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Chapter forty-two
My room was the same as I’d left it. Nothing had changed. But nothing felt the same.
Chandler was out there, down the hall, doing God only knew what to my father, and I was sent to my room like an unruly toddler with no idea why. I wanted to scream, to stomp my feet and throw a tantrum, to demand that someone—anyone—tell me what the hell was going on.
“I trust Caspian,” Liam said. “And you need to trust me. There are things that happen, things you wouldn’t understand—a curtain of lies that people like to hide behind.”
He had no idea what I understood. God, I was sick and tired of people underestimating me. I was laid over an altar on the other side of that curtain. My body had been used as a blood sacrifice at a ceremonial ritual. Chandler’s had been beaten and scarred by the same people. I saw the marks and read the torment in his eyes.
I knew my father’s secret.Maybe not all of it, but I knew enough.
“Let them pull back the curtain, Ani,” he said, then closed my bedroom door and left me alone.
For a few hours today, I’d forgotten all the secrets and lies, forgotten the darkness. For a little while, I’d just let myself feel, let myself believe that we could be normal. I thought maybe Chandler had felt the same.
I should have known that with men like him, the anger always won.
I opened my curtains and stared out the window over the gardens, trying to ignore the nagging ache that clenched at my chest. It all looked so quiet, peaceful and serene, even though inside of me, a storm felt like it was brewing.
A hand clasped over my mouth, stealing my breath as something hard and cool pressed against the underside of my chin.A gun.An arm circled my waist, yanking me backward against a hard body.
“Make one sound and I’ll pull the fucking trigger.”
I knew that voice.
Prince Alexander.
Fear chilled me to the bone. Not the kind of fear that triggered a heated thrill inside me.He wasn’t Chandler.This fear was crippling, seizing my chest and making it hard to breathe.
I opened my mouth and bit the palm of his hand. Hard.
He wrenched his hand from my mouth, leaving droplets of blood on the floor. And then he reared back and slapped me across the face. Tiny sparks of bright light dotted my vision at the impact. “You stupid bitch.”
I stomped on his foot, and he howled in my ear. I clawed at the arm that was wrapped around my ribs and crushed my lungs. I may not get out of this alive, but I sure as hell wasn’t going down without a fight.
“I’ve been watching you, Ani. I know everything.” His hot breath made my skin crawl. “I have people everywhere. You think I didn’t know you were coming?” He laughed, then it stopped abruptly. “You and your boyfriend are going to fuck everything up,” he hissed in my ear. “And I can’t let that happen.”
In my peripheral, I watched as he lifted his hand, bringing the gun in the air beside my head. I sucked in a breath, bracing myself for whatever happened next.
And then everything went black.
