Page 33 of The Hitman's Prince

“It’s a safe place,” Jacob whispered. “So I’ve been told.”

“Not safe enough for a man like you.” Vince cocked his head to the side. “Come in here and take off your shirt, let me see what my dog made of you last night.”

I bristled at the comment, while also still managing to be aroused by the degradation. What the fuck was wrong with me? I lingered in the doorway because Vince hadn’t givenmean instruction, only Jacob, and I didn’t know what to do if I wasn’t being told. For years, my life had been nothing more than a series of commands to be obeyed. I was nothing if I wasn’t of use, and with Jacob striding into the room, stripping off his shirt and baring his scars for Vince…

I wondered about my use.

“Do you think Orion did a good job?” he asked.

“With which part?” Jacob glanced back over his shoulder at Vince, mouth pulled into a tight and unreadable line.

“All of it.”

“He did what you told him to,” Jacob answered. “Both times.”

“He told me he hurt you more,” Vince went on, stare scrutinizing. “He hurt you again without my permission.”

“He doesn’t need your permission,” he rasped.

“Doesn’t he?”

My tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, and it was impossible to swallow around the lump in my throat. I shoved my hands into my pockets, digging my nails intomy palms. Jacob’s head swiveled and he looked directly at me, still frozen in the doorway.

“Do you?” he asked me.

I opened my mouth to answer, but Vince raised a hand to silence me. Swaying forward, I snapped my mouth closed. My body weighed a thousand pounds, leaning toward Vince like there was some invisible string between us. I had a chance to cut it, and instead I’d thrown away the scissors.

“Yes, Sir,” I answered.

Vince smiled. He hummed, looking pleased with himself, naked in that brown leather chair that I’d bled on more times than I could count. How was the torture Vince inflicted upon me any different—any better—than what his father had done? Why was one something I’d endured and the other something I yearned for?

“Heel, Orion,” Vince said, snapping his fingers, and my legs knew what to do before my heart had even registered the command. I stepped into the office finally, walking around the back of Vince’s desk and sinking down to my knees beside him. He looked at me, licked his lips like he wanted to eat me, then threaded his fingers though my hair, pushing it back from my forehead.

I should have been angry. Should have been ashamed. Should have been anything besides turned on.

And yet.

And yet…

Vince turned his attention back to Jacob, still half-naked in the middle of the office. Atsome point, he’d turned to face Vince head on, his back no longer visible, which made it harder for me to imagine picking the edge of my fingernail under every scab on his back and making him bleed all over again.

I did it anyway.

I wanted to hurt him more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life, and there were thousands of things I’d wanted. Things I’d begged and cried for. Things I’d never, ever have.

“What do you know about me?” Vince asked.

“I know your name,” Jacob answered. “Not much else.”

“Did you know I killed my father?” Vince trailed his fingers down the back of my neck, drawing lines and swirls into my hairline. “He was sitting right in this chair and I shot him in the face.”

Jacob blinked hard a couple of times, and if he wanted to run, he hid it well. The night Vince murdered his father was as fresh in my mind as if it had happened yesterday, not over a month ago. The chain of events from when I’d walked in on him to how I now found myself at his feet was something that most men wouldn’t believe.

I’d double-crossed an Angelini and lived to tell.

“I’m sure you had a good reason,” he choked out.

“My reason was he wanted me dead.” Vince’s fingers curled tighter around the back of my neck. “Little did I know…why don’t you tell him the rest, Orion?”