Mr. Parker narrows his eyes. “And if I have a doctor examine you? You’d still be intact?”

I’m pretty sure the hymen doesn’t work that way. That if it did cover the hole you wouldn’t be able to have your period. But I’m not going to tell Mr. Parker that.

“Of course, I’m intact,” I say, trying to sound sad but lightly offended. “You can have a doctor examine me. I want you to. I’m still a virgin.”

He sits back in his seat. He still doesn’t believe me.

“They would have filmed it. If they took my virginity, they would have filmed it and showed you.”

Mr. Parker traces his teeth with his tongue. “We never got any recordings of them fucking with you after the first one. I thought you were dead.”

He sounds mildly annoyed, as though he’d lost a wallet. He grips my wrist, crushing it in his fleshy, too-hot hand. “Why didn’t they keep filming you? Why didn’t they force themselves on you?”

I think back to that dinner at Velvet House. The five of us sitting around the polished dining table eating and drinking and laughing. I should have said yes to staying there. If I had, I’d be safe and Zia Teresa would still be alive.

I touch a finger to my shoulder, where my St. Christopher is hiding beneath my dress strap. Zia Teresa is with me now. I carry her in my heart. And she once told me not to blame myself for what other people do, but to focus on my own survival.

Mr. Parker is still watching me, waiting for an answer.

“I think they had feelings for me,” I say quietly. “They didn’t want to force me. They wanted me to choose them.”

He gives a giggling snort. “That’s fucking hilarious.”

His bodyguards grin obligingly.

I bite back my own secret smile. Mr. Parker believes me. He knows I’m still a virgin. He’ll keep me alive just to mock the men who stole me from him. As his limousine whirrs through the city, I repeat their names like a mantra. Elliot Morelli. Domenico Valente. Roberto Bassilotta. Adriano Rossi.

They’re murderers. Dangerous, violent men. And they will come seeking bloody revenge. I just have to survive until they find me.

* * *

Thank you for reading VELVET CRUELTY by Eve Dangerfield! We hope you loved this breathtaking and scorching hot romance with January and her four beautifully dangerous men. Find out what happens after January is taken by Mr. Parker in SILK MALICE…

My heart tells me I don’t want to belong to one man. I belong to four.

But the criminals I love are proud. Too proud.

Their brotherhood is in tatters.

They fight for me. And they possess me, even as the enemies close in. Even as the foundation of our twisted family crumbles. Even as the dark legacy threatens to consume us all.

One-click SILK MALICE now >

Remember Elliot’s sister Sasha? She also appears as the best friend in the dangerously spicy book in KING OF SPADES, a modern dark retelling of Alice in Wonderland.