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London
Fifteen days…I’m going to enjoy stretching you out, Vivienne. Very much.
Those words came back to me as I stared at the pain in her eyes. They were the words I’d told her that day outside the classroom in The Order, when the need to both protect and own her had overwhelmed me. If only I’d gotten her out of that place fast enough. If only…Hale had given me the goddamn contract.
She wouldn’t have stayed there a second longer. She wouldn’t have been subjected to whatever hell those guards had put her through. She wasn’t raped, that I knew. I’d seen the evidence of her virginity on the stained sheets in Colt’s room, after their first time. But penetration wasn’t the only way you could terrorize a woman…
No.
I knew better than that.
I like pain.
I winced at the memory of that Daughter kneeling inside The Command Room, just waiting for me to unburden every sick, debased desire on her body…and savage her soul just a little more than it already had been.
No.
The guards of The Order wouldn’t have penetrated her. They would’ve been careful not to leave something evident. But they would’ve done other things. Degradation. Pain. Humiliation. I tried not to imagine the welts they would’ve left on her body and clenched my fists instead, aching to touch her.
I was too late to save her.
Please God, don’t make me too late to save Colt.
“We’ll get everything together,” Harper murmured. “I’ll make sure they’re safe as they can be going in.”
As safe as they can be going in. That was the kicker, wasn't it? Once they were inside, there was no telling what waited for them.
They could be walking into a trap for all I knew.
That twitch came in the corner of my eye.
That was it.
For all I knew.
I didn’t know.
I scanned every face in the room. Harper, Carven, Guild. Men who were highly trained and good at what they did. Men who would go to the ends of the Earth for those I loved. Men who’d put their own lives on the line.
And it’d all be for nothing if we didn’t know what they were walking into, or even if Colt was there. They would be going in blind. I couldn’t have that. I would not risk another of those I cared about.
You don’t get to think, DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR? Your job is to DO!
Hale’s roar filled my head as I narrowed in on the one person who could tell me everything I needed to know. The one man Hale had all but thrown out of his office the last time I saw him…
Riven Cruz…
The Principal.
If there was a divide there, I’d exploit it.
If there was even a hint of a crack, I’d blow it wide open, enough for the truth to come out. I turned my gaze to those haunting brown eyes. Then maybe they wouldn’t need to go in there at all. Maybe I’d turn Hale’s hounds on him and get Colt out myself.
“Get everything ready.” I turned and snatched the keys from my desk. “But don’t make a move until I say so.”
“Where are you going?” Vivienne snapped.
I stiffened. Only she would dare talk to me like that…and I’d let her. “To find out just how far loyalty will go…then to my bank. I’ll need a rather large withdrawal.”
