I’m sick.

That’s what last night made me realize. I’m one sick and twisted motherfucker. I loved what Caspian did to my body last night. I loved every mark, every scar, every sharp intake of pain.

I loved every kiss, every tease, and every thrust.

I loved it all.

I’ve never felt so free, and yet so trapped. I had a plan before. Find the hate and the need for revenge to free myself from him, but now, I can’t live without our messed up sex.

I’m not sure I would ever come again with plain missionary sex. I want more.

I know yesterday was a bad day for Caspian. Something happened beyond just getting shot. He didn’t tell me what, and honestly, it doesn’t matter. He shared something much more precious with me. His true self.

He thought I would run afterward. He thought I would hate him. But now, I’m afraid I might love him.

I love his dark.

I love his light.

I need to find my place in this mess. Find a way to live in this world when I’m still consumed with a past that won’t let me go. And the only way to truly stay with Caspian is if he grants me my freedom. Lets me choose whether I want to stay or go.

I don’t know what I would choose if he gave me a choice at freedom right now. I want to explore Caspian more. See if he is the missing piece in my life. But I also want my revenge. I want to find my own way. I want to see my family.

“Good morning, beautiful,” Caspian says, kissing me softly on the lips.

I smile and stretch; my body is completely sore from the twistedness of last night. This morning, the darkness is gone, and I see nothing but light in his eyes. Today he’s Caspian, while last night he was Conti.

Conti is his darkness, while Caspian is the light. He may not realize it, but I love both parts of him. I couldn’t take one without the other.

“Morning, Caspian.”

“I’m Caspian again, huh?”

I nod. “Yes. Caspian is the person you are in front of most people. Conti, you reserve for the most intense situations.”

“Which do you prefer?”

I shrug. “I like both parts of you.”

He squeezes me, pulling me to him. It seems so normal. Something any couple would do in the morning after having sex all night. The difference is last night. It was the opposite of normal. But it was also everything I never knew I wanted.

“Come with me today.”

I sit up, staring at him like he’s just turned into an alien.

“What?” I ask even though I heard him perfectly well.

“Come with me to Rome. I have a client I have to meet with for a couple of days, so I have to go to Rome.”

I half smile as I bite my lip, trying to keep my feelings under wrap. I don’t want him to know I love what he is asking me. To go with him.

“Why?” I ask even though I know why. He doesn’t want to be apart. And he’s giving me a tiny bit of freedom. A reward for last night. No, maybe reward isn’t the right word. Appreciation, maybe? Or he’s claiming me as his.

“Because I’m selfish and don’t want to be separated from you. I need you with me. Always.”

Always.

I love that word.

God, I’ve got to stop saying, love. I don’t love Caspian Conti. I don’t even know him. And the parts I do know about him scare me.

I’m just infatuated with him. Especially after what happened last night.

There is still a part of me that is pissed at him for not saving me right away. I need to hold onto that part before I let the part that adores him consume me.

It’s clear last night affected him the same way it did me.

“I’ll go with you,” I say. I want to ask him questions. I want to push this. I want to ask if this is the first step toward him granting me my freedom. But I don’t.

It’s enough for now. Soon, I will take my freedom, whether he grants it to me or not.

“I’m not playing a game with you,” Caspian says for the hundredth time in the ten minutes we’ve been in the car.

I pout. “Why not? If you don’t, I’m going to sing horribly along to the radio the entire time.”

He frowns. “How about we sit quietly in the car on the way?”

“No, that’s not fun. We always sit quietly. We never talk. We hardly know anything about each other.”

“I know plenty about you.”

I roll my eyes. “Only things you or Adela have looked up about me. Nothing directly from me.”

I reach for the radio and turn it on. A Demi Lovato song comes on, and I start singing at the top of my lungs about having daddy issues. The irony is striking because I do have daddy issues.

Caspian turns the radio off, but I keep singing.

“Fine,” he relents.

I grin from ear to ear. “So the rules are we get to take turns asking each other anything. And we have to answer each other’s questions to get another turn.”

“And if I don’t want to answer?”

“Then, I win the game.”

“And the winner gets?”

I’ve thought about this carefully. I could offer him something sexual, but he already knows I will do anything he wants without this silly game. I could ask for something worthy of playing, like my freedom, but then he wouldn’t play or would just lie. I have nothing to offer him, but I know he’s competitive. He hates losing. It’s enough. I want this game to be light anyway. I’ll only ask the tough questions when I want the game to be over.

“Bragging rights.”

He narrows his eyes. “And how we will know if the other is telling the truth?”

“We will know.” I have no doubt we will be able to tell.

“Okay, I’ll go first. What is your favorite place in the world?”

“My house.” He answers quickly. My first questions are meant to be light and easy so he will play along, but I didn’t expect this answer.

“Seriously? You like your cabin? You’re not talking about a bigger house you own somewhere else?”

“That seems like a second question.”

I glare at him as his lips curl up. He’s teasing me. I like it. I’m not used to this playful side of him.

“I’m talking about my only home. The house we share.”

Share, that’s a strange word to use when we don’t share it. It’s his; I’m just a captive there.

“Your turn.”

“Why did you fall for a man like Roman?”

My mouth falls and my fingers, that were drumming along still to Demi Lovato in my head, still. I stare at him, and he stares back with the same intensity. He’s not playing games with me. He won’t ask any lighthearted questions. Only serious ones.

“Because I was desperate to be loved. I wanted an escape from the Carini family, and I couldn’t do it on my own. Or at the time at least, I thought I couldn’t. Roman paid attention to me. He offered me a chance at freedom, and I was stupid enough to think freedom was love.”

Caspian stills for a second before he nods. “Your turn,” he says as if I didn’t just bare my heart to him.

“Why don’t you buy expensive things? You make good money. Why don’t you have a mansion?”

He raises an eyebrow as if he can’t believe how easy my questions are, but this one I really want to know the answer to. “Because things mean nothing to me. I don’t need a large house to relax at night.”

“Then what do you spend your money on?”

He chuckles. “You don’t know how to keep to your own rules, do you? That’s a second question again. But if you must know, I spend it on Adela. I pay my employees more than fair to make sure they are loyal to me alone. And I use it to get my revenge.”

I swallow hard at the word revenge. I know he needs revenge the same as me. I don’t know what happened to him, but I won’t be asking him any questions about revenge today.

“Your turn.”

“What do you want in life? What’s your passion?”

“Jesus, you don’t ask easy questions do you?”

He shrugs. “This is the easiest question I will ask. It should be easy for anyone who knows themselves at all.”

I frown. “I don’t know myself. That’s my problem. I don’t have a passion because I’ve never been allowed to be anything but a Carini.”

“Do you like being a Carini?”

I smile smugly. “Now who isn’t playing by the rules?”

He doesn’t smile. He stares at me seriously waiting for me to answer. I guess it’s only fair.

“Yes. I love being a Carini. There was once a time I hated it, but I think being a Carini made me stronger. It made me strong enough to survive these last few weeks. Without it, I would have dissolved into nothing.”

He nods.

“My turn. Tell me about your first kiss.”

He chuckles. “You know how to ask the tough questions,” he says sarcastically.

I laugh and grab his hand. He lets me. This is normal. “First kiss was in the third grade on the playground with Luisa Pellegrini.”

I smile, loving his normal answer. But my smile falters as I see the look in his eyes. He’s about to ask me a question I won’t want to answer. He’s about to end the game. I can see it.

And then he smiles deviously. “Tell me who your favorite sexual partner was.”

I laugh, blushing brightly, hating him for making me answer his question he already knows the answer to.

“This smug ass who doesn’t deserve me, but managed to find all the buttons to my body within seconds because he secretly crept on me for weeks.”

“Hmm, he sounds pretty incredible. What’s his name?”

“You, you fucktard.”

His grin reaches his eyes. “Fucktard? That’s a new one.”

I try to pull my hand out of his, but he tightens his grip before kissing the back of my hand.

We continue on, asking silly questions back and forth, just trying to make each other laugh until we reach Rome.

Caspian gets us settled into our hotel room. The room is huge. He may not spend his money often, but he did tonight. I expect him to start talking to me about all the security he has installed before he leaves. I expect him to talk to me about the guards I’m sure he will have placed outside our door. Or the tracker he secretly placed inside my clothes when I was sleeping.

He doesn’t.

Instead, he kisses me on the lips and says, “Come with me to my meeting.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Why?”

He shrugs. “I want you by my side.”

There is more he isn’t telling me. But I won’t get my answers unless I go. “Okay, I’ll go with you. What should I wear?”

“Something that makes you feel powerful and strong.”

His words have me worried I’m going to need all my strength to get through the meeting tonight.

But I do as he says. I change into a scarlet dress with plunging cleavage, while Caspian changes into a tuxedo.

His eyes never leave me as we dress, and mine never leave his. We both give promises of what we are going to do to each other when we return to the hotel room. But we keep our distance, or we will never leave the room in the first place. And as much as I want to stay in and let Caspian fuck me, I also want to leave. I want to enjoy a night with Caspian that isn’t about sex, especially after our fun game in the car. I want a light, care-free night where I get more insight into his work.

“Ready, princess?” Caspian asks, holding out his arm to me as I finish applying red lipstick.

“As ready as I’ll be when I don’t know what we are doing or where we are going.”

He stills, and I know he is considering telling me more, but then he changes his mind.

I grab his arm. “I promise it will be a pleasant surprise.”

This has me even more intrigued, but I don’t ask. I will find out soon enough.

Caspian leads me out of our hotel room, and to my surprise, no guards are sitting outside waiting for us to leave. We head down only one floor to where the hotel restaurant sits below our penthouse.

“Mr. Conti, your guest has already arrived. I’ll show you to your table,” the maître d’ says.

Caspian leads me through the beautiful restaurant. At least I’ll have a nice dinner in a gorgeous place.

Caspian leans down and whispers in my ear as we walk. “You want your freedom. After last night, I think I can give you a tiny piece of freedom. Revenge is freedom.”

I don’t understand what his words mean until we approach the table, arm in arm looking like the king and queen. I recognize the man at the table, and I realize immediately what Caspian is offering when he says I can get revenge.

Because sitting at the table is one of the men I hate most in the world.

Roman.

“Roman,” I say, letting his name hang in the air.

Roman looks up at me. He recognized my voice, but he doesn’t recognize the woman standing in front of him. I’ve been tortured, beaten, and raped. I should be weaker, but Caspian showed me how strong I am. And tonight, Roman is going to understand as well.

Caspian pulls out a chair, and I take a seat. Caspian takes his own seat.

“Gia, what a wonderful surprise to see you,” Roman says, looking from me to Caspian. There is no fear in Roman’s eyes, but there should be.

“I didn’t realize you owned any women, Caspian,” Roman says, using Caspian’s first name instead of his last, like I’ve heard all of Caspian’s other business associates address him.

“I don’t,” Caspian answers.

Caspian’s answer shocks the hell out of me, but I don’t let Roman know. If Caspian doesn’t own me, then what the hell are we doing?

Roman chuckles. “Whatever you say. I’m glad you brought us some eye candy while we discuss our deal.”

“I’m not eye candy,” I say, glaring at Roman, trying to figure out how I’m going to kill him. Right now, cutting out his tongue so he can’t speak to me like that is my first step.

“Really? Because that is what you look like to me,” Roman says.

I don’t wait for Caspian to give me any permission to start a fight with Roman. I can’t wait.

I slam my heel into Roman’s groin.

He cries out, like I just stabbed him, and grips his balls in pain.

I smirk. It feels good to cause him some pain. My eyes see Caspian out of the corner of my eye, looking at Roman like he’s scum. I guess we won’t be doing much eating after all.

Caspian gets up and grabs Roman’s arm while he’s still writhing in pain. He pulls him toward a back room while I follow. I’m not going to miss a second of Roman’s pain.

When we get to the back room, Caspian slams the door shut behind us as he tosses Roman to the floor.

Roman takes his time getting up, still not realizing what danger he’s in. It will make it all the better when I kill him.

“Our deal is off. I won’t pay you anything to protect me when you let your whore disrespect me like that,” Roman says.

“Gia didn’t disrespect you,” Caspian says, his eyes red.

I stomp toward Roman, knowing he could strangle me, snap my neck, or pull a gun on me before I realized what was happening, but I need to be close to him to say what I need to say.

“I am not a whore,” I say, kicking Roman again.

He cries out but doesn’t fight back. Why doesn’t he fight back?

I glance behind me and see Caspian has a gun pointed at Roman. I smirk. This is where Caspian and I understand each other the most. In the darkness.

“I am not yours. I never was. You didn’t own me. You didn’t have the ability to sell me.”

I kick him again and again after each sentence, needing to get my frustration and anger out on him. He lets me and takes each punch and kick with a grunt or a groan. I watch as the blood slowly pours down his face.

“You are a fucking coward. A weak, shithole that didn’t have the balls to hurt me yourself. So you sold me. You sold me and pretended it was just a business transaction. That it didn’t bother you what happened to me next.

“Well, guess what? I was raped. I was beaten until I couldn’t move. I was violated until sex became torture. My life was threatened every day because of you.”

He cowers on the floor beneath me, curling up into himself.

“You are nothing to me. Fucking nothing!”

I take a deep breath, trying to get oxygen in my body as I keep yelling.

“You think you won. You got your money. You sold me, and I was no longer your problem. I told you I would come after you. I said you would pay for what you did. Today is that day.

“You think I’m weaker because of what you did, but I’m stronger. I’m your fucking nightmare.”

I kick him again, watching the blood spill from his eyes where my heel clipped him.

My body shakes with anger. I thought I wanted to torture Roman, make him suffer for hours or days, but he isn’t worth my time. I want him gone.

Caspian steps forward when I’ve finished all I need to say.

I think Caspian is going to shoot Roman. Eliminate him. Wipe him from my nightmares with one bullet.

Instead, Caspian thrusts the cold metal into my hand. I stare at the gun for a second. I don’t know if Caspian realizes how dark I am. The things that I have done in my past. He calls me princess, but I’m not a princess. I’m just as evil and twisted as him.

Roman won’t be my first kill. Not by a long shot. But I will remember this kill forever.

Caspian steps back, knowing I don’t need him by my side to do what has to be done. Roman needs to be killed, if for no other reason than to protect other women from the same fate.

But that’s not why I’m killing him though. I kill him for me.

“Goodbye, Roman.”

I pull the trigger and watch the blood spill. The light in his eyes leaves, and then he’s nothing.

I watch him a second longer before I walk back to Caspian and hold out the gun to him.

“Keep it,” he says.

I don’t question him. I put the gun in the back of my dress and underwear. And then I kiss Caspian with everything I have. I’ve never needed a kiss so much in my life. This kiss is everything I’ve ever needed. I need it more than air.

My stomach grumbles, and Caspian pulls away. “I should feed you.”

I smirk. “No, you should fuck me.”