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And maybe I would have a few months ago. But I just had the best day of my life, the day he took me. He’s ruined what I’ve been dreaming of since I was a little girl. This means everything to me, my bakery.
I’ve worked my entire life for what I had for only one full day, and my fucking father just took me away, selfishly, for whatever reason he wanted to take me.
Elvis didn’t do that.
No, not even when he vanished for a week. Before he did, he made sure I was taken care of. He paid my rent on the bakery for months ahead of time. He gave me the idea for the farmers’ market.
My thoughts are jumbled and seem chaotic, but I don’t try to control them. There’s no point. It’s not like I’m saying them aloud or that I have anyone to talk to anyway. I just have my thoughts and nothing else.
“I will not betray him,” I whisper to myself. “Not now. Not ever.”
The door swings open. I watch as my father waltzes into the room, two men close behind him. They stare at me, three sets of eyes on me and only me. I ignore them. At least I try to, but it doesn’t work.
I end up flicking my gaze between them as they move closer. I can’t look anywhere else. I am focused on them, and I wish I weren’t. I want to look away. I want to pretend they aren’t here. But I can’t. Mainly because I’m terrified of what’s to come and what they mean.
“I gave her some time to come to her senses. I’m not sure it worked. Did it work, Shawn?” he asks.
Jutting my chin upward, I don’t say a single word. “Three days with bread and water, locked in a cage, in the dark, with no human contact didn’t break her,” he states on a laugh. “She is my daughter.”
The other two men laugh as if this is just the most hilarious statement on the earth. I say nothing.
“These two men are here to decide which one is going to take you and keep you. You’re agreeing to marriage, right?”
I almost tell him to fuck himself but then decide against it. Part of me realizes I don’t know how he would respond to that since I don’t know anything about him, even though he shares my DNA.
But maybe if I agree to the marriage, he’ll free me from this cage, and then I can try to escape this whole place before this marriage takes place. It’s a plan I’ve been debating for the past twenty-four hours.
If I play along, maybe I’ll get just enough freedom to get the fuck out of here.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
If they don’t kill me first.
I want my life back.
I want my man back.
And I want my fucking bakery back.
“Yes,” I hiss.
He gives me a wink, then turns to the men. “Which one of you wants to be my son-in-law?”
God, the thought of all of this makes me want to puke. I don’t, mainly because I don’t really have much in my stomach to puke even if I wanted to, but it makes me want to. But I stay silent, staring at these men and their hungry gazes, and wish for just enough space so I can run.
And I will run—as fast and as far as I possibly can.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
KING
“You leave here, and you’ll bust your stitches open,” the doctor grunts.
He’s one of us, even though nobody here at the hospital knows it. And thank fuck for it, too, because he didn’t call the cops and made sure nobody else did either. Not that I did anything wrong, but we don’t need to answer any fucking questions.
