Of course, the one thing he didn’t do was restrict her activities in any way. “So did you see him?” I ask casually, lifting my hand to play with her earlobe. “Jake, I mean?”

Her body turns into stone in my arms. I can feel the rigid tension in each muscle. “I ran into him briefly, after dinner with my friend Leah,” she says evenly, looking up at me. “We had some coffee together, the three of us, and that was the only time I saw him.”

I hold her gaze for a second, then nod, satisfied. She didn’t lie to me. The reports had mentioned that particular incident. When I first read about it, I wanted to kill the boy with my bare hands.

I still might do that, if he approaches Nora ever again.

The thought of another man near her fills me with white-hot fury. According to the reports, she didn’t date during our time apart—with one notable exception. “How about that lawyer?” I ask softly, doing my best to control the rage boiling inside me. “Did the two of you have a good time?”

Her face turns pale underneath her golden skin tone. “I didn’t do anything with him,” she says, and I can hear the apprehension in her voice. “I went out that night because I was missing you, because I was tired of being alone, but nothing happened. I had a couple of drinks, but I still couldn’t go through with it.”

“No?” Much of the anger drains out of me. I can read her well enough to know when she’s lying—and right now she’s telling the truth. Still, I make a mental note to have this investigated further. If the lawyer touched her in any way, he’ll pay.

She looks at me, and I can feel her own tension dissipating. She can discern my moods like no one else. It’s as if she’s attuned to me on some level. It’s been that way with her from the very beginning. Unlike most women, she’s always been able to sense the real me.

“No.” Her mouth tightens. “I couldn’t let him touch me. I’m too fucked up to be with a normal man now.”

I lift my eyebrows, amused despite myself. She’s no longer the frightened girl I brought to the island. Somewhere along the way, my little pet grew some sharp claws and was starting to learn how to use them.

“That’s good.” I run my fingers playfully across her cheek, then bend my head to inhale her sweet scent. “Nobody is allowed to touch you, baby. Nobody but me.”

She doesn’t respond, just continues looking at me. She doesn’t need to say anything. We understand each other perfectly. I know I will kill any man who lays a finger on her, and she knows it too.

It’s strange, but I’ve never felt possessive about a woman before. This is new territory for me. Before Nora, women were all interchangeable in my mind—just soft, pretty creatures passing through my life. They came to me willingly, wanting to be fucked, to be hurt, and I indulged them, satisfying my own physical needs in the process.

I fucked my first woman when I was fourteen, shortly after Maria’s death. She was one of my father’s whores; he sent her to me after I dispatched two of the men who murdered Maria by castrating them in their own homes. I think my father was hoping the lure of sex would be enough to distract me from my path of vengeance.

Needless to say, his plan didn’t work out.

She came into my room wearing a tight black dress, her makeup perfectly done and her lush, full mouth painted a glossy red. When she began to strip in front of me, I reacted just like any teenage boy would—with instant, violent lust. But I wasn’t any teenage boy at that point. I was a killer; I had been one since I was eight.

I took the whore roughly that night, partly because I was too inexperienced to control myself, partly because I wanted to lash out at her, at my father, at the whole fucking world. I took my frustrations out on her flesh, leaving behind bruises and bite marks—and she came back for more the next night, this time without my father’s knowledge. We fucked like that for a month, with her stealing into my room every chance she got, teaching me what she liked . . . what she claimed many women liked. She didn’t want sweet and gentle in bed; she wanted pain and force. She wanted someone to make her feel alive.

And I found that I liked that. I liked hearing her scream and beg as I hurt her and made her come. The violence crawling under my skin had found another outlet, and it was one I used every chance I got.

It wasn’t enough, of course. The rage dwelling deep within me couldn’t be pacified so easily. Maria’s death changed something inside me. She had been the only pure, beautiful thing in my life, and she was gone. Her death accomplished more than my father’s training ever could: it killed any remaining conscience I might’ve possessed. I was no longer a boy reluctantly following in my father’s footsteps; I was a predator who craved blood and vengeance. Ignoring my father’s orders to let the matter drop, I hunted down Maria’s killers one by one and made them pay, drinking in their screams of agony, their pleas for mercy and for quicker death.

After that, there were retaliations and counter-retaliations. People died. My father’s men. His rival’s men. The violence kept escalating until my father decided to pacify his associates by removing me from the business. I was sent away, to Europe and Asia . . . and there I found dozens more women like the one who had introduced me to sex. Beautiful, willing women whose proclivities mirrored my own. I gave them their dark fantasies, and they gave me momentary pleasure—an arrangement that suited my life perfectly, especially after I came back to take up the reins of my father’s organization.