“Excellent. You truly are a beautiful specimen,” he said. His voice was soft and he had a slight lisp. His face was wrinkled around the edges of his eyes and along his forehead, as if he spent a lot of time frowning. His hair was a silvery grey trimmed short, and his eyes dark blue and watery until they locked on me.
And that’s when his real power showed, they pierced me as if they could see right through me, and his mouth twisted into a knowing smirk, as if he judged me and found me lacking. As if my beauty was owed to him, owned by him, and the rest of me was expendable and unworthy. I felt like I wasn’t enough of anything under the weight of his gaze. I felt like I was nothing.
So, instead of crumbling like the old Everly would have, I stood up to him with my body language. I sat straighter, put my shoulders back, and thrust out my lower jaw in defiance.
“I wish I could say the same, but you are definitely not an attractive specimen,” I replied in an ice cold tone.
He laughed, a dry, raspy sound that grated along my nerves. “I have never laid claim to beauty, but I assure you, I am not a specimen.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am the collector,” he said and stretched his thin lips over his over large teeth. “You belong to me, Everly. The moment we chose you as Tribute years ago, you were drawn into my world and were playing by my rules even if you didn’t know it.”
“You can’t force me into anything,” I replied with vigor. “I won’t play by your rules because I don’t recognize them as my rules. Go rule the golf course and yell at your interns, old man, but I’m done here. We’re leaving.”
I pushed away from the table and made to get up when he laughed again, but snapped his fingers.
“Sheriff Notley, arrest her for the attempted murder of Reginald Reynolds,” he said, and looked at me with a cruel, satisfied expression. “See, sweetheart? If you don’t want to play by my rules, then you can live by the rules of the country. And in this country, shooting somebody in cold, calculated attempted murder is against the law.”
A man at the other end of the table got to his feet and started to walk towards me. He was younger than the rest and was tall with broad shoulders and muscles for days. He was also wearing a sheriff’s uniform and was holding zip ties in front of him.
“Miss Everly, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way,” he said as he walked. “Now I don’t know what everybody else thinks, but I kinda like the idea of doing it the hard way.”
“The fuck you will!” Kingston exclaimed and knocked his chair over as he leaped to his feet. “There’s no way you’re taking her anywhere.”
“Yeah, fuck that,” Archer said, and he and Valen got up to stand in front of me.
“You boys know the rules,” Notley said with a grin. “You know how this all works. You can either let me take her away, or convince her to listen to the Organization.”
“I won’t listen,” I spat in anger. “I won’t let those bastards run my life. I’d rather be in jail than let them control me!”
“So be it,” Notley said, and snapped his zip ties against the palm of his hand. “This was the choice I was hoping you’d make. There’s nothing I like more than a gorgeous young girl like you pressing her tits against me, struggling to get free.”
“Get fucked,” I said, and he only grinned wider.
“That might happen, depending on the outcome,” Notley said. “But not until I’m given the word, and not until I have you in a cell.”
Kingston roared and ran. He met the sheriff halfway down the length of the table and shoved him hard. Notley stepped back and almost fell from the force, but he didn’t go down. “Do you want to join her?” he asked instead. “We can always find another fighter for Dirty Kingdom.”
“I’m afraid we can’t have him harmed,” the old man said, smacking his palms on the table. “He is too valuable. The Tribute? We can replace her, but many in the Organization have a lot of money on us winning the fight. And they think this is the young man to do it.”
“I hadn’t realized,” Notley said, and pulled his arrogance back by several notches. I liked seeing it, but I hated that the old man at the head of the table was the one to do it.
“Stay the fuck away from her, then,” Kingston said, standing with his chest so swelled I wouldn’t be surprised if he started beating on it like Tarzan.
It was sexy, seeing a powerful guy like him stand up for me, especially when the entire world felt like it had been against me for so long. But I was still terrified, not knowing what was going to happen to me or how I could get out of it.
“You know our fathers,” Archer said and stood next to Valen. “You can’t fucking touch us, so don’t you dare touch her. She’s the Tribute, but she’s also ours.”
“That only depends on if you Covington boys actually win Dirty Kingdom,” the old man at the head of the table chuckled with a mocking huff. “As for me? My money is on that beast from Harrington, have you seen him fight yet?”
“I’ve seen him fight and there’s no way he’ll beat Kingston,” I said, holding Kingston’s arm to steady myself as I felt rage flood through me. “You’d better put your money on the right one, or you’ll lose a lot of it.”
“How much do you think is a lot?” the old man asked. His voice was as dry as his lips and it grated on my very soul.
“I don’t know,” I spat, his question was ridiculous. “A million? Two million?”
There was a moment of complete silence, and then the old man laughed. And every other man at the table began to laugh. Openly, loudly, mocking me as I felt like crawling back inside myself and disappearing. As I thought about how little it would take to exit the situation, either through the door where we’d come, or by running at the window and leaping from this, the fourteenth floor.