Page 153 of The Enslaved Duet

I refused to look into his burning black eyes. On the surface, they were the same depthless black as every mafia man without morals I had ever met, but sometimes, caught at the right angle or looking at me the way he tended to do, they were beautiful to their core.

It was a deeply confusing juxtaposition that I wasn’t in the mood to endure.

“I don’t need any saviours. I’m strong enough to handle things on my own,” I said, my voice so cold it immediately froze the air between Dante, the phone, and myself.

“I came to you because I needed help. Does that make me weak?” Dante asked softly, curling the arm on his undamaged side around me so that I was pressed to his inferno of warmth.

“No,” I muttered petulantly. “Though getting shot in the first place makes you pretty damn dumb.”

I looked up into his smile because like the sun, it was impossible to ignore.

“Good, now that that’s settled, explain to me what the plan is.”

“Who said there was a plan?” I asked innocently as I moved out of his grasp to pour him a glass of whiskey and grab the bottle of ibuprofen.

Salvatore snorted. “None of us are that stupid, Cosima. If you didn’t want our help, it’s because you have your own agenda. Now, kindly tell us before I die from the suspense.”

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics even though they always warmed my heart because they were so much like my own. “Fine, it’s not much of a plan, but the intent is there.” I sucked in a deep breath because I knew they were going to hate what I had to say. “I want to take down the Order.”

Immediately, the two men burst into raucous discord. I crossed my arms with a beleaguered sigh and waited for them to wind down a bit before I interjected to explain.

“It was my own fault, but I went to London with Sebastian to support his nomination for Best Actor at the BAFTAs and Ashcroft saw me there. He’s blackmailing me into being his new slave.”

“With what?” my dad asked, right down to brass tacks even though I could feel his fury through the phone.

“Apparently, there are photos and video from the night Alexander took my virginity in the ballroom.”

Dante cursed a blue streak of English and Italian words and then thumped his fist loudly on the countertop. “I should have remembered…maybe I could have slipped in to take the tapes when I went to Pearl Hall for your… union.”

“You knew?” Salvatore yelled.

“It’s not your fault,” I placated Dante by placing a hand on his thick forearm. “You couldn’t have known.”

“But I did. It’s the practice of the Order of Dionysus for each lord to record themselves taking their slave’s virginity. They have to submit the tape to the council, and then they are, well, fuck,gradedon their performance. Anyone found wanting—maybe the Master is too gentle or the girl too eager—is called before the council to testify.”

“Because if either of those things happen, it might seem like the Master and slave are in love,” I concluded hollowly.

Every predator is prey to something.

Alexander’s warning reverberated through my head as everything locked into place. I’d been so shocked by the way he had hunted me across the ballroom, held me down and rutted into my untouched sex like a ruthless beast when he had been relatively kind to me in the days following my first dinner. It had seemed needlessly violent because, honestly, we both knew he could have had me willingly after a few more days or with some carefully tended touches to my traitorous body.

Why he’d needed to take me like a marauder, his spoils had always confounded and hurt me.

But now, of course, it was so clear.

They were watching us.

Not just the Order through the cameras I’d known were pinned throughout the ballroom, but throughNoelwho was their eyes and ears on the ground.

God, but we’d never stood a chance against their mechanisms.

Dante reached out to give my hip a comforting squeeze. “Does this make things better or worse in your memories?”

I blinked slowly, then again rapidly to cut the string tethering me to that past. “It makes things different.”

“Yet you still want to take the Order down for him,” he stated, cutting through my mask with the exaction of a scalpel.

My chin thrust forward as I stared down my nose at him, emulating Elena’s haughty poise. “Is it so impossible that I might want to take them down for myself? They ruined my life, not to mention the lives of so many people I love.”