“Pretty Priscilla,” I start, reaching to undo the blindfold, dragging it slowly from her eyes. “So concerned for your brother. But aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you?”
3
Cilla
I blink in the sudden bright fluorescent light. His fingers hover over what I know is a bump where the jerk in Jones’s apartment slammed my head against the wall. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust. I’m processing his words. His warning.
It’s his chest I see first. Solid and thick. He’s huge beneath the suit he’s wearing. All black from head to toe. I pull my hands off, I’m afraid to look up. To see his face. His eyes. I’m terrified. He’s a wall of muscle and power.
When I inhale, I smell aftershave, it’s subtle but it’s there. And as I stand here now, nearly naked, with him holding me like this, I know he will hurt me.
But I have no choice.
I force my gaze upward. Neat stubble hones the already sharp line of his jaw. His hair is dark, almost black. I’m delaying having to meet his eyes, they’re a blur in my periphery. His skin in smooth, but for the scar that spans his left cheek. No hair grows in that fine line and I know it was a knife that made it. That cut him like this. Another centimeter and he would have lost his eye.
I swallow, blink, force myself to look up, meet his eyes. Black or blue, I can’t tell. Like a bruise. Like midnight. With an unmistakable edge inside them. A hardness. But something else too.
“Well?”
He’s waiting for my answer. He won’t take what I don’t give but if I say yes, I will have to give. I’ll have to give everything.
But what’s the alternative? Standing by while he breaks my brother’s legs? I can’t do that. I won’t. And this man knows that. “I agree to what you want.”
He nods, but doesn’t move. His eyes burn into mine and I have to blink several times. I can’t hold his gaze. There’s a hunger inside them. A fiery, almost demonic hunger. Like he’s starved. Ravenous.
And I’ve just agreed. I’ve said yes.
I don’t even know his name.
“Please let my brother go.”
Without breaking eye contact, he gives a nod of his head and the other man shoves Jones forward. Jones stumbles, but doesn’t fall. The gun is still at his back as the man follows him out.
“Is he worth it?” the beast before me asks, and suddenly, I feel like her. Like Belle, trapped, her life exchanged to save her father’s. “Is he?”
Jones doesn’t even look back.
“I don’t know your name,” I say.
“Kill.”
I don’t think he’s even blinked. He’s devouring me with his eyes. What will be left of me when he uses his hands? His mouth? His…
“Kill?” My voice breaks on the single syllable. What kind of name is that? Who names their son Kill?
I shudder.
He steps back, checks his watch.
“Hugo.” The man who’d just escorted my brother out returns. Jones isn’t with him.
“Sir,” Hugo says.
“Take her to the penthouse. Put her in one of the bedrooms and post a man. Get her something for her head.”
My head aches. He must know because he felt the bump there.
“Now?” He wants to take me now?
He barely turns back to me as he exits the room. “Not one of the idiots if you can manage it,” he tells Hugo.
“But,” I start, taking a step after him. Hugo steps between us. His eyes scan my nearly naked body and I cover myself with my arms.
He walks around me, picks up my discarded coat, puts it over my shoulders. “You don’t want to catch a cold.” His voice is grainier than Kill’s. He pokes a finger into my back, my signal to move toward the door.
I turn to him. “Now? It starts now?” My insides are churning. I think I may puke, except I haven’t eaten since breakfast. “I can’t—”
“You agreed,” he says, urging me forward. “One month. I wonder if you’ll be walking when your time’s up.” He chuckles.
I glance over my shoulder but he’s not looking at me. More men crowd the hallway and their gazes slide over me. These are dangerous men. The one hadn’t hesitated to slam my head into the wall. And their leader—Kill—what won’t he hesitate to do?
What did I agree to? What have I done?
I slip my hands into my coat and hug it to myself. I left the single shoe I was still wearing in the room so I’m barefoot but for the stockings which must have torn when they brought me here.
At the bottom of the stairs, Hugo puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me, and a moment later, he’s sliding the wet blindfold back over my eyes.
“No.” I touch the cloth, want to drag it off.
“It’s either this or you ride in the trunk,” he says, stepping into my line of vision.