Page 30 of Madness & Mercy (Deadly Sins #1)

JULIAN

How long has it been?

Minutes? Hours? Days?

Time’s a blur when you’re cuffed to a chair, half naked and hard as a fucking rock, mind unraveling by the second. My wrists are numb, my throat’s dry, and my dick is still aching.

This isn’t what I pictured when I imagined Nico finding out.

I thought maybe he’d put a bullet in my gut and leave me to bleed out slowly. Toss my body in the river. What I didn’t expect was… nothing. The silence. The restraint. The suffocating wait.

Somehow, him not touching me is worse than if he had.

I glance around the room, but my eyes lock on the blinking red light in the corner. A camera.

Bastard’s watching me.

I stare straight into it. Into him.

“Come on, asshole. Don’t leave me like this,” I snarl, my voice hoarse.

Nothing.

My jaw tightens.

“…Please,” I add, quieter this time.

And that’s when I hear it. The soft click of the door unlatching.

Then he enters, immaculate and calm like he’s walking into a board meeting, not a room where I’m strung up, desperate, and humiliated.

He closes the door behind him with a soft click, then checks his Rolex as if I’m just a minor inconvenience on his schedule.

“What is it, cagnolino?” he murmurs, his tone icy. “I’m a very busy man.”

My teeth sink into the inside of my cheek, hard enough to draw blood. It coats my tongue, metallic and hot.

“What’s it gonna take?” I rasp. “To make this right. For you to forgive me. I’ll do anything.”

His mouth twitches into something that’s not a smile.

“I let you in, Julian,” he says, circling me slowly. “Into my home. My operation. I gave you everything.”

He stops behind me. I feel his voice on my skin, low and lethal.

“And you repay me with betrayal.”

The air turns razor sharp. I want to bolt. I want to lie. But I can’t do either.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I whisper.

Nico walks around to face me. He tilts my chin up with two fingers.

“Tell me what he offered you that I didn’t.”

My mouth is desert dry.

“Please,” I start. “You have to believe me. Yes, I was hired to kill you—”

His gaze darkens.

“—but it changed. Everything changed. I didn’t give him anything real. I lied to him to protect you. I gave him scraps. Just enough to keep him off my back, not enough to hurt you. I swear.”

He watches me with no reaction. Doesn’t even blink.

“You think that earns you mercy?” he mutters.

His voice could strip paint off a wall. He grabs the back of the chair and slams it forward an inch, just enough to make me jolt.

“You lived under my roof. Ate at my table. Let me touch you. Begged for me.”

He leans in, his breath hot against my ear.

“And the whole time, you were feeding a fucking viper scraps off my plate.”

The chair rocks back onto all four legs again. I flinch. He watches.

“You should be dead.”

“I know,” I breathe. “I know I should be.”

His fingers brush my jaw, ghosting over the column of my throat.

“But you didn’t kill me,” he murmurs. “Even though keeping me alive meant risking your life.”

His eyes narrow, searching mine.

“That’s either loyalty…” he says slowly, “or insanity.”

He stares at my mouth. I can practically feel him dissecting every word I might say.

“So which is it, Julian? Hm?” His voice softens, but the threat doubles. “Are you mine… or are you still his?”

I could lie, but he’d hear it. He always does.

“I’m yours,” I whisper, barely breathing it. But it lands like a confession I should’ve made months ago.

He stills for a beat, just long enough for it to hit. Then his hand curls tighter, his thumb brushing my lips.

“Say it again.”

“I’m yours,” I choke out.

He leans in close, his forehead pressed to mine. His voice is low, jagged, and dangerous.

“Don’t say it because you’re afraid. Don’t say it because you’re chained. Say it because it’s the one truth left in your goddamn chest, piccolino.”

And I do mean it. That’s the worst part.

Because he could kill me, he could kiss me… and I don’t know which would ruin me more.

He makes the decision for me.

His hand tangles in my hair. He yanks my head back. And then his mouth is on me in a brutal, claiming kiss made of fire and fury and everything he doesn’t say out loud.

“You don’t get to say that like it means nothing,” he growls. “You’re mine now. No more lies. No more games.”

His teeth scrape down my jaw. His fingers wrap around my throat again, tighter this time.

“You belong to me.”

He pulls back just enough to meet my eyes.

“If you betray me again,” he says, “I won’t just kill you, Julian. I’ll fucking destroy you.”

His grip clenches.

“I’ll break you apart piece by piece. You’ll beg for death, and I won’t give it.”

My pulse hammers against his hand.

“But if you stay,” he adds, quieter now, “I’ll make sure no one ever lays a finger on you again. Not Silvio. Not your past. No one.”

It sounds like a threat, but it lands like a vow.

He brushes the corner of my mouth, wiping away the dried blood like he’s either claiming me or cleaning up something he’s not done breaking.

“You think I’d let anyone touch what’s mine?”

He steps behind me. I hear the soft click—the first cuff released. Then the second…. but he doesn’t let go.

He leans in, his lips grazing the shell of my ear.

“You want protection?”

Click.

“You have it.”

Click.

“But there’s a price.”

He grabs the front of my shirt and yanks me to my feet.

“Truth. Loyalty. Me.”

His hand presses to my chest, over my hammering heart.

“You don’t get to run. You don’t get to lie. You stay… and you belong to me.”

The cuffs are gone, but his grip is even tighter.

“So what am I now?” I ask. “Your prisoner? Your hostage?”

Nico’s smile isn’t kind, it’s the kind you see just before the blade sinks in.

He tilts his head, studying me like he’s memorizing every place he could break me, and every place he already has.

“No. If you were my hostage, I wouldn’t ask you to stay.”

He steps in again, his hand sliding to the back of my neck.

“If you were my prisoner, I wouldn’t kiss you like this.”

And he does. This one is slow and deep, hot enough to burn straight through the guilt.

When he pulls back, I’m shaking.

“You’re not a hostage,” he says, his voice low.

“You’re mine. That’s the difference.”

He lets the words sink in, heavy and final.

“But don’t forget what this is,” he mutters “You betrayed me. You lied. And you’re going to spend every waking minute of every second earning your place at my side.”

My pulse is thundering.

“And if you run?” he murmurs. “I won’t just chase you.”

He leans in closer, so close I can feel his body heat.

“I’ll hunt you down and drag you back where you belong.”

I stagger backwards, his words catching me off guard.

And he moves before I can blink.

One second I’m standing there, wrists red from the cuffs, chest still heaving from whatever the hell that last confession just ripped out of me, and the next, my back’s against the wall.

Nico’s palm slams against the concrete beside my head. The other grips my cock, applying just enough pressure to make me moan. He’s all heat and fury and control pressed tight against me.

“You think you can tease me and walk away?” he growls, his voice like fire dragging over silk.

I suck in a breath that doesn’t quite make it to my lungs. My mouth opens, and I try, desperately, to hold on to some part of myself.

“I wasn’t walking away,” I rasp. “You’re the one who—”

He cuts me off with a rough laugh, low and full of warning.

“Still mouthing off?” he mutters, his voice dark with restraint he’s seconds from losing.

His hand slides up, slow and possessive, fingers brushing my throat to remind me I’m his.

I shudder beneath his touch.

“You don’t get it, piccolino,” he whispers, his thumb grazing the edge of my jaw. “You beg for pain like you think you can handle it. Like you don’t know I’ll give it to you.”

His lips brush mine but don’t close the gap.

“Like you don’t understand how badly I want to break you.”

I’m shaking. From the heat, from the fury in his body, from the way his voice wraps around my spine like barbed wire. He’s not even kissing me yet, and I’m already on the edge of unraveling.

“You gonna stop me?” he asks, his voice low and vicious. “You gonna lie again, piccolino? Tell me you don’t want this.”

“No,” I choke out. “I—fuck—I’m not lying. I want it. I want—”

“You want what?” he snaps, his eyes burning into mine. “The punishment? The ruin? The pain? Or me?”

I look at him fully, and I know… there’s no difference anymore.

“You,” I whisper. “I want you.”

That’s all it takes.

He surges forward and crashes his mouth to mine like a man starved, all teeth and heat and tongue. It’s a violent, hungry, unforgiving thing that says, you’re mine now, and there’s no coming back.

I gasp against his mouth, and he uses it. He invades, devours, takes until I’m dizzy.

My hands, shaking and unsure, reach up and tangle in his shirt.

He pulls back just enough to breathe, his lips still brushing mine.

“You belong to me,” he growls. “Every fucking inch of you.”

His hand curls around my throat, just enough to hold me still. To let me feel it.

The control.

The ownership.

The fucking need in him that mirrors my own.

“You betrayed me, over and over again,” he whispers, his breath hot against my skin. “and I let you live.”

His mouth drops to my jaw, my neck. His teeth graze my skin like a threat and a promise.

“Remember the rules, piccolino,” he says, biting down just hard enough to make me gasp, “Betray me again, and I’ll ruin you so slowly, you’ll beg me for it.”

I groan, shameless, already undone beneath his touch.

“But if you stay,” he says, dragging his hand down my chest like a threat and a vow all at once, “if you give yourself to me, no one will ever lay a fucking hand on you again.”

I nod. I don’t even know what I’m agreeing to anymore. The rules changed the second his lips touched mine.

“Say it,” he demands. “Tell me who you belong to.”

I gasp. “You. I belong to you, Nico. Please—”