Page 23 of Brutal Devil

I hate this. I’m an independent woman. For the last five years, I’ve answered to no one. And now, here I am, trapped back inside a gilded cage. Told what to do. Where to be. Who I can talk to.

“Ask me,” I say.

For a long moment, silence stretches between us. I’m pushing him, and I know it. But I have to. I can’t not. Fighting is ingrained in me.

“Say that again,” he orders with quiet, silken menace.

“Ask me,” I repeat.

“No.” He stalks toward me, and before I can even try to run, he catches me, tossing me over his shoulder like I weigh practically nothing.

“Bastard!” I pummel his lower back in outrage. “Put me down.”

He stalks to the table and kicks out a chair before lowering me into it. He’s none too gentle, and I think he’s lucky he didn’t break the chair, but then he’s leaning into me, his face so close I can feel his breath ghost over my lips when he speaks.

“I give orders and you obey them. Understand?”

I hold his stare, unflinching. “Orders? Who the hell do you think you are?”

“I’m the don of the Andriani family, soon to be the don of the Andriani and Revello families united as one,” he bites out. “AndI don’t care if you’re the fucking Virgin Mary. You’re still going to listen to me. Is that clear?”

Head of the Andrianis? I had no idea his father was no longer alive. And now he’s aligning the two families. That means Priest is about to become the most powerful mobster in the city.

Dear God. No wonder he wants to marry me.

“Nothing else to say, little wife?” he asks snidely. “Didn’t think so.”

And then, as if he hasn’t just shocked me to my marrow after manhandling me into a chair, he proceeds to serve me a heaping, steaming portion of lasagna that smells like pure bliss in food form—garlic, fresh parm and mozz, and sweet baby Jesus, homemade sauceandpasta. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve had something this good in front of me on a plate. Okay, maybe a hot decade, if I’m honest. I think about refusing to eat it just to spite Priest, but I’m starving, and besides, he didn’t cook this. Maria did.

We eat our dinner in strained silence.

The wine is good. The lasagna even better.

But I can’t enjoy it. It’s all like ash in my mouth.

How the hell am I going to get myself out of this mess alive?

Priest

“Drinking alone, brother?”

I’m sitting at my marble-topped bar, the one with the killer view of the city I’m usually too fucking busy to ever enjoy. The night is alive outside the window, a glorious blend of darkness and glistening lights, the hulking behemoths of manmade dinosaurs shadowing the distance.

“Iwasdrinking alone,” I tell Saint pointedly.

But in truth, I don’t mind the company. My brothers and I are all gathered here at the penthouse for the night. Watching over our prize, Luna Revello, and one another. We’ve come too far, worked too hard, to fuck this alliance up.

“Scotch?” he asks, plopping onto a barstool at my side.

Everything I need is within reach—a lowball and the Johnnie Walker Blue, along with some ice. Cubes plink into the crystal, and then I pour carefully before sliding it to him. “There you go, asshole.”

Saint takes the glass. “Now I’m the asshole? I’m not the one playing Prince Charming with the Revello girl.”

His words hit a nerve. Because part of me wanted to treat Luna like a date tonight. Like a woman I’m trying to impress and seduce. And the other part of me—the don I’ve reluctantly become—knew that I needed a show of strength instead.

“Prince Charming?” I bare my teeth at him like a feral dog. “Do me a favor and fuck yourself.”

“What would you call the way you stormed after her? And then tonight? Roc told me you had a candlelight dinner. Jesus, it must have been like—what’s that fucking movie, the one with the dogs sharing the spaghetti—up in here.101 Dalmatians.”