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He chuckles. “Agreed.”
“You should stay out here. If everything goes pear shaped we need someone to run the company, and you know there’s no way in hell I’m not going in for my woman.”
“No way.” Storm shakes his head. “There’s no way I’m sitting on my hands out here while you fuckers get to have all the fun. Plus, we have a succession plan for a reason. The moment my heart stops, Wynter takes over. She’s more than capable of running the legitimate side of things, and she knows who to contact to help with the other side.”
The sound of our sister’s name makes Everett’s entire body stiffen and if I had more time, I would remind him of all the reasons he walked away. But I don’t have more time. I have no time at all because my woman, my sweet girl, is in there with the fucking wolves and I have to get her out before they tear her apart.
43
Emerson
The moment Angelo Russo touches me is like a million bugs crawling over my skin. The tiny insects dance over the bare flesh of my cheeks where his lips pressed so gently. But I know a shark like Russo doesn’t do gentle, and his words only prove that.
Death is a better option than being his wife, so I can’t bring myself to regret the lies I’ve told. All the things I didn’t say, and the things I didn’t tell Rayne whirl around in my mind on an endless loop, tormenting me.
“Bring her to me,” Angelo demands and a moment later I have a man on either side forcing me forward. Their fingers bite painfully into my flesh and I know they’ll leave bruises, if I’m alive long enough to bruise.
The men fling me to the ground and I fall to my knees, all the fight, all the strength I had before is long gone and all that’s left is the things I never got to say to Rayne. Everything else seems insignificant in the face of that. The Center. The debt. The criminal underworld I accidentally found myself in the center of. None of it matters.
“Saint James was smart to lock you down. It kills me that he beat me to the punch though.” Angelo grips my chin between his long calloused fingers tightly. “Such a pretty little thing to start a war over. All wars start the same, with a pretty girl both sides want,” he muses.
“I’m not worth starting a war over,” I whisper.
“Of course you are. If I were smart, I would just let you walk out that door. I would apologize to your husband and assure him I won’t touch his family again.” His thumb brushes roughly over my cheek, the punchline is coming. Whatever comes next will be worse than all that came before. “But women make us stupid. He was stupid to think a ring on your finger and a piece of paper would keep me away from you.”
“Please just let me go,” I plead. It won’t make a difference, but if Angelo has an ounce of a soul within his darkness, maybe, just maybe, he’ll take pity on me.
“Oh sweetheart, I’ll let you go. But not until I’ve had my fun. Not until you’re bloody and broken, and the girl Saint James knew is so far gone you won’t even know your name anymore.”
As badly as I want to be strong, as much as I would like to make it through this without shedding a tear, that’s not practical, and so a sob breaks through my chest painfully. Hopelessness like I’ve never felt before infiltrates my mind, and I allow myself to accept my circumstances, to accept what is about to happen to me.
People don’t come back from the things he’s talking about. I may survive, I may see Rayne again, but I’ll never be the Emerson he remembers. I’ll be a shell, a broken woman who fears her own shadow, and that’s no way to live.
I imagine myself begging to die, begging him to kill me, the broken look on his face when he doesn’t know how to help me. The thought hurts more than any physical pain I can imagine.
“Just kill me,” I whisper. “It will hurt him more if he never sees me again.”
“But that’s a lot less fun.” Angelo shrugs, finally releasing my chin and standing to his full height. “Leave us.”
I listen as footsteps retreat and when I brave a glance over my shoulder, all the men are gone. I don’t know whether I should be relieved or more distressed. At least before I had a chance of appealing to one of them to help me. I could compare myself to their sister, or wife, or mother and maybe they would help me.
But I wouldn’t have that kind of luck with Angelo and his cousins. I saw it the first time I met them. Cold. Ruthless. Unfeeling. I won’t survive whatever they have planned for me, not in a way that matters at least.
“Isn’t she a pretty little thing?” Tony stands from his seat, approaching me like a lion approaches its prey. And that’s what I am to them. They’re going to chew me up and spit me out, punish me for mistakes I’ve never made.
“For now.” Paul chuckles as he comes at me from the other side.
Words catch in my throat. The fight I should have wavers under the pressure. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I would think I was having an out-of-body experience, looking from the outside in, but the way my head throbs, the way my ribs ache, I’m here and present for whatever they have planned.
“Strip her,” Angelo orders as he moves back to his seat.
Tony and Paul grin sadistically. Where I hadn’t seen any similarities the first time I met them, I now see two sides of the same coin. The moment their hands are on me, I want to throw up again. My stomach rolls at the feel of them grabbing at me. Paul tears my coat from my body, yanking both shoulders back painfully in the process.
Meanwhile Tony works on my jeans. He grunts as he tries to work the button through its hole, but quickly grows frustrated and pulls a knife from his back pocket. The metal glints in the light and panic rises in my throat. No. I can’t do this. This can’t be happening.
“Please stop. I’m a good person. I’ve dedicated my entire life to helping people. I don’t deserve this.” Even to me, my pleas sound pathetic. This is what they want. They want to break me and I’m playing right into their plans.
Angelo chuckles from where he’s perched in his seat like he’s a king on a throne. The darkness in the sound sends chills across my skin and I realize no amount of begging is going to get me out of here. Only a miracle can save me.
