“You think you can boss me around?”
“I remember you now.” His hand runs along the top of my romance books as he slowly approaches the counter. “You and your little sister.”
I go to speak, but he cuts me off.
“How is she?” He smirks. “Still breathing?” There is a dare dancing in his eyes. “Let me think! Do I remember correctly? If the deal is not fulfilled, her life will be forfeited. Is that still correct?”
Okay, so I was hoping he wouldn’t know about the damn deal.
Joey looks away from me and taps a few times on his phone before he grins. And the grin that touches his lips is pure evil.
This man is not nice if the vicious glare is anything to go by.
Lucky for me, I’m not nice either.
“This is her, is it not?” He flips his phone, so I can see a picture of my sister with her arm around a boy at her school back in Italy.
My head snaps up as an unholy gasp leaves my mouth.
How did he do that?
How could he possibly know where Abigail is?
I pay for her to go to the best schools—schools where integrity and privacy are assured. He shouldn’t have been able to find out where she is or even the name she is using.
“How did you find her?” I ask with curiosity lacing my tone, even though I’m finding it harder to breathe every second with this new information.
“It was you they couldn’t find. They never thought to look right under our noses. That was very sneaky of you. But this…” He nods to the phone and pulls it back, sliding it into his pocket. “This was… stupid. Did you really think we wouldn’t find her?”
“My father signed those contracts. I had nothing to do with them and don’t want any part of them.”
“Our life doesn’t work like that, and you know it. You see, if I don’t uphold my contract, that will reflect badly on us as a family. And we can’t have that now, can we?”
“You could call it off.”
“No, I can’t,” he replies, leaving no room for argument.
But that doesn’t stop me from trying. “You can. You’re choosing not to.”
“I’m not, actually. I don’t want to marry you either.” His eyes roam over my body, taking in my long legs in my denim skirt to my midriff top, which shows off my belly and tanned skin, followed by my long brown hair and dark eyes.
“I prefer my women with a bit more meat on their bodies,” he remarks with a sinister smile on his lips.
I’m thin, there’s no denying that.
Every morning, I run for an hour straight.
Not for physical fitness, but for my mental health. It helps drain out the thoughts that run rampant inside my mind. I started after the first time my father hit me. To get out of the house and away from him I would run—run from him—and before I knew it, hours had passed. Every single time, I would arrive back in a state of exhaustion and simply collapse.
Now the old bastard is gone, but those demons still haunt me. They’re not as bad as they were, though. I can breathe out here, now I am away from that life.
I had hoped this day would never come.
I even believed it wouldn’t, considering how much time has passed.
But it seems my luck just ran out.
And in walked a tall, dark, and handsome villain.