“Jase,” I said softly.
He got to his feet and moved to the gate and grabbed it. I stepped back and landed against Dare’s body. Dare’s arm curled around my belly and he gave me a little squeeze, kept holding on, gave me support.
Jase launched right in, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to get to you. He was a horrible bastard, Ang. It took time but I was trying to find a way to get you out all that time. I had to end his life so I could get you out. I had him poisoned. I figured it was a deserving death after what he did to us.”
I got a shudder from head to toe remembering the stench of death.
Jase continued, looking proud of himself,
“He had to pay, sweetie. But I think they suspected I had a hand in it because after Uncle Donovan died they wouldn’t let me on the premises and they watched me. I was heir to his shares but they kept me on a need-to-know basis. I already tried to buy you, to get you out of there. But they blocked it and wouldn’t even let me see you. I got adamant about it, especially with what percentage of that place I own, and I think that’s one of the reasons they let you go to him,” he raised his chin at Dare, “So I’d give up. When I found out they sold you to Dario Ferrano, I figured I could save you, finally. I know of that family, I met his father many times. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen, Ang. I didn’t. I love you. You were supposed to be mine, not Uncle Donavan’s, no one else’s.” He gave Dare a dirty look.
“Jason…” I started but I started to choke up, “I’m good now. I have a Master and he’s good to me. You don’t have to rescue me. What’s done is done.”
“Well, clearly I failed again. I failed to keep you safe from Uncle Donavan and I failed to rescue you. And now I’ll
probably pay with my life.”
I started to feel bad for him.
But then he said, “I was supposed to be your Master,” dejectedly and my blood ran cold, “Watching them break you? I watched hours of footage of how they broke you over and over. I wanted to kill him. I wish I could’ve seen him die. He made me watch as he beat you, as he made you beg, as he fucked you and made you come. I wanted to fucking kill him because he stole that from me. I got him out of the way so I could take his place at Kruna with you. But fucking Chen, Lucas, Delgado, and the others? They fucking blocked me.”
I felt weak. I leaned against Dare, “Master, could we go, please?”
Dare turned me to face him and looked right into my eyes and answered, “Absolutely, my Angel.”
“Angie?” Jason called my name but I walked faster and faster and then I broke into a run and I ran back to the house and right upstairs and threw myself into the bed and wept.
I didn’t love Jason. I knew love at first sight was real because with Dare it’d happened, within 24 hours. With Jase it was just some fun. Good sex, he was rough and I liked it rough. He liked it often and I liked it even more often. He joked that I was a dream come true. He called me his spirited sexy submissive who he could barely keep up with. Seeing those traits in me and living in the Kruna world? Of course he wanted to take ownership of me; I’d be the envy of the resort. I’d thought, at first, that it was so he could keep me safe but it evidently was just so he could keep me for himself, break me himself. How could he watch that footage over and over? I wanted to puke remembering some of what’d be on those recordings.
Eventually that’s what I’d become, broken, though not under him. His uncle took this broken girl and kept me broken until I got into general slave population and started to find my feet. Sometimes in the early days when I knew Jason watched his uncle fucking me I’d think that maybe Jason was just a victim like me. But I now knew that he wasn’t. He was like a spoiled child whose toy got taken away before he was finished his game and he was still in a hissy fit about the fact that his uncle kept giving him his lumps.
I felt Dare’s hand on my back. I rolled over to look at him. He sat on the edge of the bed.
“You okay?”
“I can’t believe him,” I answered.
Dare swallowed hard and looked sad.
“Are you sad for me? Don’t be sad for me. Be sad for him. He wanted to be his uncle. He wanted to help run that place with me at his feet. He is evil.
I didn’t love him, Dare. I never loved him. I dated him and yeah, I felt bad that he got punished having to watch them break me and watch his uncle…watch him abuse me, but Jase wasn’t distraught because he loved me. He was distraught because his toy was taken away. And he poisoned his uncle out of revenge and then he tried to take me from you. He could’ve killed you. You! Fuck, that motherfucking bastard could’ve hurt you!” I got to my feet and started bawling but it wasn’t weak girlie tears, I was fucking pissed.
“That motherfucker!” I hollered and whipped the pillow across the room and then I whipped the other pillow and then the magazine, too.
“Baby,” Dare said but I was in a blind rage. I was pacing.
“I need to hit something.”
“Angel, come here.”
“No Dare, I need to hit something and I need to hit it hard.”
“Let’s go run. Running is good. It’s better than hurting your knuckles. C’mon, baby.”
Rage was bubbling, boiling over. I was having trouble thinking straight.
“Let’s put on your running shoes and run. C’mon.” He grabbed my hand, reached into the suitcase on the floor and grabbed sneakers for me and put them in front of me. He was dressed in jeans and boots. He kicked his boots off and got into a pair of sneakers, too.