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We’re alone together, and that is intensely more awkward after trying so hard not to be.
I glance in Richard’s direction, but he doesn’t appear to be offended by my desperation not to be alone with him. It’s as if he gets that reaction all the time.
I don’t sit back down on the chair. I don’t know if I have more of an advantage standing, but I feel like it’d be easier to run screaming for help without losing the fraction of a second it would take me to stand.
His tone sadistically amused, Richard says, “You can come closer.”
“No, thank you.”
He shrugs as if it doesn’t matter to him one way or the other, then he takes a slow sip of his drink. “Do you have a family, Sophie? People you love?”
I feel like he already knows, but I answer him anyway. “Sure. I have a mom.”
“That’s it?”
I shrug uneasily.
“Well, for someone who seems to care quite easily, I might expect the list of people you love to be a bit longer. Perhaps I should ask this about animals instead,” he says dryly.
“Animals tend to be more loyal than people,” I mutter. “I don’t love a lot of people, I guess, but I… care about people.”
“Do you care about Silvan?”
“Yes.”
At least I don’t have to negotiate that answer. The truth will do just fine.
He nods slowly, watching me. “So do I. The list of people I care about is quite small as well, but the people who make that list fall under my protection. There isnothingI would not do to protect them.”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
I nod. “If that’s what you’re worried about, I’m not going to say anything about… any of this.”
“That’s good. I value discretion. Would you like compensation for your silence?”
“No.” I swallow. “Is that all? Can I go now?”
He smiles faintly but doesn’t bother to answer. “Did Silvan tell you anything about me?”
“No. Not really.”
“No? Well,” he sets his drink down, “what he should have told you is that I amfiercelyprotective of my family. A long time ago, someone very foolish did something to harm my family. The goal was to harm me, but they used my wife to do it. They had tried to shake me down, and it didn’t work. That made them angry. They knew the family I came from and assumed I was some soft-bellied fuck who’d inherited my part of the family fortune and couldn’t defend myself. Must not have consideredthat I don’t spring from the main tree. I hail from the bastard branch, and my father was certainly a man capable of violence.”
I swallow again but don’t say anything.
“That man landed a solid hit. I’m not invincible, after all. It was a sucker punch, and I didn’t see it coming. But I felt it once it had happened. The pain radiated. He hurt the only thing I’d ever truly loved just to get at me, and that… that was a mistake. He succeeded in punishing me if that’s what he wanted.” He slides his hand across the smooth mahogany of his desk, then raises his gaze back to mine. “But once I recovered from that sucker punch, I killed him with my bare hands and took over his operation.”
I lose a shade of color, but having someone I’m in a room alone with casually confess to murder is… a lot.
“I gavehiswife to my men—they were my men, then—and dragged his corpse to a chair with a view so he could watch them defile her. So, while he may have landed a hit, it wasn’t worth it. In the end, I won. In the end, I will always win.”
He pauses for a moment to let that sink in, then he goes on, an edge of malice in his voice.
“That man was a feared criminal, Sophie. You are a college student with too tender a heart to eat baby cows. I promise you, if you cross me, I will fucking obliterate you. I’ll convince Silvan it was a nice, clean death, but it won’t be. I’ll give you to the meanest son of a bitch I know and make him feed you nothing but veal until you kill yourself or die from your injuries. My son may not be your first choice, but you are his, and let’s be honest, he’s a much better catch than you ever could have landed anyway.”
My skin is as pale as parchment, my eyes as wide as saucers.
