Page 23 of The Crowned Garza

Even behind those glasses, his eyes are like frosty, amber-colored snowflakes. Starkly cold but uniquely beautiful. “Tell me. Your boyfriend, did he hurt you? Did he force you to go to that sex party?”

Wait, what?“How do you—”

“I know things. Tell me.”

“No. It was my idea.”

“Then what happened? Why did you call me? Why won’t you get out of the fucking car? Why are you asking to stay with me when you know I’m not a good man? You’ve seen who I am. What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you learned nothing from what your brothers taught you? When you sense danger, you should fucking sprint away from it,piccola regina. Not invite it in.”

Hewantsme to be afraid of him? Why? And why’s he so angry that I’m not?

“You won’t hurt me,” I say. And call me crazy, call me reckless, call me delusional, but somehow, deep down in my bones, I know it to be true.

With a disappointing shake of his head, he replies, “You’ve truly learned nothing, then.”

He won’t hurt me.Women are crafted with built-in alarm signals. Intuitions that are never wrong. While I’ve always sensed the dangerinhim, I’ve never once felt likeIwas in danger with him. Quite the opposite. His danger has arms that reach out and pull me close, swathing me like a heated blanket in winter.

“I brought Dom to the party,” I say, digging deep and finding my brazen, unabashed voice. “I seduced him into taking my virginity. But I hated it. All of it. So I stopped and left. I’m embarrassed, I’m burning between my thighs, and I don’t want to go inside because Mom’s awake and she’ll take one look at me and know what’s up. And I just don’t wanna talk about this with her right now. So please stop being a giant frickin’ asshole to me and take me with you. I’m not afraid of you. I don’t care if you live in Hell. I can handle the heat. Just take me with you.”

Jaw clenched, he stares me down for several minutes.

Then, without another word, he puts the car in reverse and gravel crunches under the tires as he peels out of the property.

CHAPTER SIX

“Careful, regalità.”

Tillie

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”I ask as the Red Cage building comes into view.

Saint ignores me.

“Stop and let me out, you narc,” I demand.

How stupid of me to think he would actually take me home with him. Of freaking course he’s taking me to narc on me. It’ll no doubt earn him more brownie points with my brothers.

“Saint!”

He merely continues to ignore me.

Four blocks before the Red Cage headquarters, he turns left onto the property of an insurance company, then switches off the headlights as he drives around the side to where there’s another building with what resembles a garage door. Five seconds later, the door retracts upward. After he drives in, the door lowers and we’re drenched in darkness.

What the—

Something shifts and my stomach dips when we start to descend. Down, down, down. Halt. Another sharp shift. And then we’re driving again.

“A secret underground passage?” I ask, a tad too excited by this.

No surprise that he ignores me. I’m nothing but hot air to him. An annoyance. A mouth-breather.

We drive for about two minutes until we’re in an underground garage.

Nice!

“You’re good to walk?” he asks me after he’s parked and switched off the engine.

“I broke my hymen, not my legs.”