Page 28

Wrapping the towel around my hair, I find a robe hanging on the back of the door – also in forest green – and slide it on so I can at least be covered while I do my skincare, makeup, and hair.

I highly doubt the guard outside the door would dare come in here, but I still don’t want any of them to see me naked.

Sure, they’ve seen me naked. They’ve touched me, tasted me, fucked me in every way possible. But that was a lifetime ago.

And until they start treating me with a little more kindness and respect and perhaps even listen to what I have to say, I have no intention of willingly lying down and spreading my legs for any of them.

Who are you kidding? One kiss from Maddox and your body was instantly on fire.

“Shut up,” I mutter to my stupid inner voice. Because I really don’t need the reminder of the way Madd’s lips felt nor the way my body awakened, and it felt as though my soul was stretching toward its other half.

It takes me close to thirty minutes to apply enough makeup to look like I didn’t drink half a bottle of wine and tame my long hair. Then I pull on the cropped sweater and the skirt that flares out almost like a schoolgirl’s skirt and leaves very little to the imagination.

No way am I going commando under this thing. One breeze and I’ll be flashing my ass and pussy to anyone looking in my general direction.

They can pretend to hate me all they want, but if they’re as possessive as they were before, someone might end up with a broken nose if I accidentally flash my body at them.

This whole thing might be a tactic, but Kato has staked his claim. The only people he has ever or will ever share me with are Brix and Madd. Like Karolos said, it would be a death sentence if Kato thought I was even thinking of another man.

Ducking into the closet, I settle on a pair of ballet flats, sliding my feet into them before making my way to the bedroom door. I don’t bother with a purse since I literally have nothing to stuff inside; no phone, no ID, nothing.

Kato has stripped me down until I’m fully reliant on him for the time being, and wives of any of the Families don’t work. Hence my surprise that Alexa was not only working as a wedding coordinator but had divorced her husband.

But they still have their talons in her. She might have been able to walk away from her husband, but the Antonious will never let her walk away scot-free, not with her life intact. Even when we know next to nothing about the inner workings, we women are seen as a risk if the police were to ever question us.

It’s all a bunch of archaic, antiquated, and highly misogynistic bullshit.

I’d thought my guys were different. Theyweredifferent.

Kato has become his father, though. Like the moment he had to step up as the head of the Greek Family, he was molded into someone he used to despise.

The new guard stands outside my door and steps aside when I open the door. And, like they’d said would happen, he falls into step barely two feet behind me as I move through the hallway and descend the stairs in search of a quick breakfast before this mystery appointment Brix told me about.

“Where is everyone?” I ask over my shoulder.

The guy doesn’t answer.

I stop on the foyer, and he almost plows me over in his attempt to stop.

“Did you hear me?”

His eyes drop to my face then raise over my head.

“Seriously? You’re not even going to look at me? How the hell are you supposed to watch me if you can’t look at me?”

“He can watch you without ogling you,” Kato says as he steps into the hallway from another door. The office, if I remember correctly. “You’re not leaving the house in that.”

“Well, being as you’re the one who set the rules, you might want to discuss that with Brix. He picked this…outfit.”

I grab the sides of the skirt and tug them to the sides a little. And maybe it’s a bit of a tease being as the movement flashes the bottom of my panties to the room, but I don’t care.

Minute by minute, I’m growing angrier. Which, in my opinion, is the exact opposite effect Kato is going for by the flare of his nostrils and the clench of his jaw.

When he storms toward me, I raise my chin to give him access to my throat since I’ve quickly figured out exactly what he plans.

“If you’re going to choke me, the least you can do is call me a good girl this time,” I say.

It takes almost everything in me to keep from smirking at the way Kato’s steps falter and his lips fall open.