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The arrogant prick in him returned, beaming with delight. He continued to back up to the victim to pull the hood from his head. Beneath was a man, bruises and blood covered his beaten, swollen face.
Armon held a gun to his temple. "Imagine if your mother had done more after he groped you. Or after what he'd done to her, even. Imagine if your cousins didn't suffer all the sick things he wound up doing to them over the many years. Years you spent silent, probably knowing what he did to his own daughters."
I studied my unrecognizable uncle. A horrible alcoholic worse than my mother. A pervert I knew to steer far clear of since childhood. A man whose daughters never were quite right and were beaten, and even I'd known possibly worse.
Of course I refused to think about it. There was nothing I could have done. It wouldn't have made a difference.
"You’re going to shoot me or him, or I’m going to shoot him, which is pretty much you shooting him. Consider killing him as a kindness to the toddler living with him. Or as proof you finally figured out that there is always a way to help someone suffering." It came back to Katya. It would always come back to what I hadn't done.
Bile rose in my throat. I couldn't. My pistol was still aimed at Armon. I wasn't even sure how to aim a gun to kill either one of them. And I couldn't kill Armon, for too many reasons. I just couldn't.
He pulled back the hammer on his pistol. "Who deserves to die? Me or him?"
I couldn't respond. I lowered the gun. Armon hadn’t done terrible things to children. He'd made his detest of such people known. But this was family. No one willingly kills family. Whether my uncle deserved it or not.
"Who do you deem worse? Me or the men in your family."
My jaw clenched. I already apologized and admitted that Armon wasn’t as terrible as my family. Yes, my uncle was who deserved death. No, I wouldn't want him around me or my child, but I couldn't pull the trigger.
"My family." I turned my head so I wouldn't see my uncle shot.
That didn't work since Armon said, "Someone force her to watch."
I immediately looked at Armon. None of these men would be touching me. But I still couldn't raise the gun.
"Keep your eyes on me if you want." He held my gaze as the loud blast sounded, and his arm jolted. "Justice served for his children and anyone else who suffered due to witness inaction."
My heart felt like a rock in my chest, and I only watched as Armon marched back over to me. Stunned. Another person killed. In the end, I couldn't even find a good reason to defend him, just like I couldn't truly defend my own father and brother.
Armon came in front of me, so close I had to tilt upward to meet his gray eyes. "You keep choosing me, Sweet One." He took my pistol. As his body pressed to mine, I already felt the erection that shouldn't be possible after so much fucking this morning. "I'm beginning to think you are growing fond of this new life with me."
Chapter Thirty-Five
Sasha
Armon may have told Nikki he planned to return quickly, but that isn't what he did. He pretended no one had been killed and returned to the hotel suite. At least the drive was silent. Yet again, I’d made a decision for someone to die. Someone I hated, but family none-the-less. And maybe it was true. Maybe the world would be a better place.
The next morning, I still hadn’t spoken to Armon. I supposed remaining in the entry room while on his laptop was his effort to be available if I needed. By midday, he had me join him for lunch. I sat across from him in my camisole and shorts, with a bowl of mixed fruit in front of me.
How could he expect me to eat after that? How could he eat?
“You’re still angry?” he finally said.
Was I? It wasn’t anger. It was dealing with the way we met all over again. “I guess I thought you had found new ways to torment me.”
He huffed and leaned back in his chair. “New ways to torment you?”
“Yes, like solitude and using me to have a child so you can piss off your wife.”
He frowned as he considered what I said. “She won’t be my wife for much longer.”
I couldn’t hold back every bit of what he’d made me feel. “And then what? Once you’ve used me to get even with her. You sit there ignoring everything you have done to me. Every game you’ve played. This hot and cold interest and rejection you have manipulated me with since the moment we met.”
It was the way he studied my face that made me cry. The way he pretended to care. But he’d pretended to care about my happiness other times too. He reached out to me, but I slapped his hand away.
“Sweet?” he said, questioning. “We’re attracted to each other. She is about to be out of the way. We’ll have our chance as the two people who met at the coffee shop.”
A sardonic laugh escaped me. “The woman trying to get away from a life she hated, and the man who had researched and ensnared her for his own plots? To kidnap her and find ways to make her suffer?” I wiped my wet cheek. “Why would your wife being out of the way make me happy?”
