking to see if her sounds had carried. If someone had heard her shame.
Our eyes met.
She froze like a deer caught in headlights. Face flushed deep red, eyes wide and glazed, lips parted on a breath she'd forgotten to take. Her chest heaved, making her breasts strain against that thin shirt. No bra. Nipples hard and visible even in the dim light.
I couldn't look away. Couldn't pretend I hadn't been standing here listening. Couldn't do anything but stare at her like she was water and I was dying of thirst.
She was beautiful like this. Terrified and aroused and caught.
I gave her a small smile, bringing the cigar to my lips for a drag I barely tasted. "Care for some?"
She blinked at me, confused. Her brain clearly wasn't working right. "What?"
"A cigar." I held it up between us. Watched her eyes track the movement. "You look like you could use something to take the edge off, malishka."
She stared at it with childlike curiosity, her head tilting. Like she'd never seen a man smoke before. Like she'd never done anything remotely dangerous in her sheltered little life.
I chuckled low in my throat. "Don't tell me you've never smoked."
She shook her head quickly, then seemed to realize what she was admitting. Her cheeks went impossibly redder.
"You're so innocent," I said softly. Meaning it. Hating it. Wanting to corrupt every pure thing about her.
She crossed her arms defensively, and Christ, that only pushed her breasts up higher. Fuller. More tempting. "It's not like I don't drink alcohol. I'm not a baby."
I dragged my gaze back to her face with effort, running my tongue over my bottom lip. "Then I'll get you some alcohol."
Her eyes widened. Suspicious even through the haze of arousal. "Why would you do that? Are you trying to poison me? Drug me?"
I held her stare, letting the question hang heavy between us. Let her see that I meant what I was about to say. "I know it's hard on you. Losing your mother. Then all of this."
I gestured vaguely at the house, at her captivity, at the three men who owned her now whether she wanted it or not. "Getting a little drunk might help you sleep."
Something in her expression cracked wide open. She nodded quickly, blinking against tears that suddenly filled those dark eyes.
"Wait here," I said.
I went downstairs and found one of Dante's expensive bottles in the study. Macallan 25. The kind you didn't waste on someone who wouldn't appreciate it. But Nina needed forgetting more than she needed taste right now.
I grabbed two glasses and headed back up.
She was still standing in her doorway when I returned, frozen like she'd been waiting for me to disappear. Like maybe I was a hallucination her lonely, desperate mind had conjured.
I knocked softly on the doorframe even though I had keys. Even though I could've walked right in.
"Come in," she said quietly.
I stepped inside and closed the door behind me with a soft click that sounded too loud in the silence. Set the glasses on her nightstand. Poured generous measures into both while she watched like I was performing surgery.
"I thought you had keys," she said.
"I do." I handed her a glass, our fingers brushing. "But courtesy matters. We might be beasts, but we're not animals."
She took the glass, staring at the amber liquid like it held answers. "Why two cups?"
I settled into the chair by her window, the cigar still smoldering between my fingers. Still forgotten. "Why would I let a prisoner get drunk without watching over her?"
She shook her head but raised the glass to her lips without another word. Downed it in one smooth swallow that surprised me.
I raised an eyebrow. "Easy, kitten."
But she was already holding out her glass for more, her hand steady despite everything.
So I poured. And she drank. Again and again. I just watched, barely touching my own glass, letting the silence settle thick between us while smoke curled toward the ceiling.
She didn't ask questions. Didn't try to make conversation. Just drank like she was trying to drown something clawing its way up from inside her chest.
I understood that urge better than she knew.
By the time the bottle was three quarters empty, her words had started to slur. Her movements gone loose and uncoordinated in a way that made her seem younger. More fragile.
"You know what's funny?" She blinked slowly at me, unfocused. "I thought when I graduated, I'd travel. See the world. Be free for the first time in my life." She laughed, and it sounded bitter. Broken. "Instead I'm here. Sold like furniture. Trapped in a house with three men who touch other women right in front of me while I—"
She cut herself off, shaking her head hard.
My chest tightened. "While you what?"
"While I want them to touch me instead." The words spilled out quiet and raw before she seemed to catch herself. Her eyes went wide. "I mean—nothing. Doesn't matter."
But it did matter. It mattered so much I forgot how to breathe for a second.
She'd just admitted it. Admitted she wanted us. That watching Enzo with that woman, watching me smoke in her doorway, watching all of it had made her ache.
The cigar burned down to nothing between my fingers. I barely noticed.
Her eyes were having trouble focusing now. She swayed even sitting on the edge of her bed.
"Time for bed, kotyonok."
"Not tired," she mumbled, even as her eyes drooped half closed.
I stubbed out what was left of the cigar and set the bottle aside. Moved to the bed. She didn't protest when I guided her down onto the mattress, pulled the covers up around her small frame.
She was asleep before her head settled into the pillow.
I stood there longer than I should have. Just looking at her. Her face peaceful now in a way it never was when she was awake. Young. Vulnerable. Completely at my mercy.
She had no idea what tomorrow would bring. What Dante had planned as real punishment for trying to contact her friend. What lines we were about to cross that couldn't be uncrossed.
I reached down and brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. Then, without letting myself think about it, I pressed a kiss to her forehead. Soft. Almost reverent.
"Rest, little kitten," I whispered against her skin. "Because tomorrow we're going to break you. And you're going to let us."
I stepped out and closed the door quietly behind me.
My cock was still hard. My mind still spinning with images of her bent over Enzo's lap, her confession, the way she'd looked at me in that doorway like she wanted me to devour her.
But something had shifted tonight. Something dangerous that I couldn't name and wasn't ready to examine too closely.
I headed back to my room, the taste of expensive whiskey and Nina's fear and need still thick in the air.
Tomorrow, everything will change.
Tomorrow, she'd learn exactly what it meant to belong to us.