“You’re the girl who has captivated both my sons’ attention. Little Ava Kingsley in the flesh.” He grins at me, but his smile doesn’t meet his cold detached eyes. In fact, it makes him look psychotic.
I heave in breaths, not sure what to do. The way he scrutinizes me is scary as all fuck, but I want to fight him, even if Romeo says it’s dangerous.
Behind Emilio, Onyx emerges from the water, soaking wet but mostly unharmed, walking slowly onto the jetty like something from theWalking Dead.
Emilio flicks his attention toward Onyx quicker than I thought the old man would have in him. “Don’t do anything stupid, boy. It’s been a long time since you and I last met, but we both know what power I hold. I understand your position and what you would do for this girl, so let me make something clear right from the start. You do as I say, and you will get to remain her bodyguard. You make one wrong move, you disappear and make sure she suffers.”
Onyx stops moving, and his eyes flicker to me in a way that makes my heart sink. He wants to protect me, but I’m his weakness. He won’t do anything that might get me hurt. Hisattention moves back to Emilio, and he nods, slowly breathing in ragged breaths that make him look deranged.
I stare back at him as helplessness overwhelms me. He’s going to back down. Of any of them, I thought he would take the old man out. My pulse quickens, knowing I’m fucked. They’re all under Emilio’s fucking thumb.
“Stand up, girl,” Emilio’s voice drips with contempt, and already I know I’m trying his patience.
When I don’t move, his face hardens to motherfucking scary. “Orlando, get her to her feet. She’s yours, make her do what she’s told,” he growls back to his son.
What the fuck is he going on about?I’m his?I glance between the twins, not sure what’s going on. Orlando looks scary as fuck as he moves toward me like a robot, one who has had his operating systems set to evil. In one move, he scoops up my wrists, with his thick fingers wrapping around them tightly. My gun falls out of my grasp as he pulls me to my feet.
I blink back up at him, fear racing through my blood, because the man I see isn’t the one I got to know. This is the monster I have been having nightmares about for years.
Chapter 33
Orlando’smassiveframeencirclesme as he moves behind me, his powerful arms wrapping tightly around my torso, his breath warm against my earlobe. “Be a good girl and no one else has to get hurt.” His words eat away at me like acid. His voice has a cruel edge to it that I know isn’t the real him. Not the man I got to know, anyway.
“Never,” I seethe. He thinks he had me fooled, wrapped around his little finger all because he gave me a few good orgasms. Fuck that.
One of his hands snakes around my throat, his fingers slowly tightening.
My breath catches in my chest, and I suck in slow deliberate breaths. “What are you going to do, strangle me because daddy told you to? Fuck you.”
“Sloane, do as you’re told,” I hear Onyx’s desperate plea for me to get on board with the rest of them and fall under Emilio’s instructions.
I feel Orlando’s teeth graze against my earlobe. “Don’t push me, treasure, you have no idea what I’m really capable of.” His hand tightens.
My lungs burn with each strangled breath I suck in. The men and the jetty in front of me blur, and my body feels light and detached. Like I’m floating. I think I am, his brutal hold on me lifting me off the solid wood.
A look of satisfaction crosses Emilio’s face as his son’s power over me becomes clear.
Reef’s eyes meet with mine, and I see how badly he wants to help, but the bodyguard standing at his side is stopping him from moving toward me with a gun pointed at his forehead. “Wildcat, do what he says,” he mutters desperately.
My fingernails dig into the skin of his hand so deep I know I’m drawing blood, but I don’t stop. I keep struggling against him until I can’t anymore.
“Enough!” Emilio bellows.
Orlando’s grip loosens, and with a jarring thud, I hit the unforgiving ground. Desperately I grip at my throat, trying to gasp in breaths, glaring up at Orlando.
His eyes, cold and lifeless, hateful even, are like a punch to my gut, sending a fresh wave of agonizing pain constricting my chest, worse than any injury he could inflict with his hands. I would prefer to be strangled to death at his hand than to know what we had was a lie.
Emilio extends his hand toward me. “Join me on my yacht, darling, we have some very important business to discuss.”
My heart races frantically as I stare up at him.Business?
“Take my papa’s hand, treasure,” Orlando growls when I haven’t moved a muscle to follow his papa’s orders. I feel his hand on my shoulder pushing me to stand, but I flinch away from him. Fuck him for thinking he can touch me.
I suck in a deep breath, my eyes meeting with Emilio’s, my glare telling him not to fuck with me. With my heart in my throat, I tentatively take his papa’s hand and let him pull me up to standing on shaky legs. His fingers are rough on mine, squeezing mine more firmly than necessary.
With a quick tug, he guides me past his guards, past Reef, Onyx, and Romeo whose faces say it all. I’m fucked. We all are. He stands back and lets me enter the boat first then follows me through, guiding me toward a polished wooden table in a room at the center of the gently rocking boat. He looks down his nose at me and gestures for me to sit in the booth. I comply, collapsing into the leather seat, because at this point, what other choice do I have?
He takes a seat on the opposite side, and his guards move into the room, watching me with faces like steel. He clicks his fingers and just like that a woman appears in a pencil skirt and fitted bodice. “What’s your drink of choice?” he asks.
