“How can you be so cruel?”
“You really don’t seem to know who you’re talkingto. Do not mistake me unchaining you and clothing you to be some act of kindness ormercy.It is not.”
“Why did you do it then?” I snap back, knowing I’m pushing him and shouldn’t.
He steps closer so he’s just a breath away and looms before my face so we’re eye to eye and I’m inches from his lips.
“I have a maid who cleans my room and a cousin who roams my housefreely.The only people I want looking at your pussy isme.That’s why I untied you.”
My whole body heats up at his crass words like it’s programmed to do so, but I ignore my traitorous reactions and try to focus.
“Doesn’t my brother’s letter count for anything?” I add in a weak voice, making one final attempt. “It shows I can’t be a threat, and neither can he if he tried to warn you that our fathers were killed because of these people. I was just trying to find my brother.”
“You don’t know he’s alive. If you truly came to me because you’re looking for him then you should have had more evidence than just a phone call you apparently overheard.”
“It was all I had and enough to let me leave my mother. Please let me go,” I’m begging now.
“No,” he answers short and succinct in a clipped tone that should warn me to stop asking. “You’re linked to Jude and since he has my name, he’s tied up in shit from the past that’s relevant tome.”
Shit from the past?
But that’s something else.
“What shit from the past? That’s nothing todo with me if it’s from the past. My mother’s life could be in danger and you want to hold me for something that has nothing to do with me?”
“I just told you, your mother is not my concern.”
“You fucking bastard!” I snarl, unable to control my fears, anxiety, and fury. I’m overwhelmed by all three and I can’t restrain myself anymore. How can I when he’s saying he doesn’t care what happens to my mother? “How can you be such an asshole and keep me locked up here because of fucking bullshit from the past you have with Jude. That isn’t my concern.”
I should have preempted his next move, but Ididn’t.
He swoops down so fast I barely saw him coming and catches myface.His fingers dig into my skin and his thumb presses against mythroat.
“It fucking is your concern Olivia Markov, because if Jude knows I was an enforcer for the Order, he’ll know where my son is.” He grates out and my eyes go wide.
His son…
But didn’t his son die in a fire with his wife?
“That motherfucking bastard will know who’s been keeping my son for the last nine years,” he adds giving me an answer. “Jude will know I’ve been on a crusade to get my boy back and he’ll know my personal attack on the Order to do so. He’s working for them so he has a reason to want me dead. Even if I’m not entirely convinced he didn’t send you to try and kill me. You, his pretty little wife to be, are important to him because he wants your family’s company.”
With that explanation I see exactly how much trouble I’m in and why he’s holding me.
“I’m not part of that. He didn’t send me to kill you and I don’t know anything about your son. All I know is what I told you.”
“Well, it appears that things have changed. Push me again and you’ll end up in a cage in thedungeon.”
JesusChrist… no.
I can’t end up in a cage again.
The flash of the nightmare memory of how Jude broke me comes to mind and my soulweeps.
The cold floor, the chain on my leg, the metal bars, thedarkness.
Jude.
All of it comes back to me and I shudder when I think Aiden could be the same type of monster as Jude.