“Roberto,” she called to the behemoth at the door. “Check Señor Booth for weapons.”
I kept an easy grin nailed between my cheeks even though the effort cost me as the man stepped forward to pat me down aggressively. When he was done, he nodded curtly, and Irina clapped with glee.
“Oh, you really are here to play,” she cried. “And there are so many things I’ve thought to do to you over the years, handsome. So. Many. Things.”
“Lead the way,” I offered as I moved toward her and dipped down to kiss her neck.
She smelled of banana candy and expensive, cloying perfume. The fragrance clogged up my nose and made me want to puke on her designer shoes.
Instead, I let her twine her fingers with mine and lead me back up the stairs, presumably to her bedroom.
Roberto followed us, his steps heavy with his weight against the stairs.
He remained outside the door, the bulge of a weapon under his jacket as he crossed his arms and stood sentry for his boss while she took me into the room.
That would complicate things.
But he was large, slow. I was a big man, but I could move, and I trained to emphasize that quickness.
He wouldn’t be an obstacle for long.
Irina locked the door and pushed me roughly onto the bed before climbin’ on top of me, pinnin’ my hips to the mattress as she leaned forward to stroke my torso through my thin, white tee.
“So handsome,” she murmured, transfixed by the sight of her hands on my body. “I am already so wet thinking of the ways we will play.”
I sunk my hands in her thick hair and whispered low, filthy things as she worked her way down my body, lulling her into a false sense’a security.
My beauty had always been the source of my shame, as if bein’ a pretty boy meant I had nothin’ more to give than my handsome face.
I’d let those thoughts corrode my confidence, throw off the balance of my self-worth, so I believed in the worst instead of the best.
I’d believed I had nothin’ to offer a soul but the perfection of my smile and the elegance of my art on their flesh.
How fuckin’ stupid of me not to have seen how my face could be a tool like any other. A tool used by the weight of my intellect, the power of my loyalty, and the reckless bravery in my heart to protect the family I loved and secretly believed I wasn’t good enough to be a part of.
It was ironic, I thought with a little smile as I lay there bein’ falsely seduced by a woman who underestimated me, that I would turn the whip I’d used to self-flagellate myself for years on the woman who prized beauty over morality enough to sell women into slavery.
Her lips trailed a line of bitter kisses along the top of my waistband, and I decided she was lulled enough.
So I snapped forward, hauled her up my body, and flipped her onto the bed, high against the pillows so I could be close to the nightstand.
‘Cause there was a vase there, pink and ugly as fuck, but porcelain.
My weapon.
“You wanna feel all of my beauty?” I growled as I pressed my hips into hers on a slow roll, keepin’ them there so I’d be able to stay her hips.
“Si,” she panted, hands movin’ over my bare torso, legs curlin’ over my hips so she could gyrate against me.
My stomach rolled with acid, but I pulled up the thought of Lila housed somewhere dark, dank, and alone, scared outta her mind thinkin’ she might be lost forever.
And anger burned clean through the disgust, leavin’ only resolve.
“I’ll show you every inch of beauty I got to give,” I pledged to Irina, claimin’ her seekin’ lips in a kiss as I reached out carefully for the lamp.
The moment it was in my grip, dark, monstrous joy surged through me, and I gave the beast it’s head.
Mouth a prison on hers, body an anchor, I raised the lamp, jerked it free of the plug, and in the moment before she gained awareness of anythin’ beyond her desire, I shifted my head away and brought the heavy porcelain lamp crashin’ down on her face.
Her scream tore through the air as her nose crunched under the pressure, and blood bubbled from her nostrils, floodin’ past her open mouth and chokin’ off the sound.
I wrapped my hand around her throat again and shoved her viciously against the headboard so her entire body rattled.
“Listen to me carefully, Irina,” I seethed, fingers crampin’ in their hold on her, anger threatenin’ to drive me from a place I wouldn’t be able to come back from. “You’re gonna tell me where your men took those girls you’re plannin’ to sell. You’re gonna tell me in the next thirty seconds, or I’m gonna use a piece of this pretty little lamp to slit your throat. You feel me?”