Page 23 of Tempting My Mafia Monster

A noise tore out of me, and it took me a few seconds to realise it was laughter. A deep, genuine chuckle I’d never heard before. I’d laughed many times, but only in a manic, humourless way when someone said something so fucking dumb it made me want to rip out their throat. But this was… real. Spontaneous. And it fucking hurt.

She smiled and giggled softly, and that didn’t help. My chest tightened again, not because of my cracked ribs.

“They won’t touch you again,” I said. Could I really promise her that? Why would I? Because I didn’t want her to be scared, or because I felt guilty for letting them take her in the first place? “I won’t let them touch you.”

“I can look after myself.” She stared down at her nails, picking at the flaky polish, a small reminder of the woman she had been before this. A woman who wore lilac nail polish with delicate daisy designs.

I stared at her, trying to decide whether this bravery was real.

Her eyes flicked up. “You don’t believe me?”

“I could’ve killed you three days ago, and you didn’t fight back.”

“Yet here I am. Still breathing.”

Touché, darlin’.

“Did you fight Donal?” I gritted my teeth. The rage was festering beneath my skin at the thought of her having to fight anyone because I wasn’t there to fight for her. Because I let him take her.

Her eyebrows drew together at the bridge of her nose. “How do you know it was him?”

I didn’t answer.

She sighed, rolling her head against the armchair. “Yes. I fought him back. I hit him with a vase, then punched and kicked him as he tackled my naked body to the floor. I clawed at his face when he shoved his fingers inside me to see whether you’d fucked me. Then I headbutted him and broke his nose when he told them I was still a virgin. That’s when he hit me.”

My breathing was harsh, and my fists clenched as she gave me the details. But I needed to hear them. I was going to make him wish he’d never laid a finger on her.

“I’ll deal with him.”

She stared at me. “Why? Why do you care?”

I worked my jaw. I didn’t know why I cared. I just did.

When she realised she wasn’t going to get an answer, she tilted her head and said, “Well, you won’t have to. As I said, I can take care of myself.”

She gave me a sly smile I hadn’t seen before, one that spoke to my wretched, damned darkness. My heart rate spiked as I tried to pull myself higher on the bed, glancing past the armchair and spotting the tattered blanket in the corner of the bunker. It was draped over something and stained with blood.

My gaze snapped to hers as she licked her lips. “Thank you for my gift. It proved very useful.”

“Is that a body?”

I gave her that knife for extra protection when I wasn’t there and to ease her mind, so she wouldn’t feel powerless. I never expected her to use it.

She stood and walked over to the blanket. She yanked it off, revealing Donal’s slumped body against the wall. His trousers were around his ankles, and a huge pool of blood lay between them. He was very fucking dead.

“He thought he’d come to pay me another visit. He said he knew he couldn’t fuck me because my virginity made me valuable, but he could use my other holes.”

My jaw clenched as I stared at him, wishing he weren’t already dead so I could gut him myself and hang his body by his intestines.

“Did Donal–”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I pretended to be what he thought I was. Scared shitless.” She threw the blanket back over his body. “I fell to my knees, ready to take him in my mouth. As soon as he pulled out his cock, I sliced it off with your knife. The first time I touched a man’s dick, it was no longer attached to his body. He cried like a baby and bled out in six minutes and thirty-two seconds. I thought it’d be quicker, but I’m glad it wasn’t.”

Jesus, fuck. She didn’t even flinch or grimace as she talked of murder like she was discussing the weather. And there was no fear or remorse in the steadiness of her voice, just pride. I’d got her wrong. She wasn’t something breakable. There was a darkness in her that I hadn’t recognised because it was so different from my own. Where mine was wild, untameable and reckless, hers was deliberate and controlled. The kind that didn’t lash out but was planned. She wasn’t just brave. She was willing.

“Why did they take you?”

“To parade me naked in front of sleazy old men that no one will fuck willingly, so one of them would pay the highest price for my virginity.”