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My mother and Saint had both left me all because of this man standing face to face with me.
And he was just that… a man, not the boogeyman. Sure he was dangerous, but he could bleed.
Best of all, I could fight like hell when necessary.
"I'm not opening that box for you. I don't know how or where to begin. I guess that makes me useless to you if I won't open it, so are you going to kill me? But then it'll never open, will it?"
He stepped toward me, clutching the box. "You will bloody well open—"
There was a light shaking under my feet like an earthquake, but the booming sound told me that it wasn't an earthquake. It was an explosion.
The Rogues had come.They hadn’t abandoned me.
Igno turned his attention on me. "Was that your doing? We checked you for trackers, so how did anyone find you? Do I have to fire someone for their incompetence? And by fire, I mean kill."
"You can kill whoever you like. It's not my business what you do. But maybe you should skedaddle because someone clearly wants to find you."
"You're coming with me." He tugged me toward a side door, his fingertips digging into my flesh.
"The hell I am,” I muttered as I fought the hold. In the doorway, he stopped by one of the potted plants and reached inside pulling something out with his free hand, then tucking it in his jacket lapel.
Christ, was that a weapon? He grabbed me, but I rotated my arm out of his hold and delivered him an elbow before bolting for the door. There had been one armed man outside. I just needed to disarm him.
I'm not an expert marksman by any stretch. I fared much better in hand-to-hand combat.Yeah, okay. I needed a better plan, because I would be more likely to shoot myself in the foot than anything else.
I bolted for the doorway, but then pain ricocheted in my skull. Igno was faster than he looked. For an older man, he could certainly move. His hands gripped tight in my curls. "You little bitch, you're just like your mother. I will show you what will happen to her if I ever see her again."
I struggled in his hold. "Sorry, old man, but respectfully, go fuck yourself." Then I delivered another elbow, wincing as I could feel strands of my hair being yanked out at the root.
Bile turned in my stomach as he leaned forward. "I lowered myself to fuck your mother. Do you really think I'd ever be interested in that n—"
"I'm going to stop you right there." His stance was open, and I delivered a back hammer fist straight to his groin, which made him gag and release me. As he dropped to his knees, I delivered a knee straight to his face. "What were you going to say about my mother? Yeah, I thought not."
As he was rolling on the floor, I searched for a weapon. When I didn't find one, I ran to the desk and grabbed a paperweight. Then I scooted around him and opened the door. Lucky for me, there was no guard, but where the fuck had he gone? All the security team probably had their hands full with the Rogues at the moment.
I saw no one in the hallway. Then I realized I'd only been shown a very small part of the estate. I ran blindly into what looked like a major corridor, but I was completely turned around.
Lost.
I had no concept of where to go, where to turn, or which way led out. I just hoped my fucking team was tracking me. When I heard footsteps, I ducked in an alcove, hoping the shadows would conceal me. I could hear my father's voice.
"Where are you going, little Raven? Did you know that's what they called your mother's division? Little spies that they sent out into the world. All of them Black. All of them beautiful. All of them deadly. I didn't find out about the Rogues until after she'd come and gone, taking my diamonds with her. My little Dove took off with a hundred and fifty million dollars’ worth of my fucking diamonds. I'm getting my money, you bitch. So get your ass out of hiding and open the damn box. Do you understand me? And while you open it, we're going to have a little chat about how to treat your father.”
If I ran, he would see me. I had no choice but to stay, hoping that he would go down a different hallway.
His footsteps drew nearer, and my heart thundered. I willed it to slow down, to not make so much noise, because fucking hell, dying today was not part of the goddamn plan.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are."
His feet went in a different direction, and I breathed a sigh of relief. As I listened, I held my breath and waited. When no morefootsteps came, I darted out, only to squeak as a hand clamped around my throat. I struggled in his hold, but he just squeezed tighter, choking me, stealing all of my breath as I clawed at his face. A couple of wild swings barely landed because I had no air.
"No, no, I'm not going to let that happen again. Come with me, my darling girl. I do have to wonder how you believed any of that bullshit I said. You really must be desperate to believe that someone wants you. Your own mother abandoned you. Please, as if I would want a pathetic piece of shit like you for a daughter."
His words stung worse than the chokehold he had on me. And honestly, I was too pissed off to fucking die. How dare he say those things to me? How dare he act like my mother was no one and like I didn't matter?
Holding me by the throat, he pushed me down the hall into a much larger room and slammed me against the wall. "Now, like I was saying, open the damn box."
"And I keep telling you, you dumb fuck, I don't know how."
