“Around, I’m sure.” There’s no sympathy—no warmth.
I tip my chin up, straightening my spine. “Why did you have them bring us here? You and I both know I wasn’t being held hostage.”
“You sure? If you weren’t their hostage, what were you doing with my enemies? Colluding? Being their whore? If that’s what you wanted, I could have arranged it with a higher-paying bidder.”
“Fuck you.”
Uncle Rick shoots out of his chair, circling the table and grabbing the back of my hair to force me to look up at him. Pain webs across my scalp.
“What was that? You seem to have forgotten who you belong to, EmeryZane.” He emphasizes his last name like that means anything to me anymore. “I raised you. I supported you. And this is how you repay me? By letting some dirty biker knock you up. Using you like a worthless, disgusting piece of trash. You’re lucky Eli still wanted you after that—that he still wants you now when you’ve probably been passed around their filthy clubhouse like the whores they keep there. Be grateful he sees the bigger picture.”
Uncle Rick releases my scalp, and tears prick the corners of my eyes. I hate crying in front of him because it only adds to his amusement. At the first traitorous tear, his smile grows.
He’s truly evil.
“I don’t care where you’ve been this past month.” His voice is sharp. “The only reason you were there that longis because I allowed it. Don’t think you’re in control just because I let you stay there as long as I did.”
Uncle Rick leans against the table, still towering over me in a show of power. Tears slip down my cheeks, no matter how hard I try to hold them back.
“Don’t cry.” He frowns, like it disappoints him that I’m showing emotion. “We’ll make this benefit us one way or another. Especially now that we know the asshole who knocked you up has become attached to you and that girl.”
“Charlie.” I hate that he refuses to say her name. “My daughter.”
I know better than to talk back when Uncle Rick is ranting and raving, but I hate how he acts like Charlie isn’t even a person to him.
He smirks, not bothering to respond to that. “While you’ve been gone, I’ve been thinking, and now I know how you can help me, Emery.”
A cold chill pummels through my veins. His smile is not happiness; it’s scheming enjoyment. It’s determination. There’s nothing comforting about it.
“What are you talking about?”
“The Twisted Kings have been causing problems for me for too long. I’ve let it slide over the years. After all, a little competition is healthy. But taking down my club was the final straw.”
Uncle Rick is talking about the strip club that he was using to move women. While he never directly involved me in his businesses, I saw the depths of his involvementfrom time to time. Especially when I got older, and he had me living in one of his casinos on the Strip.
Occasionally, he’d have girls moved into town to work at his strip club while he was negotiating with men interested in buying them. As the deals were about to close, they’d come to the casino to meet with my uncle face-to-face.
I can still hear the cries of the girls who begged him to show mercy and let them go. One time, I even tried to help. I snuck three of them out, but they were dragged back within the first twenty-four hours.
Uncle Rick made me watch when he took them to the desert and shot them one by one. Then he shoved me to my knees in the blood-splattered dirt and threatened to do the same to me for wasting his time and money. He made sure I knew that he wasn’t sparing my life out of mercy; it was because he would make me pay for what I’d cost him.
I stopped fighting after that, knowing anything I did would result in someone else’s death. I wished he’d have ended it there. At least then, I couldn’t be the reason anyone else got hurt.
“I told you before, Emery, if you cause a problem, you will be the one to help me fix it. That’s what you’re going to do now.” His eyes gleam. “You’re lucky Eli is forgiving.”
“I’m not marrying Eli.”
“You think this will protect you from that?” Uncle Rick lifts my hand, dragging his thumb over the diamond wedding band. “Marriages can be undone, or I can find a way to undo them. You’d make a pretty grieving widow.”
I pull my hand back. “You’re not going to kill him.”
“I’ll do anything I want.” Uncle Rick’s voice sends a chill down my spine. “If he thinks he can steal you without my permission, then he’ll learn his lesson.”
“I’m not property.”
“That’s exactly what you are.” His eyes darken. “You are my property to do with as I wish. To marry off to whoever I choose. You are my niece—my blood. If you try to fight me on this, I will make you regret it.”
“Then you might as well just kill me now.” I roll my shoulders back, refusing to bow down to him like I’ve done my entire life.
