Page 85 of Relentless Sinner
God, he knowseverything.
“Jaxon—”
“Here’s a better question. Although I know the answer, I want to hear you say it. Do you think you were just playing the game every time you fucked me?” He walks right up to me and I’m so frightened my legs won’t move.
Jaxon’s smile widens when he sees my fear. He looks like he’s getting off on it. He catches my throat, and I grab his arm, preparing for him to snap my neck. He latches on to my hand and his finger has more strength in it than my entire hand, so he’s able to capture me completely in such a way that I can’t move.
He laughs at my feeble attempts. “Fucking hell, you really think I could kill you? Don’t worry, Krasota, you fucked my mind up real good. I can’t kill you. But there are other things I can do to you.” His grip tightens around my wrist.
“Jaxon, please…”
“Answer my question.”
The question—do I think I was playing the game every time I fucked him?I already knew the answer to that question long ago. I don’t want to hear myself say it outside my head but I want him to know those parts weren’t a game. “No, it wasn’t a game.”
“And youknowthat?” There’s a shift in his eyes. A light. A spark. Some semblance of the guy who makes me feel things I never felt before.
“Yes. I know.”
“Yet you still wanted to leave.” The darkness returns to his expression, chasing away the light. “It’s okay. Don’t explain that part. I get it. I practically stole you. That will never be right.”
“If you get it then let me go. Let me leave.” The words sound foolish to my own ears because I know what he stands to gain from being married to me but I say them anyway.
“No.” He shakes his head and I feel even more foolish. “I’m afraid I can’t andwon’tdo that. Gabriella De Costa, you were always a key element of my plan but it’s not just about the money anymore. Now there’s something more that I want from you.”
I’m so furious I want to slap him but I’m still too scared to move. “What? What more couldyoupossibly want from me?”
“You. I want you.” The words fall from his lips as effortlessly as breathing air. And he’s looking at me as if I should have known his answer could only be that—me.
“You only think you want me.”
He gives me a smile filled with venom and presses his fingers into my throat. “You should know me better than that. Iknowwhen I want something. I wanted you from the moment you came on my dick. That’s when you became mine,Krasota.”
Desire chooses this deranged moment to stir in my core and I hate, hate, hate the feeling. It feels like I’m losing control again, and I can’t do that with him.
“It’s because you’re mine that we’re going to handle this the easy way.”
“Don’t you mean your way? There is no easy or hard way.”
He leans forward and inhales me. “I love that you think you know me but like I said, you and I are only just getting started.”
Before I can even think of a comeback he holds up a photo in front of my face.
The picture is of Natasha and Alessandro in the church Mom used to take us to in Marseille. They’re standing in front of my favorite painting by Michel Serre.
I’m looking at them knowing it’s them but not believing what I’m seeing. Then the truth tumbles into my mind like boulders rolling off a cliff.
Jaxon found out where Natasha is.
He knows.
He figured it out.
The tremor of fear that races through me shatters my heart and burns my lungs. I can’t breathe or feel anything past that overpowering fear and doom that tells me I more than fucked up.
Jaxon removes the picture from my eyes, replacing it with his heartless stare, and I think I see him now for the first time. I see the monster he is.
“How?” It’s again foolish to even ask himanythingat this point but I want to know how the hell he found them.I want to know it wasn’t me. “How did you find them?”