My eyes bugged out of my head. My lungs burned like an inferno. I clutched his hands, trying to pry them off me. He was a strong motherfucker like Costa. Death loomed as he squeezed the air out of me. I wasn’t ready to die, particularly at the hands of my brother.
“Duke,” a high-pitched female voice said. “What are you doing?” She rushed over, wiggling her petite frame between two tall and muscled men as though she could stop an army. “Let go of him.”
Duke didn’t move a muscle.
The room began to spin.
“Duke Hart,” the woman shouted. “Stop. You’re going to kill him.”
I didn’t know if it was her caustic tone or the word “kill” that did the trick, but my brother let go of me.
I bent over, gasping for air and blinking rapidly, hoping to clear the darkness creeping in at a Mach speed.
Small hands gripped my arm. “Have a seat.” Her voice was hauntingly familiar.
I inched over to the chair. “You’re the woman on the phone.”
“I’ll get you some water.” She dashed off, her red hair flowing behind her.
Duke sat on the coffee table. “You need to leave.”
His phone rang, and he practically assaulted it. “What, Harris?” he snapped. “Sure, why not? Send them up.” He slammed the phone down. “Well, baby brother, you’re in for a treat.”
I had no idea what he meant. I was too fixated on the redhead as she glided over with a bottle of water. She must’ve been in his bedroom when I came up, which would explain his messy hair and bare chest.
If I weren’t mistaken, she was none other than Mallory Gomez, Jade’s best friend. Maybe they weren’t BFFs anymore.
Taking the water, I opened my mouth to ask her when the elevator dinged.
Duke mumbled under his breath as he crossed the room. The redhead bounced alongside him, eager to see who was about to walk off the elevator.
I gulped down water only to spit it up when I laid eyes on Duke’s guests.
16
Jade
Mallory crushed my hand. I had no idea she was that strong. But I needed a little pain to ground me to my mission.
The elevator sped up to the twentieth floor to Duke Hart’s penthouse at breakneck speed. With my free hand, I held my stomach. Nausea threatened to unleash its wrath at any moment. I did some quick breathing exercises to quell the nerves and hopefully the nausea.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mallory asked. “You just left the hospital an hour ago. You should rest.”
I wasn’t in the mood to rest. I was in the mood to tear off a head, decimate a man’s balls, and make Duke Hart feel the pain I was feeling.
“I’m good.” Those words came out surprisingly strong. I’d been a ball of tears and snot in Mallory’s car.
“Then when those doors open, be strong. Say your piece and then leave and never look back at a Hart man ever again.”
I didn’t plan on it. No matter how badly I ached to be with Denim, nothing good could come of us. I couldn’t be with a man who was related to the devil incarnate.
Duke Hart was the bane of my existence. I wasn’t going to kill him. Death was too merciful for him. I had no idea what I would do, but maybe the mace in my hand would be a good start. Maybe when he felt the stinging and burning of the pepper filling his eyes, he would wake the fuck up. When he felt the blinding pain of having his balls skewered over an open fire, maybe he would realize he was a class A asshole.
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened with awhoosh.
Suddenly, breathing seemed like a monumental task. I inhaled and exhaled, blinking away the last of my tears, or at least I hoped that was the last of them.
I held my chin high. “Let’s do this.”
