“I’m going to do thatanyway,” I tell him, watching from the corner of my eye as Ashe wanders over to look at the tattoo on the back of my neck. It burns under his gaze, though I’m sure that’s just my imagination, and I twist in Cyril’s grip again. “I’m going to scream about it, probably sue you, and get it covered up,” I promise, my eyes on the man’s gaze in front of me.
“No, you won’t.” He sounds so sure. So placid that I do a double-take.
“Who thefuckdo you think you are to tell me what I will and won’tdo?”
“I’m Cyril Chancellor, and when I tell you what you will and won’t do, you’re going tolisten.” His voice is full of arrogance, and I can’t help but seethe at the words. “Do you knowwhy?”
“Because you have a lot of money, and mommy didn’t tell younoenough as a child?” I demand, my hands clenching in his.
Ezra snorts from the couch, still unmoving, and when I chance a glance toward him, I see that he looks as entertained as if he’s watching his favorite movie.
I hate it.
“That’s probably true,” the brunette on the sofa says, and the words draw a glance from Cyril that somehow promisestroublelater.
Am I worried for Ezra? No, not really. Notactually, but it’s weird to see him grin so heavily in the face of what has to be a threat.
Absently, Cyril pins my hands between us and lifts his gaze to mine again.
“I’m probably not as rich as you think I am. It’s notmyass seated on the fancy CEO chair at Chancellor Enterprises, after all.” He offers me a rich smile that never reaches his eyes. “But even if that wasn’t my last name, we’d still be right here, and you’d still be in thissameposition.”
I open my mouth to say something, and his other hand flies up to cover my mouth. “I didn’t ask for your opinion this time,” he reminds me. “And while Idolike hearing your voice, I don’t have a lot of patience for you interrupting me tonight.”
My body is telling me to run. Togo. I need to get out of here, and not just because I need to find a way to get rid of this mark on my body that I don’t understand.
I need to get away fromthem. Especially Cyril.
“Weownyou,” he says finally, and my heart plummets before my stomach twists and sends a wave of nausea rushing through me.
What the fuck did he just say to me?
“You heard me, didn’t you?” He flashes that winning Chancellor grin at me once more. “Nod your head for me.”
I don’t. His hand over my mouth changes so he can grip my jaw, and instead, he does it for me like I’m somehow incapable and just need to be shown how.
Fuck him.
But probably not literally.
Finally, I’m able to jerk my head away, and I look between them as my heart races. “I don’t evenknow you,” I hiss, trying to jerk free of his other hand. I don’t succeed, and with a sigh, Arlo sits down behind me, not holding onto me but not allowing me to go anywhere else with his warm, solid body in the way.
I hate it.
“Well, you might not know ournames,” Ashe agrees, leaning his hip against one of the half walls of the tattoo station. “But wehavemet.”
I stare at him, nonplussed, and he stares back with one sharp brow arched over his dark blue eye.
“We’ve never met,” I assure him.
“Then you don’t use your ears. And did you ever start sleeping with that knife? I noticed you didn’t take the one we left for you.”
A moment passes.
Then another.
I’m sitting there, between two men who won’t let me get up and staring at someone who most certainly should not know about a conversation I’d had with two people who’d wanted to murder me back in San Diego.
“Oh my god,” I say, because what else is there to say?