The Woman with the Ring (Costa Family)

“Oh, shit. Okay. I’m just gonna…” Vissi said, pointing toward the door, then rushing off in that direction.

“Of course I can leave.”

“Of course you can leave,” Isabella parroted, raising her mug, and taking a slow sip. “And why is that, Primo?”

“Because I have business to conduct.”

“Right. And I’m just the captive little housewife, right? Fucking asshole,” she snapped, slamming her mug down on the island hard enough that I was surprised it didn’t shatter. “You can’t keep me a prisoner here,” she said, waving around the loft.

“It’s hardly a third-world jail cell, lamb.”

“That’s not the point!” she snapped.

“What is the point then?”

“That I’m fucking stuck here as it is,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “In this place I don’t know, around these people I don’t know, not allowed to see or talk to my loved ones whenever I want. And now you’re telling me you’re going to narrow my world even more?”

“It’s for your own safety.”

“Yet you get to walk out there with a target on your head,” she snapped, waving toward the windows.

“I’m going to go out there and find who this is, so I can deal with them, and your world can expand again.”

“But until then, I’m your little captive, right? Can’t go anywhere. Can’t get the hell away from you.”

“Seems I remember you liking being close to me,” I said, watching as her eyes widened before she averted her gaze. “In fact,” I started, taking steps toward her, knowing she was too damn stubborn to retreat, “I think you like me so close that I’m inside you,” I reminded her, seeing the way her breathing went fast and shallow. She could pretend all she wanted that she didn’t like me, that she didn’t want me, but her body would betray her every single time.

“No,” she said in a choked whisper.

“No?” I repeated. “So that wasn’t your dripping wet pussy squeezing my cock last night?” I asked. “That wasn’t you begging me to fuck you?” I went on. “Those weren’t your thighs my come was dripping down either?”

She struggled for a moment, battling the desire growing in her body. In the end, though, her indignation over not being allowed to leave the apartment won out, and her head raised, her eyes shooting daggers at me.

“I hope you enjoyed that. Because it is never going to happen again,” she told me, turning on her heel, and storming away.

I wanted to tell her that it absolutely was going to happen again. And often. In different locations. From different angles. I was going to learn every inch of her body, was going to find all her little hotspots, so I could use them to torture her with her need for release.

But it would only piss her off more to say it.

I could let her stew in her anger for a while.

I imagined she would be all the hotter for me if she was angry with me.

I was going to see for myself eventually.

But first, I had to figure out who was coming for my Family this week.

Then show them exactly why all the rumors about me being a ruthless monster were true.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Isabella

“What a joke,” I grumbled, watching as Primo walked up the steps of the church across the street, going in for Sunday service like a good little observer of the Bible.

We were going on day six of me not being allowed to leave the apartment.

I never truly understood the concept of “cabin fever” before. But I was becoming intimately acquainted with it then.

See, I’d never truly been in the house for more than maybe two days in a row except that one time I had the flu, and my fever was so bad that I was delirious, so I wasn’t even aware of the passing of time.

Life made it impossible not to leave the house.

In my old life, I had to work. I had errands. I had a demanding family who wanted to see me frequently.

But I didn’t have to work anymore. The groceries were delivered by Primo’s brothers. And I wasn’t allowed to see my family.

So there was no reason I had to leave the building.

Except, of course, the fact that I was going absolutely insane.

That seemed dramatic. I mean, wasn’t six days at home with absolutely no responsibilities the dream for most people? And here I was, annoyed about it. But the difference was, this hadn’t been a choice I’d made. It was something that was forced on me because of some ridiculous notion Primo got in his head about me not being safe, even if I never went anywhere without his brothers as bodyguards.

Meanwhile, his carefree ass got to go to church with the rest of the neighborhood, putting on the mask of “one of the good guys” while he kept the wife he’d acquired through force locked up in the building across the street.