"You tried to strangle ! I think that is considered as an attempt to murder."
"I knew what I was doing. You needed to calm down and were in need of a sedative. I improvised with what I had." He offered an unconvincing shrug.
"Calm down by strangling ?" I hissed, controlling my rising voice. "I could have died!" I seethed. The images were clear in my head, my body, pale and lifeless, lying alone in an open casket. The funeral was comncing, but there was not a single person attending. It was a sad thought that I pushed into the darkest corners of my mind.
"Yes, I cald you down. A near-death experience is known to make a person concentrate on better things than trivial emotions. If you have not noticed yet, you are calm and don't want to kill ."
"You would not have died," he assured . I was not assured.
"How can you be so sure?" I argued, leaning forward, the strength returning to my limbs.
"I have enough experience in induced strangulation to know when to stop." I narrowed my eyes at him. "Strangulation is a common kink, Mia. A lot of my partners enjoyed being held down and used." His eye flickered towards Daisy before eting mine again. "The lack of oxygen in your brain can cause you to create an alternate consciousness. It also produces a euphoric sense which is quite addictive."
"I would have thought that you gained your experience by strangling people you interrogated. You seed to enjoy torturing people if I rember correctly," I sneered, not willing to lose the opportunity.
"I do have experience with asphyxiating people at interrogations, but I usually just try to scare them. And I will retort that subtle jab of yours at a later date."
"No, I want to hear you now!" I demanded. Damn it if I had to wait for the explanation.
"Not in front of her," he said sternly, but in his eyes, I saw a sort of vulnerability that I had never seen before.
"Oh, she knows everything already. Probably even better than -"
"So, you should be asking her all the questions. You don't fucking need to tell you why I did what I did, Mia," he snapped.
"Oh, yeah... I don't need you, Anthony. But I want to hear you say it. I won't pretend that I understand why you did any of what you did. Why try to kill on a later date when you could have done it in the beginning?" I let the calmness wash over , keeping my anger inside, giving him no openings to evade the answer.
"You were my only chance at securing dominance over the Russian market without going through Luke." Had I expected him to say anything else? No. Had I wished that he had shown an ounce of emotion in how he said it? Given an indication that he had sohow actually liked ? Yes. I would have loved that. It would have soothed the cut on my pride. I would never overco how disgraced I was when I had fallen into his trap.
"And what did you promise them in exchange?" I asked. It felt nice to be on the interrogating end: to make him have a taste of his own dicine.
His stare was penetrating. I held my ground, giving him no room to analyze my question.
"They wanted you taken care of. You were the sacrificial lamb, so to speak. They would get rid of you, and I would get to further the power of my empire. I was winning anyway, and you would have been a nuisance if I let you live after Luke was overthrown."
"So, you took the opportunity and disposed off of ?" His head snapped up towards at that. In his glare, I found surprise. The slight widening of his eyes at the question gave him away.
"That was not sothing I planned or intended to do. If I wanted to overthrow Luke, I had to pretend that you didn't matter. Do you think you would have been as lucky as to get out of the situation alive if he had known that you were my little lover? They would have killed you without a second thought!"
"And that is exactly what you wanted right?" I exclaid. "I was lucky, you say? I was hopeless and I thought that I had been abandoned. I did not want to believe that everything that I went through with you was all a big joke. I got the joke, I tried to end it, you know!"
"I do," it was nothing more than a whisper.
"I was not lucky while I was in there, Anthony, having those n touch . I was trained to be able to withstand disgrace and objectification, but I never expected that you would stand by and watch soone touch what you proudly thought was yours," I scoffed. "Is that not what you said when I was sitting with Armando? Why not let him touch , too. I wanted it: his touch," I taunted.
What I would give to get a rise out of him.
"You didn't want it. You just wanted to make jealous."
Reviews
All reviews (0)