Page 54 of Savage Empire

Of fucking course they do.

“He said you weren’t nice like your wife is,” I grumble, turning to leave before Apollo can come “collect” me like I’m a fucking child.

“How sweet,” Adrian coos. “He knows me so well.”

Swinging the door open, I run straight into a wall of muscle and grimace. Looking up, I find Apollo’s stormy blue eyes.

“Move,” I demand, stepping back so that his chest is no longer pressed against mine. “I’m already leaving so you can fuck off.”

A sharp whistle sounds, and a dark chuckle follows. “You always let yourfiancéespeak to you with such a venomous tongue, Apollo?”

“I enjoy her tongue as it is,” he tells Adrian over my shoulder. He ignores my command to step aside, and reaches for my wrist. “Let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re a fucking stalker.”

“Ahh, young love,” Adrian teases.

Apollo is tired of my defiance and his friend’s comments, enough so that he isn’t waiting for my cooperation any longer. He lunges forward, bending down to lift me up. Throwing me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing, he wraps an arm around the back of my legs and begins to storm out of the club.

“You motherfucker,” I hiss, slapping him on the back. “Put me down, you smug, controlling,asshole! This is all because I wanted to serve drinks? You are the most dramatic overbearing piece of?—”

A swift smack to my backside steals the words from my lips.

“Did you just fucking spank me?” I screech. “You’re dead, you brute!”

He isn’t fazed, continuing to walk us out of the building until we’re in the parking lot. “If literally anyone else spoke to me the way you did,micina,I’d have theirtongue removed.” He sets me down, eyes hard.

“The fuck did you just call me? Don’t give me a nickname, we’re not friends and we’re sure as fuck not engaged! He better have been messing with you and not actually convinced that we’re somehow an item.”

“I’ll call you whatever I want when you’re acting like a little brat, Rayna. You call me every name under the sun when you’re angry. Don’t like it when I return the favor, do you?”

God, he’s probably calling me a bitch or a cunt in Italian.

I’m going to lose it.

“You had no right to do that,” I exclaim, my voice cracking. “You are not my keeper, goddamnit. I came here for ajob.”

“You’re not getting one here, so don’t waste your time.”

“I can work wherever the hell I want to work!”

“Not in this town, you can’t,” he argues, lips smothered into a flat line. He’s looking down at me like a stern authority figure and it makes me want to slap him—or scream—orboth.

“Fuck you, you smug, controlling, asshole!”

“You called me that already, running out of insults?”

“I will strangle you!”

“You want a job?” he grits out. “Sell the pastries Yordan can’t stop talking about, apply to be a fucking receptionist, or a nanny. Don’t waltz into a Moretti-owned strip club and expect that I’m going to let you barter your fucking body while I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

“How dare you—” My hand shoots out before I can think about the action, whipping forward to strike the side of his face. I’m less than an inch away from smacking him when he catches my wrist.

“Do. Not,” he warns, voice hard and gruff.

His fingers twitch around the smallest part of my arm. Somehow, his grip doesn’t hurt. I tried to slap him, and he didn’t even bruise me to prevent it.

“Or what?” I challenge, heart racing with panic. “Are you going to hit me too? Show me how much stronger you are like Federico would?”