I didn’t remember crossing the room, but I had, and I was grabbing the whip out of Marcos’ hand.
He had her shackled to the bedpost, and the angry red lines that crisscrossed the milky white skin of her back told me he’d only just gotten started. Five, no six of them. But he was just getting warmed up because only a few of them had broken skin. If I hadn’t gotten there, I could tell by the anger in his eyes that she’d done something to rile him, and he intended to teach her a lesson—a bloody lesson.
If I hadn’t come back…if I hadn’t foolishly decided to fuck the girl I had no business fucking…my stomach churned thinking of what he would have done to her.
I looked back and forth between them, knowing I wasn’t supposed to kill him, but fighting the urge every second.
And then my stomach did more than churn. It threatened to expel everything in it. Looking back and forth between them…it couldn’t be.
But it was. I don’t know how the fuck I’d missed it, but it was clear as day now. Her hair, her eyes, her nose…they belonged to her mother. The shape of her face, the jut of her stubborn jaw, the tiny birthmark just below her ear…they came from her father….the man standing behind her…Marcos.
“Get out,” I seethed, knowing instantly he was not unaware of the similarities between them. He knew. He knew she was his daughter, and he’d planned on whipping her, and god only knew what else.
“How dare you,” Marcos seethed back as I unshackled her wrists and pulled her against me.
It was wrong the way she clung to me. I’d hurt her, too. She should be trying to flee both the monsters in the room, but she wasn’t. She was holding onto me for dear life as if she knew I’d protect her.
I would, at least right now. I couldn’t undo what I’d done to her, but I could keep Marcos’ hands—and his whip—off her.
His own daughter. His own fucking daughter. He ‘d had me train her as a slave. He was going to sell her. What the fuck was wrong with him?
“You know, don’t you?” I asked him, already knowing the answer.
He smiled, unperturbed. “Of course I know. What I don’t know is when you started to care so much about a product? She is a means to an end, Derek, and nothing more.”
“Whose end? If you know she’s your daughter, not Donovan’s—and I presume you’ve known all along—whose vengeance were you after?”
“What difference does it make to you? Donovan will die—that’s all that matters to you, isn’t it?”
“And how do you benefit, Marcos?” I asked though I was beginning to figure it out on my own.
“She’s the product of a whore, a woman who not only fucked behind her husband’s back but dared to run off on me. Every bit of her—including her child—must be destroyed. I knew when I found you that one day you would be useful to me, that your own bitter pursuit would aid me in one way or another. And you have not disappointed me, Derek. Not until now, at least.”
All this time, it had never been for me. He’d said when he had found me, he’d seen strength in me, a strength that he admired, and for that he’d chosen to rescue me and give me a better life, to raise me as a son. But I had been nothing more than a tool, something he could groom and then use for whatever best served his purpose.
“Now, I was not finished with her, Derek. Give her back, and if you are still so inclined, you may have her when I’m done. But you have been lax with her, and if I have to punish her for your shortcomings, then so be it.”
He reached out to grab Scarlett, and I let out a growl that didn’t sound human even to me. He eyed me warily, but seemed to retreat, dropping his hand to his side. But still reeling in shock, I must have been off my game because I didn’t respond fast enough when he raised the whip and started to bring it down, aiming at Scarlett’s exposed flesh.
I spun around just in time to take the blow. It should have stung, but I didn’t feel it. When he’d raised the whip to hit her, suddenly I was angrier than I’d ever been in my life—and I’d spent a lot of time angry.
I pushed her down on the bed and spun around to face him. “You will let her go, Marcos. I don’t give a fuck what you had planned, you will find a way to undo it.” He wasn’t going to. I knew it before the words were out, but I had to give him the chance. Whatever his reasons, he’d rescued me from hell. He might have helped turn me into a bigger monster than the ones I’d known, but I’d let him. I owed him this, even if I knew there was no way in hell he was going to take it.