I wasn’t letting him go anywhere near my slave. She was mine. “She’s off-limits. End of discussion.”
“What the fuck?” he snapped. “I deserve my revenge too. I want to hurt Bones just like he hurt me. I need to fuck her in the ass to accomplish that.”
“We’ll get our revenge. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, we’re running out of time. We need to hand over her body soon.”
What did he say? “What do you mean?”
“Bones sent a message.”
His long silence told me his first plan was for immediate retaliation. He wanted to hit us and hit us hard. But he couldn’t track us down. We were dispersed across the country and in France. It was easier to search for a needle in a haystack. “What does he want?”
“He said he’d pay twenty million for her.”
I kept a stoic expression, but my heart pounded. It pissed me off that he was willing to pay so much for her return. She was mine. He couldn’t buy her back. She wasn’t for sale.
“Can you believe it?” Cane asked. “Twenty fucking million dollars. That’s insane. Does she have a magic pussy or something?”
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” I threatened him with my look. No one spoke of her like that—except me.
He raised an eyebrow. “Damn. Now you’re obsessed with her too. What is it with this woman? I admit she’s hot, but she’s not a supermodel.”
“We aren’t accepting the offer.” End of story.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “Hell yeah, we’re accepting the money. Do you have any idea how much that is? I know we’re both wealthy, but damn, that’s more than most countries have in their treasury.”
“No.” She was worth more than any man could ever pay.
“This is what I’m thinking...” He rubbed his palms together. “We accept the money and transfer it into our account. Then we return the woman but insert a vial of poison into her arm. Just when she’s in his grasp and gone, we’ll hit the trigger and kill her right then and there.” He grinned from ear-to-ear, proud of the plan. “Talk about a sweet revenge.”
I wasn’t handing her over. And I certainly wasn’t going to kill her. I’d made a deal with her, and I was a man of my word. When she paid off her debt to me, I’d let her go. But I couldn’t tell Cane that, not without setting him off. “I’ll think about it.”
“What’s there to think about?”
“If we reject his deal and keep her, that’ll just piss him off even more. That’s a sweeter revenge, if you ask me.”
“I don’t agree with that.”
“If we refuse to hand her over for any price, that’ll tick him off even more. There’s nothing a man hates more than being powerless. Bones will have no way of getting her back, knowing we’re raping her and mutilating her on a daily basis. I think that’s a pretty sweet revenge.”
“I guess,” he said. “But I still think we can do better.”
“Let’s take some time to think about it.” I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull this off. If I let her go, Cane would see it as an act of war. He loved Vanessa as much as I did. If I took away his revenge, he would never forgive me. Our business would be split right down the middle, and our familial bond would be as well. He wouldn’t be able to handle that kind of rejection, not from his only living family member.
“In the meantime, I’m gonna put her on her knees and have her suck me off. That’s harmless.”
Her lips would only be wrapped around my dick—both pairs of lips. “I told you she’s mine.”
“We’ve shared before. How is this any different?”
“It’s different because it is.” I didn’t have a firm answer to give. I didn’t have any justification for my behavior. All I knew was he wasn’t going anywhere near her. No man was. “Now drop it.”
“Why the hell do you get to keep her? You’ve been hogging her for a month. I thought by now you’d be bored of her.”
“Well, I’m not.” Not anywhere near bored. “So drop it. You know where to find entertainment.”
“Paying someone to do something is one thing. But raping someone’s slave...that’s not something a man can just walk away from.”
His infatuation with my property was disconcerting. We’d never fought over women before. There were plenty to go around for good-looking men like us. This obsession was a direct challenge against me. And I didn’t like it. “You’re going to have to. Now, leave. I have things to do.”
“You mean you have some fucking to do.” When he turned, he nudged his shoulder painfully against mine. There was a threatening look to go with it. “I’ll get her one way or another, Crow. You know me.” He headed to the door, and my footman immediately opened it for him.