“And I already told you we’re working on it,” Graham said.
She leaned forward. “You don’t understand. Every day that passes, my mother is getting hurt and my sister is more and more terrified.”
“I’ll talk to my family tomorrow morning. In the meantime, Blake will keep you in his rooms.”
“Absolutely not.” Hope crossed her arms over her chest.
His brother looked at him. “It’s up to you how you deal with her.”
Blake almost grinned. Oh, hell yeah. They needed to get a few things straight at that moment, and one of them was that she needed to stop arguing with them and being so belligerent.
“You can come quietly with me, or I truss you up and carry you where I want you,” Blake said.
“Just try it, fucker.”
He was on her in a flash and had her face-down on the floor of the car with her arms behind her back. While he took great care not to hurt her, his grip was tight when she continued to fight him. He ripped the bottom of her long skirt and tied her hands and legs.
“You son of a bitch,” she screamed against the floor.
“This would have gone easier, pet, if you had just done what I said.”
“You motherfucker,” she yelled.
He sighed, ripped some more of her skirt, and gagged her with it. “You won’t be using those kinds of words around me because I don’t like it.” Blake bit back a smile when she continued to try to yell, but he didn’t understand a word she was saying. Damn, she was easy to rile, which delighted him.
He pulled her out of the car, threw her over his shoulder, and walked to their limo. One of her guards started to fight to get to her, but his brother took care of it.
He set her on his lap and gripped her face in his hands. That was when he noticed all the stress and exhaustion on her face. “Oh, baby, everything’s going to be okay.”
She tried talking again, but she didn’t struggle.
“Hold on. If you promise not to yell or fight anymore, I’ll take the ties off.”
It took her a moment, but she finally nodded. He had her untied and resting against his chest.
Her body stiffened, and she acted like she would start fighting again.
“Wait. I know everything is crazy right now, pet. But my family is taking care of all of it. Your sister and mother will be out of the house very soon.”
“I just want my father to go away,” Hope said.
“We’re making that happen. Just give us a little time.”
He loved how she sighed, rested against him, and closed her eyes. “That’s it, relax for me. No one is going to hurt you.”
She nodded.
****
The warmth and strength of his arms made Hope feel safe and cared for the first time she could remember. It perplexed her because she’d just met him, and she didn’t trust men except for Mateo and Trent, the men who loved her mother.
Hope, her sisters, and her mom had been isolated most of their lives because her father was a bastard. She spent very little time with any of them, so she hadn’t been brought up with hugs and cuddles or feeling safe even in her own home.
Blake tightened his arms when she sighed and closed her eyes. She was so damn tired of fighting and feeling angry. She couldn’t remember the last time she got any decent sleep, and her mind and body were exhausted.
What she wouldn’t give to be somewhere else with her sisters and mom, free from the bastard and able to be happy.
Her sister’s husband got back in the car, and they drove away.