I force myself to say it. “I wish you had. Daddy.”
He smiles. The bastard smiles and it takes everything I have not to hurl, everything I have not to scream. “The bitch stole you, shaped you. It isn’t your fault.”
“Tell me about her. And…and you. Your story?”
He shakes his head. “She was pretty. She used those looks and her cunt, and I tried to beat her into submission, but she wouldn’t. Stay. Down. She wasn’t one of us, not like you. She was so fucking useful. I sold her here and there, and that bitch liked it, gave it for free. I should have killed her when she stopped being useful, killed her when she gave me you, but no.”
He goes on and on about her. How he loved to beat her senseless. How he bought her things. How he got her to sleep with men he wanted things from. Alliances. How she’d cry and he’d beat it out of her. Then she had me and she kept defying him.
I don’t know if he liked her once, if he loved her, or if he just saw a pretty girl he knew he could manipulate. Someone not of this life, as he puts it, but it sure sounds like she came from a small family of criminals. He spotted the sixteen-year-old school girl and he married her.
Obsession. Hate. And… Is this me and Nikolai?
Nikolai never sold me. Apart from that one humiliating time he made me walk into a room of men naked, right after he finger fucked me and turned me on against my will, he never, ever wanted another man to see me like that.
True love, Rosalind. You idiot. All these men, they’re the same. You’re a fool.
I hate this man in front of me, more and more with each passing second.
It’s becoming a sickness in my blood, that hate. What he did to my mother…The strength it took for her to stand up to him and protect me, to run.
My heart bleeds for her, and if I could turn back a clock, find a time machine, I’d hug her tight and tell her…tell her she’s amazing. Tell her she deserved better. Tell her she’s strong.
I can’t. That’s a fairy tale. They don’t exist, unless we’re talking the ones that end in death and blood. I should play the game. I know it. I should just agree, tell him my mother was worthless, just like me, that he’s a big, strong man.
I can’t. Pushing myself clumsily up, using the chair, I stand.
“Derek?”
His head jerks at me as his eyes narrow and the gun comes in to train on me. “I told you. Daddy or Sir.”
“Derek. Thing is,” I say, my voice clear and strong, even though I’m shaking inside, even though I’m terrified. “Thing is, up until Nikolai took me, I had no idea of your name, no idea who you were or that you existed.”
“You did.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t. You think my mom loved you, but was some kind of slut who couldn’t stop herself? Nothing is further from the truth. She ran to protect me because she loved me. She hated you, hated you so much that she never once uttered your name. Ever.”
He’s staring at me, pointing the gun. If he kills me, then I’m dying knowing he hears this. Because he’s a small little man, a coward, one who under the delusion Mom obsessed about him like he does about her. I…I need to hurt him. “You were absolutely nothing to her.”
“I was everything,” he yells. “Everything. Since she was sixteen, she wanted me. She just couldn’t stop being a fucking whore, just like you. I should shoot you dead.”
“Then do it. If you make me go with that man, if you whore me out and give me to your men, then I’d rather be dead. Pull the trigger.”
Before he can do anything or speak, there’s a soft beeping in the room and he goes to the desk, backing up to it, gun on me. He scrabbles for his phone, then finds it and picks it up. He frowns and presses a button. “What the fuck is going on?”
In the relative silence, I can hear someone speaking, but I can’t make out the words.
“I had that second alarm put in late this afternoon, and it just went off.” He waits, listens, keeps the gun on me, and starts making motions like he’s shooting me.
“You didn’t see anyone? What about the others?” He pauses, lowering the gun. “What the fuck do you mean they’re not answering? Send someone.” Another long pause. “I don’t fucking care if you’re the last fucking man here.” He grits his teeth. “I’m fucking aware the trusted crew are at Beale Street. You want me to shoot you or to lower your ranking? Find out where everyone is. And for fuck’s sake, call in back up from fucking Hawke’s Hollow. Now.”
He hangs up and tosses the phone.
“Trouble? Daddy?”
His head swings full to me, the gun rising again. “Shut your fucking mouth. I’m thinking two things. Either you want me to kill you or you think your lover is coming. I want him to, that was the plan. One of them.”
I swallow hard. An alarm was set off? But we’re not at the secret place, so…What if the alarm is Nikolai?
Terror streaks white hot through me. He’d come blazing in with a team, not by himself. Wouldn’t he? My father’s insane, but he’s also deadly, a loose cannon. It’s like he has about a thousand plans he threw in the air and is seeing which comes down. Me turning up might backfire on Nikolai.
One alarm, no cavalry? That says to me one person, not him and his army. I swallow again, trying not to shake. My father has an army.
He stares at me and then he lets out a savage snarl of a laugh. “You stupid little whore. You bitch. You think it’s him, and…you’re worried?”
“No-”
“Don’t lie. It’s all over you. Just like his cum.” He starts to pace, the gun trained on me as he does, his gaze darting to his phone on the desk.
“P-Please.”
“Shut your stupid whore mouth. No, see, here’s what I’m thinking. He sent you to me. You didn’t get away. He sent you. Fucked you, then sent you because he’s sick of you.
“And if it is?”
He laughs. “I’ll beat him. I did once, literally. Should have killed the little punk then, back when he really was no one. Trying to interfere, stop me doing what was my right. I beat him then and I’ll beat him now. if he does come, it’s not for your worthless ass. It’s for me.”
His word cut into me, and he doesn’t stop. I can’t stop the terrible shaking, the roiling sickness that churns inside.
“Your stupid face, Thorne. Fuck. That’s what I couldn’t work out. He’d never let you go.”
I stare, push out, “Because he cares. He-”
“He doesn’t care about you, cunt. Just me.” He rounds on me and pushes the gun to my head before stepping back. “I bet he told you to come, that he said he’d get you. Did he tell you he loves you?” He laughs, and my heart shatters.
I know he doesn’t love me, but what he’s saying, it’s so close to what happened that… “No.”
“Yes, Thorne.” His eyes glitter with a savage knife’s edge. “We play games, and you fell for it, got caught up in emotion and let him manipulate you. He’s using you like he did last time when he left you for me, left you so he could get his hands back on his little maid he wanted to fuck. I know he did. She sobbed his name as I fucked her up the ass. I bet he had her again when he got her back in the trade and you…you just thought he wanted you?”
“This isn’t true.” All the horrible things he’s saying, I latch on to Sylvie and I almost throw up. I heave and taste the bitter burning of it in my mouth, but I swallow it down. It’s nothing more than bile, and…
Oh, poor Sylvie. My father, he…
“It is. He’s probably coming back, but not for you. He’ll kill you. He’ll try to kill me and my friends. That’s the man you’ve been offering your cunt to, you stupid little bitch. Nikolai wants you dead and gone, and this is easy, or so he thinks.”
My mouth is dry. “No.”
“Yes. He doesn’t care. He’s sick of you. Probably fucked so many women, probably pretended it was your cunt of a mother he was giving it to. He doesn’t like or care or want you, Thorne, and you’re a fucking fool to think he does.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t. I try to get it into my lungs, but it catches and I’m breaking into pieces. The idea of Nikolai loving me is so ludicrous, such a stupid, stupid little dream I can’t let have air. I know he doesn’t and never would, but to hate me and throw me to my death at the hands of my father?
It hurts, like I’ve been stabbed. It makes horrible, terrible sense. He sent me here. He let me be taken before. It was all for revenge and getting his hands on the power my father has.
And…and…and… It doesn’t make sense. Does it?
He let my father have me for Sylvie, or that’s what this man here says, but him throwing me to this particular wolf? Nikolai knows what my father is like. It’s why he wants revenge.
I can’t quite reconcile this brutish, terrible move with the softness he’s shown me. It’s not a lot. Some might call it nothing, but with Nikolai, his promising I’ll be okay. The smiles and feeding me. The tender kisses… rescuing me from the wedding from hell, holding me.
I…
My head is spinning fast and wild, and I don’t know what’s true and what’s manipulation.
I do know one thing.
Derek Finnegan is the worst of all.
Derek Finnegan deserves to die.
I know one other thing: Derek is right that Nikolai doesn’t love me, might even be right about him being sick of me, but this man here is a sick bastard who likes to twist the knife, to hurt.
Nikolai wouldn’t leave me to die. He’ll come. I’m so terrified he’ll come for me.
“You can kill me, Derek,” I say. “But then Nikolai will never stop coming for you. He’ll torture you and then kill you. So, if I was you, I’d run now, without me. Run and never come back.”
“Or,” he says, “kill you.”
I lift my chin. “Your call.”