Chapter 27

TWENTY-SEVEN

Sabella

Angelo is quiet in the car.

Too quiet.

I steal a glance at him. His features are set in hard lines. He's never looked more like the angel his name implies, but it's not a kind or gracious angel. He's darkness and danger personified, both beautiful and cruel.

The suit fits him well. The tailored cut shows off the strong muscles underneath, leaving no doubt about his strength. Next to mine, his body is enormous, his masculinity sucking up all the energy in the space.

Now isn't the moment to insist on favors, but I must know.

"My sister." I lick my dry lips. "I want to know if she's all right."

He takes his phone from his pocket and unlocks the screen.

A ringtone sounds before a man says over the speaker, "Yes, sir?"

"Are you still at the clinic?" Angelo asks.

"I was just about to leave."

"What's the update?"

"They've been transferred from the delivery wing to a private room."

I suck in a breath. Does that mean the baby is born?

"Send me the number," Angelo says before ending the call.

A second later, his phone pings with a notification. He checks it before pushing on the green button. As if he can't stomach the sight of my face, he barely looks at me when he hands me the phone.

I push it against my ear with a trembling hand.

Jared answers.

"It's me. Sabella." I dare another glance in Angelo's direction. "How is she?"

"She's fine." He sounds happy, tired, and strained all at once. "It happened very fast. We almost didn't make it to the clinic. It's a boy."

My chest deflates with a quiet sigh of relief. "Is he okay?"

"He's perfect. We decided to call him Benjamin."

A lump lodges in my throat. "I'm glad. My dad would've liked that. I'm sorry it happened like this. Will you tell Mattie I called? Please tell her I'm thinking of her. Of all three of you."

"Are you okay, Bella?" he asks.

Angelo holds out his hand, still not looking at me.

"Yes," I say quickly. "I have to go. Just tell her I love her."

Angelo takes the phone and darkens the screen before pocketing it.

We drive the rest of the way to the airport in silence. The driver takes my suitcase and handbag as well as an overnight bag from the trunk. Angelo throws the sling of the bag over his shoulder and carries my suitcase and handbag in one hand while wrapping his free hand around mine.

The guards don't follow us inside. They don't have to. I'm not going to run. I made a deal, and as long as I uphold my end of the bargain, my family will be safe.

After showing his license, Angelo hands his gun in at the firearm desk. I'm surprised when he takes two passports from his bag, one for him and one for me. How did he manage to get mine? People turn their heads as we go through customs in our wedding attire. A few travelers come up to congratulate us, their smiles radiant. Our smiles are stilted in return. We keep up the pretense until we're shown into a private lounge, and then we drop our masks.

A flight attendant collects our luggage. A waitress serves appetizers and champagne, but my stomach is twisted into too tight a knot to eat or drink. Angelo works on his phone, ignoring me.

Putting my untouched champagne aside, I dare to ask, "How did you find us?"

He looks up. "Street surveillance cameras." He leans closer, forcing me to shrink back. "Here's something you need to understand, wife." His black eyes darken, menace turning his handsome face stunningly savage. "I'll always find you, no matter where you hide."

I hold my breath, too afraid to say another word. When he leans back in his chair and spreads his legs out in front of him, I dare to blow out the air trapped in my lungs. I only breathe normally again when he turns his attention back to his phone.

A few minutes later, we walk to the boarding gate. An airport security official returns Angelo's gun. I have no idea who Angelo bribed to let him carry his gun in the airport and on the plane. Normally, he'd have to collect it at the firearm desk at our destination. Perhaps that's why two airport security guards escort us to a private plane.

Except for the pilot and copilot who greet us at the door, there's no other staff. The fact that Angelo and I are alone outside the cockpit fills me with dread and anxiety.

Angelo seats me and buckles me in. He sits down next to me without saying a word. I may as well be invisible. Ignoring me has more to do with trying to control his anger than giving me the cold shoulder, because rage rolls off him in waves. You have to be emotionally challenged not to sense it.

Trying to escape the animosity, I withdraw by looking through the window. Cape Town grows smaller as we climb in altitude. Uncertainty and fear tighten my stomach further when we finally break through the clouds and everything I know disappears.

The seatbelt light goes off.

Angelo unfastens first his safety belt and then mine. Standing, he holds his hand out in silent instruction. I swallow as I stare at that big, broad, powerful hand. I don't want to take it. I want to run. Only, there's nowhere to run to when you're fifteen thousand meters in the air.

Not having a choice, I get to my feet. I don't take his proffered hand, but even in this, he doesn't give me an option. He wraps his fingers around mine and pulls me down the short aisle to a door at the back.

My throat closes up with fear when he opens the door to reveal a cabin with a double bed. That fear is nothing compared to the anxiety that nearly cripples me as the door shuts with a soft click. Because that click? It's the quiet before the storm.

When he lets go, I back up until the bed forms a barrier between us. Daylight filters through the windows on either side of the cabin, but no one can look in. No one will hear me scream. No one can help me. Not even all the angels who ever lived in the fluffy clouds that pass with deceptive gaiety beyond the windows.

Unlike earlier, he watches me with a piercing gaze, focusing every ounce of his attention on me. He advances a step, but I stand my ground.

Danger bleeds from his pores. It surrounds me like thick smoke, invading my lungs and clouding my brain. I can't think through the fog. I can't breathe through the darkness that rolls over me, a bank of mist that swallows me whole.

When he finally speaks, it's to give me a stark, unyielding command. "Take off the dress."

The order is what I was afraid of. He wants to consummate the marriage. Before, when I gave myself to him, it was in the heat of the moment. This isn't heat. It's cold and calculated, premeditatedly staged. I can't lose myself in passion like this.

Lifting my chin, I ask, "Why?"

Wrong question to ask. His stoic anger melts, slipping into something chillier and more brutal. "Do you really want me to look at you in a dress you put on for another man?" His voice drops an octave. "A dress I fucking chose for me?"

His words make me stagger. "What? Celeste bought the dress."

He removes his jacket with a fluent motion. "Celeste took it from the villa where I left it when she packed your clothes." Reaching behind him, he takes the gun from his waistband and puts it on a built-in dressing table. "Didn't she tell you?"

"No," I say, the sound coming out of my mouth no more than a whisper. "I just assumed she managed to buy one."

He raises a mocking brow. "I'm afraid I lost my appetite for that dress. Now, take it off, or I'll do it for you."

That explains the mystery of the dress. I don't know what Celeste was thinking, if she believed I had a wedding gown delivered, but she shouldn't have taken it. She should've asked. Everything just happened so fast.

Angelo removes a cufflink, pulling my attention to the insignia set in platinum, the intertwined, snarling wolves that each has a diamond eye. The cufflink makes a clink as he drops it next to the gun.

"I see you've decided," he says, loosening the other cufflink.

My gaze snaps to his. "I don't want this."

"This?" His smile is taunting. "Define this."

"Us fucking."

"Fucking." He says it as if the idea is a joke. "Do you think I want to fuck you after what you've done?"

His hatred is so blatant it steals my breath.

He rolls back a sleeve, exposing his strong, tanned forearm. "But let me share a fact with you, wife. When you begged me to put that ring on your finger and to give you my name, you promised to obey me. When you begged me to spare the lives of your traitorous family and your pathetic best friend, you agreed to fulfill your marital duties." He folds back the other sleeve. "Any and every duty I deem fit. Is that clear? Or do you need a reminder?"

"No," I snap, hating him as much as he hates me. No, more. I don't think you can hate someone with more intensity.

He lifts a finger and makes a circle, indicating I should turn. Reluctantly, I give him my back. He grips the zipper above my buttocks and pulls it down slowly, his fingers brushing over my ass in the process. An involuntary shiver contracts my skin. Reversing the path, he trails his fingertips over my spine and unfastens the button at the top. The dress falls open in the front and slides down my legs before pooling around my feet.

His heat disappears at my back, making more goosebumps run over me even though the temperature in the room is comfortable.

"Turn around," he says.

I obey like a good wife, facing him with my arms held stiffly at my sides.

"Underwear too," he says, raking a path over me with his gaze.

Swallowing what's left of my pride, I push the thong down my thighs.

He studies me unabashedly, paying special attention to the spot between my legs where his mark is hidden beneath my curls.

"Shoes," he instructs.

I kick them off and wait for his next command. Despite his earlier statement, the bulge in his pants says he wants me. As much as I try not to be affected, I can't help the spark that ignites in my belly or the pulsing ache that grows between my legs. But then he douses the heat spreading from my lower body more effectively than a bucket of ice water dumped over my head when he says, "Get down on all fours and crawl to the bathroom."

I gape at him. "What?"

"You heard me." He flicks his fingers and points at the floor. "Here. Now."

My whole being protests. He observes me with the self-assurance of a man who knows I'll obey. How can I not? My family's lives depend on my actions.

Humiliation burns on my cheeks as I go down on my hands and knees. The floor is hard and the carpet thin. The thread digs into my skin as I crawl to the door at the back, which I assume leads to the bathroom. His footsteps are quiet, but I sense him following behind me. When I pause in front of the door, he walks around me to open it.

The bathroom is smaller than the cabin, and the floor is tiled. A shower and a toilet hug a small cabinet. Painfully aware of how exposed I am, I sit back on my heels, but he presses the tip of his shoe between my shoulder blades and pushes me down with a tsk of his tongue. It takes every ounce of willpower I possess to swallow an insult and stay where he wants me.

"Go to the cabinet," he says. "You'll find your toiletries inside."

I look at him from over my shoulder. "How did my things get here?"

"An attendant unpacked them before we boarded."

"That's an invasion of my privacy."

Ignoring the complaint, he gives another order. "Put on your red lipstick."

I frown. "What?"

"Stop asking questions, and do as I say."

What is he trying to do? Make me look pretty so that he can stand to look at my face?

When I don't move, he raises an eyebrow. "Do you want me to do it for you?"

Clenching my teeth, I crawl over the floor and open the cabinet. As he said, the bottom shelf is stocked with my toiletries. I have to kneel when I open my make-up bag because I need both my hands. The lipstick Mattie applied this morning has long since rubbed off. Why does he want me to reapply it? What is he playing at?

Without a mirror, I'm not sure if I'm doing a good job, but I dab the lipstick on and cap the tube when I'm done.

"Good," he says. "Put it away and crawl back to the room."

I fucking hate him so much. I repeat the words like a mantra in my head, taking strength from my loathing as I crawl back over the floor.

"Stop there," he says when I reach the foot-end of the bed. "On your knees facing me."

I do as he says, glaring up at him.

He walks over and stops in front of me. When he reaches for his buckle, my mouth goes dry. He can't be doing what I think he is, but my worst suspicion is confirmed when he pushes the button on his waistband through the hole, pulls down his zipper, and takes out his cock.

He slides a fist over his length, pumping twice. A drop of precum leaks from the slit in the broad head. Even now, even in these circumstances, I can't help but be fixated by the sight of him naked. He's the only man I've seen, the only reference I have of a male's anatomy. I have a feeling he's in a different league, that no other male can compare, and I only despise him for it more.

His voice is frosty, devoid of lust or desire. "Stay on your knees and spread your legs."

What's the use of fighting? If he wants to use my mouth as if I'm nothing but a whore, I'd rather get it over with.

When I've complied, he gives another instruction. "Put your hands on your thighs and keep them there."

I hold his gaze as I follow out the order, but his eyes remain cold and unforgiving. Fisting one hand in my hair, he grips my face in the other. The pressure he applies on the joints of my jaw has my lips part of their own accord. The minute my mouth is open, he slides his cock inside.

I've seen him, but I haven't tasted him. I never returned the favor. I'm not inclined to do so now, but he doesn't need my cooperation. He pumps through my lips with a steady rhythm of shallow strokes. The ice in his eyes melts into something different, something carnal and feverish but not less cold. There's no emotion, only the lust he refused to show earlier.

I try to swallow around him, but it's impossible. He doesn't have to push deep to stretch my lips as wide as they can go. He's big enough to make me battle to take more than the head. Saliva dribbles down my chin. The sounds I make are wet and sleazy. They belong in a porn movie or in a peep show. I consider biting, but I have to remember why I signed up for this. I have to think about my family.

Holding me in place, he pushes deeper. It's difficult to breathe. I flatten my tongue to accommodate him and to prevent myself from choking. He grunts his approval when I accidentally lick the crest. His taste comes as a surprise. I don't want to like it, but how can I not when he tastes like the ocean and salt and wind?

Tangling his fingers tighter in my hair, he tugs my head back. My eyes water from the sting on my scalp. Without warning, he shoves himself so deep down my throat he's buried balls-deep in my mouth. I gag around him, suffocating. The lack of air makes me panic. It's impossible to keep my hands on my thighs. My body goes into survival mode. Fighting for air, I dig my nails into the back of his pants, gripping handfuls of fabric.

Unlike me, he's calm and collected, staring at me with fascination. "Easy. Just take it. Take me. You can do it."

He pulls out and lets me breathe.

I gulp air in noisily, my chest heaving with the effort.

Not easing his grip on my face, he smooths a hand over my hair and wipes away the sting. "Your red lips stretching around my cock is so damn hot. When you swallow me down like that, it's hard to hold back."

Before I can find my voice, he slides his cock into my mouth again and shifts his hip, aiming for the back of my throat. I gag and renew my fight, hitting him with my fists anywhere I can reach, but he thrusts with a steady pace, his gaze fixed on my mouth.

Just as white spots pop in my vision, he comes. He empties himself with another grunt, letting go of my face to wrap his fingers around my neck instead. Satisfaction bleeds into his eyes when I swallow.

There's no mirror in the room, but I don't need one to know I'm a mess of mascara, saliva, and smeared lipstick.

When he finally sets me free and tucks his cock back into his pants, I collapse on my heels at his feet. This isn't how I imagined oral sex. I'm not keen on repeating it.

"On your knees," he says. "Turn around and face the bed."

I scowl. My throat feels raw inside. It takes effort to speak. "I was right. You really are a sick pervert."

The set of his jaw hardens. He doesn't like it when I call him out on his shit, especially not when it's true.

"I said on your knees, Sabella."

When I don't move fast enough for him, he grabs my bicep and pulls me to my knees before twisting me around and pushing my upper body down on the bed. He leans over me, takes my wrists, and arranges them above my head.

His voice is a wicked whisper in my ear. "You didn't do very well earlier when my cock was stuffed down your throat. Let's see if you can do a better job this time."

This time? If I hoped my punishment was over, I was wrong. As I look at him from over my shoulder, I realize when he pulls his belt from the loops of his waistband, it hasn't even started.

Cold sweat breaks out over my body, but I refuse to beg again.

"You betrayed me, Sabella," he says, folding the leather double with the buckle in his palm. "You deceived me. Ran from me. I can forgive you almost anything, but plotting to marry another man?"

Whack.

The leather comes down hard on my buttocks, leaving a sting that turns into a path of fire. Fuck. That hurts. I gnash my teeth and swallow my sounds. I try to prepare myself for the next blow, but my back arches when it falls. The worst isn't the sting. It's the lingering burn.

Whack.

"That was for not keeping your hands where I told you to keep them."

Whack.

The next two blows heat my thighs.

I curl my fingers into the covers, willing myself not to move, but it's almost impossible when the bite of the leather falls right over my pussy. My whole body jerks. It's only a miracle that I'm able to hold back my scream.

"That was for trying to give away what belongs to me."

Whack.

I nearly pass out when he directs the next lash at the same spot.

"It'll never happen again, Sabella."

He aims higher again, leaving a searing streak over my left ass cheek.

"Or I will discipline you."

Right cheek.

I've stopped counting. My whole backside is covered in flames. My only consolation is that I've given him neither sounds nor tears. I'd rather bite off my own tongue.

It takes me a moment to register that the lashes have stopped. My chest heaves as if I ran a marathon even though I don't understand why. It takes me an even longer moment to find my breath.

He lets me, doing nothing but standing quietly behind me and giving me time and space to process this.

I know what he did. He came in my mouth, making it clear he was only using one of my holes to humiliate me for how I humiliated him by running off with Colin. The spanking was for thinking I could escape.

His palm on my back jolts me. He has no right to touch me like this, to brush a hand over my skin as if he cares.

My hair came loose from the bun. The strands are tangled. Wisps cling to my sweaty forehead when I turn my face to the side. The heat he inflicted with his belt seeped into every part of my skin.

Pressing my cheek against the mattress, I look back at him. "You're a fucking hypocrite, Angelo Russo." My laugh is cold and mocking. "I learned about deceit and betrayal from the master. You're the one who taught me."

He clenches his jaw and retracts his hand. The reprieve doesn't last. Grabbing my arm, he pulls me up and across the floor. My feet refuse to cooperate. I stumble.

He rightens me, giving me a shake. "You wanted me to shoot you?" Taking the gun from the dressing table, he caresses the arch of my neck with the barrel. "That's the punishment I usually reserve for traitors."

I unleashed the monster, but we're both too angry to stop. We're both way past the point of no return.

"Then do it," I say, my nostrils flaring. "Pull the fucking trigger."

He smiles. I don't know why, but the gesture stills me.

"That's what you want?" he asks, his dark eyes pulled into slits. "That I pull the trigger?"

As always, I'm out of my league with him. I'm no match for this man who has life experience I can never dream of obtaining, experience I never want and don't wish on my enemies.

His fingers tighten painfully on my arm. "Have you ever taken a bullet, cara?"

Fear snakes up my spine as he traces my cleavage with the barrel and draws a circle around my breast.

"Do you want to know what it feels like when the metal tears through your flesh?" he asks, making that circle smaller and smaller until he's outlining my nipple.

The tip of my breast hardens under the touch of the cold metal. He flicks the barrel up and down until my nipple is rock-hard and extended. "Do you want to feel the pain when your blood drips down your skin?"

He yanks me closer, pushing the barrel over the hard point of my breast, letting the metal swallow my nipple whole. "Because if that's a game you want to play, I'm going to give you your fucking way."

My heart thunders in my chest even as I stare at him with defiance.

He slides the barrel to the valley of my breasts and farther until he finds the erratic beat of my heart. "A bullet to the heart will be lethal, but where's the fun in that? Much too fast, over too quickly, don't you think?"

I'm exhaling through my nose, trying to control my breathing. I have no doubt he'd love to shoot me.

When he pulls the gun away from my heart, I almost exhale in relief, but the air is trapped in my lungs as he draws a line down my torso and over my stomach. Before he reaches my pelvis, I'm straining in his hold, but he doesn't let me put space between us. He studies my eyes as he goes lower and lower, finally tracing my slit.

A gasp catches in my throat. I go on tiptoes to escape. Too late. I took this game too far. He parts my folds with the barrel, pulling them open to expose my clit. His smile is pure evil as he circles that button with the barrel.

My mind is thrown back to a different day not so long ago—only yesterday, in fact—when he pressed his ring on that spot. It already feels like years ago, as if what happened between yesterday and today left me old.

A smirk curves his lips when he rubs the barrel over my clit. The look on his face is smug because the stimulation makes me wet. I grab his forearm in both hands, but the pressure only increases, the pleasure igniting. Arousal turns me slicker. He massages me with that gun, harder but slower, keeping me on the edge.

I don't want to come, not like this. Not when I hate him and when he's lost control. I never want to come for him again, but my muscles are already tightening inside.

His pupils dilate as he watches me. He can see I'm fighting, willing this not to happen, and he's going to make sure I lose again.

I hiss when he palms my sore ass and curls his fingers around my globe, using the leverage to drag me closer.

"Is this where you want it?" he asks, his tone seductive as he pushes the barrel over my clit.

I'm not sure if he means the touch or a bullet. In any event, I want neither. Unable to conjure words, I shake my head.

He abandons my clit and pulls the gun lower. "Watch."

I shake my head again.

He lets go of my ass and fists a handful of my hair, using the strands like a rope around his hand to force my head down. He parts me slowly with the muzzle, gathering my arousal. My heartbeat spikes. I struggle in his hold, fighting a losing battle as that fog that defines his darkness travels over me again. The metal sight on the muzzle scrapes against my flesh as he pushes the barrel deeper, using my own slickness to fuck me with his gun.

He twists his wrist from side to side, lodging it deeper. His words are soft, cajoling. "Is this where you want it, cara? Do you still want to play that game?" Crueler now. "I can take out a bullet and play Russian roulette."

I whimper as he moves the barrel, imitating the act we did twice. Twice too many.

He walks me backward until my thighs hit the bed and my legs fold. It only takes a push, and I fall on the mattress. Towering over me, he teases me with the barrel inside. He's careful, not hurting me with me the sight tip on the front of the muzzle. It's more of a mild irritation like the scratch his cock left in my throat.

"Watch," he orders again, pressing the pad of his thumb on my clit.

My pulse skyrockets. It feels as if my heart is going to burst out of my chest. It's not only the warped, perverse, and foolishly dangerous situation. It's the look in his eyes, a look that reminds me I don't really know him at all. That I don't know what he's capable of.

"Do you want to finish this game?" he asks, rubbing harder and stroking deeper.

That, I feel. That isn't just uncomfortable. It's not just a scratch. It's fucking terrifying.

The way he rubs me is wrong. It's right too. He knows it. He knows this is the only way I can come. And as it starts, I see the shift in his eyes. I see the evil streak that makes him look like a demon. This isn't the man I met, the one I fell in love with.

This is the man I married.

Our gazes lock. He sees it on my face, I'm sure, the confirmation that he's won. That I've taken this too far. That's it's over, and that I come.

I don't close my eyes. I see it as well. I see it as I unravel naked in front of the fully clothed man who calls himself my husband.

Grabbing his hand, the one that's between my legs, I feel it. I feel his finger tightening on the trigger. I try to stop him, but it's only my heart that stops. My pleasure explodes, the fear somehow heightening everything. I see it even through the haze of my orgasm. The end. I don't have to look. I feel the movement of his finger when he prepares to pull the trigger.