Vicious Revenge (Vicious City Book 4) Read online

  I swallow and try to maintain my composure. I tell myself that I faced Petrov and won, and he wanted to hunt me naked through a freezing Russian forest. I’ve got this.

  “You want restricted material,” Angelo says. “Why?”

  “That’s for me to know, and you to supply, assuming you’re not just wasting my time.”

  Mark coughs gently and shakes his head, as if he’s warning me to shut up. I don’t think so. I know how men like this work. Their reputations do all the heavy lifting for them. Fuck that. I’m not going to piss my pants just because Angelo Vitali asks me a question. I’ve never heard of any of these men hurting a woman in any way. They’re men’s men, through and through.

  Angelo’s brows crease together slightly at my response. “I expect you to answer questions directly when I ask them.”

  “Well, it’s good to have goals,” I say, setting my drink down beside me. “I think I’ve spent enough time here. I’ll be going now. Nice to meet you.”

  “Sit down,” Angelo purrs. I find my body obeying even though I really don’t want it to.

  “What does a girl like you want with nuclear material?”

  “If you must know, I was intending on having it planted in Vicious’ building.”

  “So this, to you, is some kind of prank? A nuclear scare in the middle of Manhattan? That was going to be your revenge?”

  Angelo has quite a pleasant accent. It’s a pity he’s lecturing me like some foolish girl.

  “You understand, of course, that there is absolutely no way you are going to be able to get such a substance, and in fact, trying to shows more than a lack of judgement on your part, it shows an unstable mind,” Angelo lectures.

  I’m starting to lose my temper. Angelo Vitali might be one of New York’s boogeymen, but so is Vicious. I’m used to the way these people think and how they act. They think they have some right to talk down to everyone else, to twist the world to the way they want it to be.

  “You understand, of course, that I don’t care what you think,” I smirk back at him.

  There’s a snort across the room. Bobby is behind me somewhere. I can still feel him glaring.

  “You gonna let you talk to her that way?”

  “Quiet, boy.” Angelo doesn’t take his eyes off me, and he doesn’t raise his voice at all. The intensity increases though, just a fraction, enough to change the energy in the room.

  There’s no doubt he has control over his men. Word is he fucks them both. I can believe it. This man is a very different kind of handsome to Vicious. There’s a dark, pure masculinity in his being. When he looks at me, there’s no sexual interest, but there is the desire for power.

  He doesn’t want to fuck me.

  He wants to rule me.

  My heart begins to pound under that cold stare.

  “What are you going to do with me? Give me back to Vicious?”

  Angelo lets out a soft laugh. “We will see. It depends how much he wants you back.”

  “So I’m a hostage?”

  “You’re a rude little girl who has caused more trouble than she’s worth and should be thankful she is still alive, given she has a chip inside her worth more than she is.”

  “Not to Vicious.”

  “Even to him,” Angelo says. “You’re more valuable gutted than you are alive. If you were sensible, you’d realize that and appreciate the protection he was giving you.”

  “Oh. Ohhhhh!” I get it suddenly. This has happened so many times before I can’t believe they really thought I would fall for it again. “This is Vicious’s plan, isn’t it. He’s gotten you to grab me and scare me. He’s behind this, isn’t he?”

  “What is she talking about?” Mark interjects.

  All three of them are looking at me with a complete blankness which tells me they have no clue what I’m talking about. Maybe Vicious isn’t behind this. Maybe Angelo Vitali spotted me on his radar and decided to take advantage of it. Maybe.

  “Let Vicious know we’ve got his little girl,” Angelo says, his dark eyes searching my face. “And put her in the secure room.”

  “Wait, no…”

  “Come on,” Mark says, taking my hand. “This doesn’t have to be unpleasant. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “Why not? We hurt everyone else,” Bobby pipes up. “I think we should have some fun with her.”

  “What kind of fun did you have in mind?” Angelo turns to Bobby.

  Mark pulls me a little bit closer to him, just a fraction of an inch, but it makes me feel protected. I don’t know him any more than I know Bobby or Angelo, but there’s something in Bobby’s tone I just don’t like.

  Bobby shrugs and takes out a vape pen. “I dunno. She has to be good for something.”

  “Don’t be shy. What were you planning on doing to this girl?”

  “I wasn’t planning anything,” he says with a petulant pout. “I was just saying. We take guys, we fuck them up. We take her and what, put her in the princess room? Just wait for her daddy to pick her up? We’re not even going to punish her a little?”

  “He’s jealous,” Mark smirks.

  “She’s not ours,” Angelo purrs. “It’s not polite to play with other people’s toys, especially given the way we play tends to leave marks.”

  10

  The room they put me in isn’t bad. It’s also not locked. I don’t know how Angelo expects to keep me captive here in a house of open doors. Mark warns me to stay, but I can just leave. So I do. I wander the house until I hear voices, one of them very, very familiar.

  As I get closer, I realize Angelo is talking to Vicious on the phone inside his office. Peering through the crack in the semi-open doorway, I see that he has his hands free for tormenting Bobby, who is fully clothed, but lashed to a chair for reasons I’m sure I don’t want to understand.

  “Yes, I’ve got your little runaway. Seems to be a sweet thing,” Angelo is saying.

  “You’ve got the wrong girl,” Vicious snorts. “Mine’s a hellion with an attitude. When can I pick her up?”

  “That depends on you,” Angelo purrs. “You know I’ve been looking for a favor from you for quite some time.”

  There’s a sigh on the other end of the line. “I can’t get that done, Angelo. I can’t even be seen to associate with you. Nobody has forgotten what you did the the last federal agents who came near you…”

  “So you admit you’re an agent?”

  “No,” Vicious sighs again. “You know what I am, and what I’m not.”

  “I know what I have, and I know what you want. Bobby wanted to play with your Kitty. I said no, but perhaps I should let him?”

  “Angelo…” Vicious’ voice drops to a severe growl. “We do not want to make enemies of one another, do we?”

  Vicious sounds pissed, but he’s not as angry as I am. Fuck this. It seems no matter where I go, or what I do, I inevitably run into some man who thinks he owns me. Vicious might have some claim to me, but Angelo? He doesn’t get to use me as a bargaining chip.

  BAM! I kick the door open and stride through.

  “Hi sweetheart,” I call out to Vicious. “I’ll be home when I’m ready. This asshole isn’t going to keep me prisoner any more than you did.”

  “Kitty!” Vicious snaps my name, and even through empty air, he has an effect on me. My body responds with a tingling sensation running all the way from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. God. I miss him. I wish I was in his arms. I wish we were in bed together, but I wish more that he didn’t fucking lie to me whenever he felt like it. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

  “What counts as stupid?”

  Angelo crosses the room, grabs me by the arm and takes me over to his desk, near the phone. There’s not much point struggling, he is far stronger than I am.

  “I’m going to let you listen,” Angelo purrs.”While I do what you should have done to this girl in the first place. She’s so spoiled, Arthur. What were you thinking?”

  What the fu…


  Angelo pushes me firmly down on the desk and a moment later, I hear the leather of his belt slipping out of the loops of his trousers. No. Oh fuck no. Oh…

  “OW!” I let out a cry as the leather lashes across my ass. He doesn’t touch my pants. He doesn’t need to. He’s using that belt with a force that makes light denim feel like nothing at all. In an instant, my butt is blazing with pain and heat and I am screaming for him to let me up. He doesn’t. He brings that leather belt down at least two dozen times, maybe more. He’s utterly immune to my cries, and I can’t move an inch thanks to the grip he has on the back of my shirt.

  This isn’t like when Vicious has disciplined me. I don’t have the reassurance at the back of my mind that he won’t really hurt me, that he has some other use for me, and that he wants me to be okay. Angelo whips my ass with that belt like I owe him money, a relentless lashing which changes my entire perception of the world and my place in it.

  When he lets me go, I slide from the desk onto the floor, my ass aching with fire, tears flowing uncontrollably. I’m scared, and I don’t know what to do with that. I want to hide, I want to run, I want to fight. All three impulses war with one another and leave me curled up at his feet, my hands rubbing my ass to try to alleviate some of the burning hell he unleashed on it.

  Angelo looks down at me with those dark, merciless eyes. Again I am viscerally reminded that he is not like other men. His discipline isn’t tempered by the fact that he wants to fuck me. He doesn’t want sex. He just wants control.

  I can see him thinking. His expression is impassive, but his eyes are bright with deviance and darkness. He looks away from me, toward the phone, leaving me writhing on the floor.

  “I’m going to keep her,” he tells Vicious. “I think Bobby was right. She’s going to be fun to play with.”

  “Angelo…” Vicious growls his name in a deeply threatening tone, but Angelo just reaches out and disconnects the call.

  Oh. Fuck.

  “Get up.” Angelo’s voice is calm, bordering on cold.

  I don’t want to get up. My instinct is to curl up on myself and hide from these men who want to use me as a pawn in a power play. I don’t know how to conduct myself around Angelo. He obviously doesn’t care about hurting me. I don’t know if he enjoys fucking with Vicious, or if he really has a use for me, but I know I fucked up.

  “Get. Up.”

  I do as I’m told, rising to my feet. I don’t know where to look. I don’t want to look at him, that much is certain. I end up looking at my toes, scuffed sneakers which have seen better days.

  “What just happened to you is nothing,” Angelo says. “I am not a kind man, or a patient one. If you so much as think about displaying the kind of disrespect you did when you came in here again, I promise you, you will find yourself in the kind of pain that is never forgotten.”

  I believe him.

  This whole time Bobby has been bound to the chair, silent thanks to the gag. I can read him though, both these men have very expressive eyes. He thinks I got off softly. Maybe I did. Maybe there is still some female privilege in Angelo Vitali’s world

  “Go back to your room.”

  I’m happy to leave his presence, though I can’t walk the way I usually would. Every step makes the denim of my pants rasp against my punished cheeks in a very unpleasant way. I half-limp as quickly as I can back up the stairs and into the room I was put in to begin with. The door is still not locked, but escape feels further away than ever.

  I lie stomach down on the bed, feeling very, very sorry for myself. That belting did more than hurt and scare me, it made me feel small. This is a very big house, filled with larger than life men, and I am just one girl with a very sore butt.

  In all this chaos, my rebellion, my thirst for revenge, I’ve been at a loose end. I’ve been looking over my shoulder, telling myself I’m trying to escape Vicious, but the truth is, I’ve been hoping he’ll find me. There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to teach him a lesson at all. That part wants to be the one being taught - and that part was just completely satisfied by Angelo’s treatment.

  “What the fuck is wrong with me?” I whisper the question to myself.

  “Everybody who finds themselves in this room asks themselves that at one point or another.”

  It’s Mark. I didn’t hear him come in. He moves quietly for a big man.

  “What do you want?” The question comes out ruder than I intended it to.

  “Word of advice,” Mark says, folding his arms over his chest as he leans against the door frame. “Behave yourself as much as possible. Angelo is a cruel man, but he has a soft spot for obedience, and you’re going to want to endear yourself to him.”

  “Pfft,” I shake my head. “I don’t think I could ever endear myself to a man like Angelo. Not enough penis, for starters.”

  “You don’t need a dick to stay alive here. You just need to know when to keep your mouth shut - and when not to kick a door that’s worth more than you are off its hinges.”

  Shit. Did I do that?

  “Oops.”

  “Yeah, oops,” he says.

  He’s handsome, and he seems really nice. He’s obviously come to see if I’m okay, and it’s fucked up that I don’t know whether to trust that or not, but here we are.

  “Why are you here? You don’t fit. You’re way too nice.”

  “Long story,” Mark smirks. “Let’s just say I can empathize with your mission to mess with Vicious. But unless you’re willing to leave completely and never come back, you’re not going to change him. These men are the way they are because they have to be. Sometimes, being close to them means allowing them their lies.”

  I scowl. “Wait… is this another set up? Because if it is…”

  “Vicious didn’t put us up to this. You got Angelo’s attention and we did a little digging. I’ve been where you are, Kitty. I know it sucks. And you probably do deserve better. But if you want it, you need to leave, and I mean go far away. Like, New Zealand.”

  “Fuck that.”

  “Then you’re going to have to come to terms with the man you want to be with. What he is, and what he isn’t.”

  I smile a little. “What are you, the criminal whisperer?”

  Mark smiles back. “Just another sane person who has learned to live in this insane world.”

  11

  Blaze

  “I’m nervous.”

  “Don’t be.”

  Slick holds my hand as I lay propped up in stirrups. One of the first things he asked me after we got ice cream was whether or not I’d been to a pre-natal visit. When I said no, he made the appointment for me. Now, here we are, having waited among the other excited couples, in a little private room, waiting for a doctor to confirm what I already know.

  “I don’t want to do this.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s going to make it real, and then you’re going to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving you,” he reiterates for what must be the thousandth time, pressing his lips to my forehead.

  He’s so fucking good to me. There is no way I deserve this kind of love. I haven’t done anything to earn it. He’s just giving it to me, and I really don’t know how to take it.

  “How are we today?” The doctor comes in beaming. She has shiny hair and is snapping on blue gloves and I feel like I’ve somehow left my life and woken up in someone else’s.

  “Good, thanks, this one is a little nervous,” Slick says, squeezing my hand.

  “First baby?” She smiles at me.

  “Uh, yeah.”

  “Alright. Let’s see what’s going on in there.”

  I’m a passenger in this experience as she bares my belly and covers it in goo, after which a probe is pushed against my lower stomach. She does it as if it’s all so normal, hardly seeming to notice how stunned I am by it all. Fucking doctors, they handle you like you’re just a lump of meat, like they have some right to…

  “There’s your uterus…” she gestur
es toward the screen where an image of my insides is being projected.

  It all looks like a squishy mass to me. I’ll take her word for it.

  “And there’s your baby…”

  I don’t see anything. It’s all just shades of grey in there… and then, suddenly, there’s a little spark in a small pocket of darkness, something moving independent of the rest of me. “Oh my god. Is that it?”

  “Yes, that little bean bouncing around in there’s your baby. Good strong heartbeat,” she smiles.

  “Oh my god.” I squeeze Slick’s hand harder. “Oh. My. God.”

  “Wow,” he murmurs.

  I look up at him. “Are you sure you want it?”

  The doctor’s face is priceless, but I don’t care. I have to hear him say it.

  “Yes, sweetheart. I want you, and this baby,” he reassures me yet again. He’ll have to do it another hundred times before the end of the trimester, but maybe I’m starting to believe him.

  “We’re gonna need a house with like, a yard,” I say as my mind finally catches up. I’m going to need some baby clothes… oh god, we need diapers!”

  Slick chuckles as this all becomes realer than real. “We’ll get all that and more,” he says. “Don’t you worry.”

  I lean against him and stare at the screen. This is my life. This is my husband. And I’m looking at my baby. Against all odds, and for reasons I don’t think I’ll ever understand, I’m getting my happily ever after.

  12

  Vicious

  I can’t say that hearing Kitty have her ass whipped by Angelo Vitali angered me nearly as much as it should have. After everything that has taken place over the last week or two, hearing her shrieks as leather met her butt was about the most satisfying sound I could have heard. I just wish I had been the one doing it, but there’s still time for that. Kitty isn’t going to sit for a long time once I get my hands on her - and I will be getting my hands on her.