Page 2 of Drowning in the Deep
I leaned away from him. “You’ve got to give me some time to think about this,” I pleaded. “You can’t expect me to just commit to something like this without giving it any thought whatsoever.”
“Why not? Do you think you might be more loyal to him than me?” Daemon countered.
“No, but there’s a lot at stake here. And if we fail—”
“Why the fuck would we fail?” he asked. “Unless you’re planning on betraying me. Again.”
“For fuck’s sake!” I shouted, starting to get angry myself. Why wouldn’t he just believe me? “You and I both know there are always other factors to consider in something like this. Just give me some fucking time!”
For a moment, I thought showing him my angry side might’ve actually bought me a few moments and maybe he’d back off. He did step away from me, but only for a second. Then, I was off the floor again, tossed over his shoulder, and Daemon Petrov was moving rapidly to the staircase that would take us out of the gym area.
“You need some time? Fine,” he said, carrying me like a sack of potatoes up the second flight of stairs, the one that led to his bedroom.
Thoughts of what he might be planning to do with me flittered through my mind. God, if he threw me into that fucking dog cage again, I’d lose my mind.
But then I thought maybe he would want to fuck me. Maybe he was pissed off but also turned on, like I was. When he carried me into his room and dropped me onto his bed, I found myself panting, and it wasn’t from exertion.
Daemon wasn’t breathing heavily at all as he stared down at me. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking about fucking me the same way I wanted him. He had that same borderline maniacal look on his face as he’d had when he started throwing punches near my head. I stared into his dark eyes for a moment, wondering if I should say something.
I didn’t get a word out before his phone chirped. Pulling it out of his pocket, he cursed and read a quick text. “Goddamnit,” he muttered, shaking his head.
Putting his phone back in his pocket, he returned his attention to me. “All right, La Rosa. You need some time to think about it? You got it.” He reached into the nightstand and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. I didn’t try to fight him. He was clearly much stronger than me, so it would do no good. Daemon closed one of the cuffs around my left wrist, threaded them through the bars on the back of his bed, and then hooked the other one around my right wrist, leaving my hands down next to my hips but still practically immobile.
I stared at him, unblinking, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing.
“That should give you some time to think about it while I go take care of some business,” he said before heading into his bathroom. I heard the shower turn on and cursed under my breath. It only took him a few minutes to get cleaned up, and then he walked out of the bathroom, dressed in a suit, and didn’t even look at me as he headed out the door.
“Fuck me,” I whispered.
At least I wasn’t in a dog cage.
CHAPTER2
DAEMON
The thrill I’d felt dumping Elisa onto my bed was heightened as I drove to the warehouse, following up on Dezzy’s text that we had major problems. Knowing that a gorgeous woman was handcuffed to my headboard made everything a little more exciting.
Pulling into the parking lot, I had to let all of those thoughts fly out of my mind. My brother’s text was alarming, and though I wasn’t quite sure what the problem was, I knew it couldn’t be good, especially when I saw my mother’s car parked a few spots down from my own.
“Fuck,” I muttered, getting out of the car and slamming the door. This sort of interference in the operations of this particular warehouse was problematic for more reasons than I could possibly count, and if she wasn’t by herself, this was going to be even messier than any of us had bargained for.
Not that I wasn’t willing to get my hands dirty if it meant I got to rough up Alexander La Rosa, my mother’s new husband, and my family’s archnemesis for as long as I could remember. Our two families had fought for power and territory since before I was born.
The moment I walked inside the warehouse, I heard my mother’s voice above the din of everything else going on. The lights were dim, but I could spot a group of our guys working on the far side of the room as they counted and packaged our newest shipment. Nearer the entrance, boxes were being packed and taped up. This shipment needed to go out tonight, but having Mom there interfering meant that my team was distracted. A few of them were away from their stations, standing around her in the far back corner where she was looking at some of our newest samples that had just arrived.
Seeing my mother there probing the crew was bad enough, but then, I realized she wasn’t the only one barking questions at them. Alexander La Rosa was there, too, and he wasn’t just standing idly by the corner, waiting for my mother to conduct whatever business she now thought she was in charge of. No, he was asking the warehouse leader, an older man who’d worked for the family for years named Marty, a ton of questions he didn’t need to know the answers to.
The sound of everyone talking echoed off the walls, making a racket that prevented anyone from even noticing I’d entered. Irritated at seeing a man I wanted dead standing in the middle of one of my production workflows, I pulled the gun from my holster and fired it into the air.
Immediately, my people yanked their weapons and turned, but upon seeing me, they quickly put their weapons away, staring at me, dumbfounded. Alexander La Rosa also pulled a pistol, but he wasn’t so quick to lower it.
“Daemon? What the fuck are you doing?” my mother commanded, her eyes wide as she stared at me. “We’re trying to work here!”
“This is my operation,” I reminded her. “No one should be in here without my permission.” I glared at Alexander as a small smirk formed across his face.
Mom let out a loud sigh and turned to her new husband. Patting him on the arm, she said, “I’ll talk to him. You keep getting situated with the shipments.”
Alexander continued to stare me down for a moment before he nodded and turned to Marty. “So when do shipments arrive? Tuesday? And they go out on Thursday?”
