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“Fuck you.”
Pull the trigger. Show the asshole.But do I really want to kill him? Maybe I’ll just injure him?
I start to squeeze, but the gun flies out of my hand. Someone came in and kicked it from my grasp. Before I can evaluate if any of my fingers got broken, a pair of arms bear-hugs me from behind. I feel the pinch of a needle at my neck. Shit. What did they stick me with? I try to break free of the arms around me, but I know it’s fruitless. Am I going to die?
The last thing I see before my vision blurs into darkness is Jack. When you play with dragons, chances are you’ll get burned.
Chapter twenty-eight
Casey
WhenIdriftawake,I can’t see anything through the hood covering my head. My hands and feet are tied. I feel the rumble of a vehicle beneath my prone body. I might be in the van that I was ‘kidnapped’ in earlier. What I thought was a fake kidnapping turned out to be real. I don’t feel naked, so I’m probably wearing the shirt and sweats that had been on the bed. But I’ve got bigger things to worry about than nudity…
The next time I wake up, the hood is pulled from my head. My mouth feels dry, and I think I’ve been drooling. I’m still lying on my side on some hard, metallic bed. The back of a cargo van. My vision comes into focus. Jack and a guy I don’t recognize, though I think he might have been the one who kicked the gun out of my hands, kneel before me.
Triad. They’re fucking triad. How am I going to get myself out of this?
Jack reaches for me to help me up, but I shirk from his grasp and flop back down on the floor.
“I’m going to untie your hands,” he says, “so that you can have something to drink. If you try anything, you’ll regret it. Simple as that.”
I glare at him. There was a time when I liked being tied up by him, but that was a world away. A fairy tale, like he said. As much as I feel like my father failed me, he had done a fairly good job keeping his family life separate from the Mob. Till now.
I let Jack untie my wrists and hoist me into a sitting position. The other guy hands me a bottle of water. Jack watches me drink the water. I want to tear those eyes of his out. I feel so played, so used, so deceived. I can’t believe I let him come inside me. Over and over again. I probably still have his junk inside me.
If only I hadn’t been so blinded by lust. If only I hadn’t been so damn attracted to him. How could I have known he was part of a criminal organization?
But I should have gotten to know more about him before I went off on this fantasy with him. I was too trusting, too naive, too careless. Everything Jack suggested I was. A princess who didn’t know better.
“You don’t have anything stronger?” I ask now that my mouth doesn’t feel like dry cotton.
“We can get you a soda, but it’s best to stay away from alcohol,” Jack says.
I scoff. “Why? You don’t think I can hold my liquor?”
“It’s for your safety. The exchange we’re going to do with your father is dangerous, especially if there are surprises. You don’t want to be doing anything stupid.”
“My safety matters to you?” I ask cynically.
“My father taught me to be tidy and avoid unnecessary damage and death.”
A cold shiver goes through me at his last word. “Is there a chance I’ll die?”
“Not if all goes according to plan. How trustworthy is your dad?”
“I don’t know how my dad conducts business.”
“You don’t have any clue?”
At twelve, I found out that our family was Mob when I overheard my mother and father arguing one night. I didn’t fully comprehend the extent of my father’s dealings then and I didn’t want to know more. For years after, I simply ignored the realities around my father’s line of “work.” I pretended we were a normal family. As Jack said, I lived in a fairy tale.
“No,” I answer. “I figured the less I know the better.”
“But your brother is involved. Isn’t this a family business?”
“I don’t know the ins and outs of what my father does. All I’m good for is marrying Kenton so we can grow the family business with a bunch of in-laws.”
Kai appraises me as if trying to decide whether or not to believe me. “So you don’t know if your father ever pulled a fast one or backstabbed on a deal?”
