I sighed. “Put your weapon down and kick it over to me.”
“With what feet?” he ground out.
I chuckled. “You’re capable of walking just fine, but I’m happy to blow something up if you make me ask you twice.”
He did as he was told, kicking it with the back of his foot. I dropped my gun and stalked toward him. When I reached him, I head-butted him. Blood gushed from his forehead. He stared at me in the same dead, unfeeling way of his. “I’m giving you two more minutes of this bullshit, then I’m fighting back.”
“Better make the most of it, then.”
Next, I threw a punch to his nose, breaking it in the process. He spat out blood sideways. I grabbed his healthy shoulder, pushing him to the ground, then mounted him to begin pummeling him all over.
Chest. Neck. Shoulders. Stomach.
He didn’t groan, didn’t sigh, didn’t flinch, and didn’t fight back.
Dead.
Inside. Outside.
It amused me that he thought becoming don would stir something in him. Nothing ever could. But I supposed if I were in his shoes, I’d chase any high I could, too.
When I was done, I stood up and spat on his face. “You upset my woman again, and you won’t have an open-casket funeral. That’s a fucking promise.”
I got into my car and started driving.
He could find his way back home on his own.
Chapter Forty-Five
Two yearsand five months ago
It had been two weeks since Achilles dangled her from the bridge and declared her his property.
In those two weeks, life as she knew it ceased to exist.
Yes, she was still able to attend her luncheons, parties, and spa treatments with her fake friends. But now she had to walk around with a Camorrista bodyguard at all times. It cramped her style, not to mention reminded her of the dark period of her life where freedom was nothing but a faraway dream.
Every time she tried to shake her security off, Achilles appointed more manpower to watch over her. It drove her to the brink of madness. The suffocating reality of living inside the confines of someone else’s decisions. She saw Achilles at social functions the Camorra and Irish both took part in. He often had women on his arm. Rubbing his conquests in her face seemed to be his favorite pastime. He was hardly celibate.
So why should she be?
She would show him she wasn’t afraid of him.
She was going to screw someone else and enjoy it.
Tierney had tried consensual sex for the first time when she was twenty-two. She couldn’t remember the man’s name any more than she could his face. She’d been drunk, numb to the world and to the dangers that lurked inside it. All she remembered was that the man hit on her at a bar and that she took him home. The act itself was tedious and awkward. But she continued to try drawing pleasure from sex anyway. She was so deep in denial about her past that she convinced herself if she tried hard enough, she’d be able to enjoy it.
When she was twenty-three, she had a one-night stand with a drunken Irish sailor. When they got to business, she suggested he might want to take a shower because he was sweaty. He slapped her hard across the face in response. She remembered the shock, the surprise…but no terror. He’d expected her to flee, maybe to cower and cry. She did neither. Instead, she tilted her chin up and said, “Harder now, you wuss.”
He slapped her again. She tried scratching his eyes out. He threw her onto the bed, mounting her, muttering that she was a mad banshee. She laughed. Each time he hit her, she came alive. She liked fighting for dominance, and she liked losing. It got her hot and bothered, and though she knew it was probably ingrained in her fucked-up past, she had no plans to fix it.
She had a string of lovers over the years. All of them gave her pockets of pleasure, but none ever gave her peace.
It had been six months since she’d had sex.
The lucky winner was found at an Emilia Spencer exhibition in a swanky Upper East Side private showing. The penthouse belonged to the Spencers, and the man in question was delectable.
His name was Tucker, and he was tall, well built, and bore an uncanny resemblance to a Renaissance sculpture. He wore his suit like a second skin.
