Page 49 of Coerced Kiss
Anger surges inside me to burn hot with humiliation in my stomach. I didn’t want to play dirty, knowing how something like this could destroy his family, and I never wanted to be the cause of that much pain, especially not for his children who are innocent. Yet a part of me argued his wife deserved to know who her husband truly is. After debating it for hours, I decided that wrecking five people’s lives wasn’t worth my justification. However, his refusal to own up to his actions infuriates me to the point that I can’t stop myself from striking back.
“I could sue you for child support,” I say, being that person I never wanted to be. “When I tell the court how you told me you were single and gave me a false name, your perfect reputation will be ruined.”
He chuckles. “You could try. Who will the jury believe? A respectable justice or a little gold digger like you? After all, catching men by seducing them to fall pregnant runs in your family. Your mama taught you well.”
My mouth drops open. I can’t believe he used the most vulnerable part of myself that I shared with him against me. Then again, why am I surprised? He pretended to be someone he wasn’t right from the start. Behind his caring, compassionate façade hides a selfish, narcissistic man.
Shaking my head, I look at him with pity. “How do you even live with yourself?”
He checks his watch. “If there was nothing else, I have a busy schedule.”
It’s not the way in which he dismisses me as if I’m not worthy of his time that makes me back down. It’s realizing that I never want anything from him. His very energy is toxic. He’s every characteristic I dislike disguised in a pretty exterior and wrapped up in false charm. He’s such a good actor. Such a skilled liar. He must be a damn sociopath.
“If that’s what it’s going to take,” he says with a sigh, fishing his wallet from his pocket.
The sight of him pulling out a few hundred-dollar bills makes me sick. That’s what I came to ask him for but not like this. What puts me off isn’t that he has ten times the money I need as small change in his pocket, yet he wouldn’t give it to me when our mutual actions could impact my health. I get that he doesn’t want a money trail leading to his infidelity. I get why he didn’t ask what the complication was. He doesn’t care how it turns out for me. He doesn’t give a damn about the welfare of the child he conceived. We mean nothing to him. It was just a game. Yes, I understand all that. What floors me is how the money he waves in my face makes me feel bought. Dirty. Like a prostitute.
My pride can’t allow him to humiliate me like that. He’s done it once. I won’t allow him to do it again.
“You know what?” I say, spinning on my heel. “Forget it.”
“Wait,” he says when I grip the door handle.
I don’t. I push the handle down and open the door.
In a few long strides, he’s next to me, pressing a palm on the door to shut it. Thrusting the bills at me, he says, “Take it. This is what you came for. Just know one thing, there’s no more where this came from. This is the last time you’ll get anything from me.”
“There will be no last time.” I open the door wide enough for his secretary to see us from her desk. “There won’t be a first time.”
He clenches his jaw and lowers his hand, shoving the money into his pocket. In a second, the polite smile is back on his face, his manner jovial as he holds the door for me and says loud enough for his secretary to hear, “Thank you for the visit, Ms. Brennan.” Winking, he adds, “Next time, remember to make an appointment.”
God, but he’s good.
I utter a pitiful laugh. “Have a good life,Steven.”
His secretary blinks as she looks from me to him.
The last thing I see before lifting my chin and walking away is the polished smile slipping from his face.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Saverio
It’s early when I arrive at Livy’s building on Monday morning, but Anya is already gone. After looking forward to seeing my new toy all week, the disappointment at finding her apartment empty is natural, but the intensity of my dejection surprises me. So does the worry. She usually leaves for work later. I only relax marginally when the man who’s following her tells me via a text message she just entered a gynecologist’s consultation room in Brooklyn.
Anya and I are going to have a serious talk about her medical checkups. From now on, Nicole will take over, not only because she’s the best ob-gyn in the city but also because she’s a friend who’s familiar with my history. Anya can’t tell her anything about me she doesn’t already know, save for the finer details about Lewis’s death. Nicole may not know who my victims are, but she has no illusions about how I make my money or what the job entails.
As I have an hour to spare, I inspect Anya’s apartment, shamelessly going through her closet and dresser. She doesn’town a lot of clothes. The brands are low quality, but everything is neatly folded and smells of that flowery detergent scent I came to associate with her. The underwear drawer holds a selection of cotton sets in pastel colors with cute ribbons and a few lacy but modest matching pieces. A purple vibrator is pushed under her pajamas.
What really catches my attention is the gel designed to stimulate her trigger buttons. My perfect little good girl is adventurous. I would’ve been disappointed if I didn’t find anything kinky in her possession. I’d love to try it on her. Her body is beautifully responsive. I bet I can make her come so hard she’ll forget there was anyone else before me. She won’t even remember the asshole who made her pregnant was ever inside her.
For some reason, the thought of that man makes my blood boil with savage fury. I’m not unreasonably violent. At least, not usually. When I pull the trigger or use my knife, I do it for a well-deliberated reason. To balance the scales. The motive may be personal, but my feelings never are. It’s purely business.
Yet with Anya, the rage comes naturally. I can’t control it. There’s a very good reason I never asked Rachele about her ex-lovers. With how diligently Luigi protected her chastity, I was surprised to discover that she wasn’t a virgin when I took her to bed. That’s not the way things work in those families. Until this day, I haven’t asked her who her first was even though her father promised it to me. By contract, that was what she owed me, whattheyowed me. I paid for it in blood, doing Luigi’s killings from the age he taught me how to handle a gun. Yet for the whole five years we were together, I never demanded an explanation. I simply ignored it, believing what mattered was the present.
And here I am, going through the most intimate belongings of a woman who should’ve been my victim but became my ticket to freedom, finding that it’s not so easy to push that questiondown like before. It all comes back to ownership. Anya’s life belongs to me, and I don’t like to share. I have a crazed urge to purge her of the touch of any other and to brand her with my own possession. The depravity of that odd, carnal desire isn’t lost on me. But I don’t want to force her. I’m many things, but that’s not who I am. Somehow, I’ll earn her consent. When I’m done with her, I want her crawling and begging. I want her to look at me and me alone, knowing only I am her salvation.