When my uncle growls at me in warning, my lips get flapping. “I attended the gyms you requested yesterday morning. I signed another three recruits. I did as you asked.”
“But youhaven’tsecured the man I want!” he interrupts, yelling. “You had orders to bring me the best. You’renotbringing me the best!”
With two fights already under my belt this weekend, I pray like hell the third time really is the charm. “Because he doesn’t want to fight for you. That isn’t my fault—”
I should have paid more attention to his balled fists. They hurt more than any slap ever could. The hit he splits my cheek with juts my head back so far, the back of my skull comes close to shattering the glass next to my head. I feel instantly woozy, and the tangy taste of blood has me forgetting the amount of garlic my dinner was laced in.
I want to say I’m surprised he hit me, but in all honesty, I’m not. He’s wanted Maddox fighting under him for even longer than Maddox has been contending in the underground circuit at his university. It’s why I bolted when Maddox caught my relieved sigh from Saint kissing Sloane, and it’s why I acted like I had no interest in him even with my crush being borderline psychotic.
While rubbing away a smear of blood from his hand like it isn’t from his niece, my uncle sinks into his seat. “If he isn’t interested in fighting for me, what was tonight’s date about?”
“It wasn’t a date.” The brutal shudder of my lips chops up my words. “He… umm…” I’m usually more on the ball with thinking on the spot, but since my brain was just rattled against my skull, I’m a little slow off the mark. “He needed help with a paper.”
Hetsksme as if I’m a child. “You didn’t go to college, so how could you possibly help him?”
I didn’t go to college because I didn’t want to owe you anything, is what I want to reply, but since I can’t, I continue with my ploy to pull the wool over his eyes. “His paper was based on an experiment we did at Seacoast Private. I supplied him the evidence, so he supplied me a free meal.”
I thought he’d appreciate my wheeling and dealing—he’d sell my lung on the black market for a free meal—so you can picture my shock when disdain hardens his features instead of anger. “A man doesn’t buy a woman steak unless he wants to fuck her.” My skin crawls when he unlatches his seat belt so he can scoot to my side of the cabin. “But you wouldn’t know that, would you, sweet innocent Demi?” I can’t see my face, but when he drags the back of his index finger down my cheek, I know the exact area that’s starting to welt. It whitens along with the rest of my skin when the reasoning behind his gentleness comes to light. “You have so many of your father’s features, I often forget you’re as pretty as your mother.”
I want to scream at him that I’m his niece when his finger drops to my collarbone before it moves to the neckline of my dress, but no matter how loud the words are shouted in my head, I can’t force them out of my mouth.
Denying him only ends one way.
Death.
While he traces the outline of my strapless bra through the thin material of my dress, he mutters, “I was disappointed when you failed to answer my calls tonight. When word got out you were seen dining withRavenshoeroyalty yesterday…” he spits out Ravenshoe like it scorched his throat, “… I thought you hadfinallydone as asked.” Hetsksme again. “Should have known better. You’re just like your father. Stupid and incapable. You’d be more useful to me dead. Alas…” he sighs like he’s doing me a favor, “… I promised your mother I’d take care of you.” I’ve seen men almost beaten to death, yet it has nothing on the smirk my uncle releases while saying, “She paid very well to ensure your safety. Perhaps I should make you do the same?”
When he reaches for his belt, I sneak a hand around my back to secure a firm grip on the door handle. Rolling onto asphalt at seventy miles an hour will hurt, but I doubt it’ll be as painful as discovering there was a reason for the horrified gleam in my cousin’s eyes anytime she begged to have a sleepover. Ophelia only ever pleaded to stay the night when her father returned from ‘business’ trips. It was rare for her request to be granted since my uncle refused to let her go on the basis he had barely seen her the months prior.
After wetting his lips, my uncle whispers, “Do you want to play a game, Andi?” He only ever calls me Andi when he’s up to no good. My father was so desperate to please him, he christened me with the female version of his beloved son’s name. He can’t use that when he wants to forget we’re related by blood.
When he glares at me, demanding an answer, I tug on the door latch. No matter how I answer him, my response will produce the same result. I’ll either die from colliding with the pavement, too ashamed to remain living, or be strangled by the belt now hanging loosely down his splayed thighs when I tell him no.
My grip on the door handle loosens when my uncle’s temper gets the better of him. He lunges for me, his grip on my hair enough to spring tears to my eyes. “I asked you a question!”
The hand he raises to strike me across my cheek suspends midair when the revs of a motorbike sound over the roar of his words.
When my uncle jackknifes to investigate where the disturbance is coming from, he rips a chunk of hair out of my head. This is the exact reason I usually wear it up.
“What did I tell you, Andi? He wants to fuck you. Enough to risk his life for the chance? I’m not sure.” After returning his eyes from Maddox tailing us on his motorbike to me, he sneers a snarling grin. “But I’m always willing to push the boundaries.” He sleazily winks, so I can’t miss the double meaning of his comment.
I breathe for the first time in what feels like minutes when he signals to his driver to pull over. Once he has his belt looped back around his waist and his zipper sitting in its original spot, he dismisses me with a wave of his hand through the air.
I have my seat belt off and my door flung open in under a second, but I’m far from free of additional controversy.
“Are you forgetting something, Andi?” my uncle asks, his tone laced with an equal amount of humor and superiority. When I crank my neck to face him, he taps his cheek like I’m unaware of what he’s asking. “Did your father not teach you any manners?” The gleam his eyes held when he undid his belt returns full force when he mutters, “Perhaps I should spend the weekend teaching you? Sometimes the only way a child can learn respect is by having theirs stripped.”
“You can’t,” I stammer out, too frightened to care he’s using my ultimate fear against me. I’ve done everything he’s asked of me because I don’t want to end up like my mother. I gave him my soul, yet it still isn’t enough. I have to give him the one thing I’ve wanted for over half my life. I have to throw Maddox into the fire with me. “I have a fighter to sign.”
My reply pleases my uncle more than my fear of his threat. “That you do.”
When he taps his cheek for the second time, I tilt across to his side of the cabin. Kissing his cheek already makes me want to vomit, and doing it under Maddox’s watch is even worse, but it has nothing on the disgust that rains down on me when my uncle twists his head a mere nanosecond before my lips land on his cheek, forcing them onto his open mouth.
The growl that rumbles up his chest is horrific, much less what he says next, “Almost as sweet as your mother’s cunt.”
10
Maddox
