“Contingency plans?”
“To ensure you and your sister are… taken care of. We arefamily, after all.”
His grip was so strong, so unrelenting, Charley was sure her bones would snap if he didn’t release her soon. Inside, she writhed in agony, but she didn’t dare move. She had to keep talking, to keep asserting the lies.
She needed Rudy to believe she was on his side.
She needed him to calm the fuck down.
“Please,” she whispered. “I understand completely. You cantrust me. It’s not about feelings, I swear. The acquisition timeline is legit. You said it yourself—Travis’ guys interviewed him. They can vouch.”
“I’m sure they can.”
“Rudy, please!” Charley’s voice was hoarse, her breath shaky and weak, but she had to convince him that he needed her. That she alone could handle Dorian and his brothers, could lure them away from the house long enough for the rest of the crew to get the job done. “I will do what needs to be done—I swear. I just need a little more time. You have to understand that!”
“Don’t presume to tell me what I have to understand.” His hands clamped around her throat, tightening. The edges of her vision faded, the dining room turning gray and spotty before her eyes.
This is it. He’s really going to kill me.
Charley stretched forward in a futile attempt to reach the gun, bad ideas be damned, but Rudy held her back.
“You’ve always been a feisty one,” he said. “I’m sure Redthorne appreciates that.”
“Please,” she croaked again. “Don’t do this. Not here.”
“Oh, Charlotte.” Rudy laughed, cold and cruel, finally releasing her. “Don’t be so fucking dramatic.”
Charley slumped forward in her chair, gulping in oxygen. Her neck and shoulders throbbed, fear pulsing through her limbs.
Without another a word, Rudy removed her mostly untouched plate from the table and brought it into the kitchen, leaving the gun. It taunted her, begging her to pick it up, take aim, and squeeze the trigger, just like she’d done when she’d tased the demon in Dorian’s bedroom last night.
But no matter how badly she willed it—pictured it, even, his blood splattering on the kitchen wall, body dropping like a bag of rocks—she couldn’t force her hands to move.
And if anything should happen to me, know that I’ve got layers upon layers of contingency plans in place…
Charley didn’t doubt it. Rudy had always been paranoid; back in the day, he’d even accused her father of cutting him out of deals, when nothing could’ve been further from the truth. But now, it seemed his paranoia had exploded into full-on psychosis.
He’d said she and her sister would be “taken care of.” Whether he’d have Travis do it, or some other lowlife associate she’d never even heard of, Charley had no idea.
Right now, she only knew one thing:
A dead Rudy meant a dead Charley and Sasha.
“Do you know the best part about watching you contemplate shooting me?” he asked from the kitchen, his voice dripping with mockery. “The gun isn’t even loaded.”
Tears slipped down Charley’s cheeks, and her hatred for her uncle suddenly turned inward, zeroing in on a new target—herself.
She hated that she’d become the kind of woman who cowered in the cruel shadow of a man, who broke beneath the weight of his threats. She hated that as much as she’d tried to protect Sasha, one mistake could undo all of it, sending her beautiful sister to the grave. She hated that she’d become a pawn in a deadly game she’d never signed up to play.
And in this moment, she hated that all she really wanted was for Dorian Redthorne to blur into the room, tear out Rudy’s heart, and sweep her into his powerful embrace, making her problems disappear with a deep, passionate kiss.
Maybe that made her weak—even weaker than the trembling mess of a woman Rudy probably saw when he looked at her—but Charley didn’t care. Wasn’t that what you did for someone you loved? Looked out for them? Saved them when they didn’t have the strength to save themselves?
From the corner of her eye, she caught Rudy rummaging beneath the sink for the dish soap and a rag. She had a dishwasher, but Rudy turned on the faucet and soaped up the plate anyway, humming an old Italian lullaby her father used to sing.
The melody made Charley’s heart ache.
A few minutes later, Rudy cleared his throat, and she finally looked up and met his gaze. He stood in the archway between the kitchen and dining room, watching her with unchecked disdain, clutching the dishrag as it dripped water onto the tile floor. A lone rose petal peeked out from beneath his shoe, red as blood.
