Mistress to a Monster

“It’s why he is buried beside her, Damon. Didn’t you ever wonder why?”

“My grandfather always said that the Russos would pay for what they have done. The feud has been going on for so long, I don’t even know what started it.”

“But you intended to finish it?” she asked.

“Milah?”

“That’s why you got me pregnant. It’s why I’m here.”

“You’re here because I can’t stay away from you. Do you think I give a fuck about every other woman out there? Do you think it drives me crazy to see other men touching women I’ve fucked?”

“I don’t want to hear it.”

“Only you, Milah,” he said.

She glared at him.

“That night in the gardens, I don’t know what you did to me, but it was like you put a spell on me, and since then, I haven’t been able to get away from it. Yes, I thought of this despicable plan. All along, I was going to get you pregnant, but … I didn’t want to marry you. That was going to be the Russo punishment. Your father, his punishment was supposed to be seeing his daughter never married. Always at the mercy as a mistress to me. Never first place.”

“Do you think my father would have given a flying fuck? He hated me, Damon.”

“I wasn’t going to go through with it!” Damon all but screamed. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to live with you? To be with you twenty-four hours a day and to try not to fall in love with you?”

Milah was about to yell at him, but then she realized what he’d said.

“Fall in love with me?”

Damon chuckled. “Yeah, I tried not to. I tried every single day not to give in. Not to feel this way, but nothing worked. Not a damn thing. I kept on ignoring it. Thinking it was just the guilt talking, but I didn’t fucking care what I did to Russo. I was happy to make him hurt. To make him bleed, but you.” He shook his head. “You got under my skin with those fucking kisses, and then you were a virgin. I have the sheets still.”

“What?”

“I know, fucking sick, right? I have them because they are mine. No one else can take that away from me. I fucked the woman I fell in love with on that first night. For three fucking years I tried to forget you, but that one brief moment, and I had to have you. I thought it was because of my insane need to have my revenge, just like all the men in my family, but it wasn’t. No, I see that now. I fucked up big time when it came to you. I should never have looked for you,” Damon said.

“Do you really believe that?” Milah asked.

“I changed my plan so many times. Your father, he was a fucking piece of work. I thought he was going to demand marriage, and I would have done it to own you. I would do anything to have you. But when I said you’d be my whore, he didn’t care. He gave you to me, and I was fucking glad. I heard that he intended to sell you to his highest bidder. I knew you were a virgin, Milah, even before we had sex. He was using that piece of information to sell you.”

“What?”

“It’s why I acted when I did. Everything is so fucking messed up. If he hadn’t sent that fucking ring, and I realized why he sent that fucking ring. None of this would have happened. You would know by now that I fucking love you. There, I said it. I was trying to get you to fall in love with me, and I can say it was all part of my plan, but it wasn’t. I wanted you, no, needed, you to fall in love with me because I fucking needed you!” He growled out the words. “Do you think I like this? How do you think I felt seeing you get shot?”

His eyes were wild, and he shook his head right before laughing. “It’s insane, isn’t it?” he asked.

Milah didn’t know exactly what it was, maybe it was his voice, or the crazy look in his eyes, but she did actually believe him.

“You couldn’t die. Holding you in my arms as you told me how much it hurt. I couldn’t lose you. That’s when I knew,” he said. “No, I knew before then, but I realized I couldn’t live without you. I’m not marrying you to give you my name, Milah. It started out that way as some fucked-up plan, but not anymore. I’m marrying you”—he sank to his knees on the floor in front of her—“because I can’t live without you. I don’t want to live in a world where you’re not with me.”

“You’re lying.”

“I know you think that. I could be lying, but I know what I feel in here, and Milah, I want you. Give us a chance.” He crawled across the floor, and she gasped as he grabbed her hand. “Don’t marry me. Have our baby without us getting married. See the next couple of months, the next few years, and I will prove to you that these are not lies. I will show you I’m the better man. I promise you.”

“Then I get to leave?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I will give you everything you want, but not that. I will do anything but let you go. I can’t, Milah. Please, don’t fucking go. Please, I am begging you.”

He froze her to the spot.

Damon was on his knees, begging her, and what was more, he was crying as he did it.

This was not something Damon De Luca would do.

Could he be telling the truth? Was this possible?

She pressed her lips together as he continued to rain kisses on her hands.

Damon De Luca was a force to be reckoned with. He was not a man brought easily to his knees.

She thought back over the past several months, seeing his face flash, the smiles, the teasing. At times, it had been like a completely different man.

This would be the time to bring a De Luca to his knees. She could take everything from him.

He loved her.

A true Russo would do this.

She opened her mouth and then closed it.