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They had to get out of there before either of them was seriously hurt.
Except Vanessa’s bag had fallen with her. It was currently out of reach, her phone inside. She hoped that the agents had heard most of this happen, but how could she text them the SOS if she couldn’t reach her phone? How could she protect Mitch from a deranged woman like Candace Lister?
I don’t have a choice.
“You’re in my house, Richards.” Candace waltzed away from Vanessa’s crumpled form. “Do you think you have any power here? Do you think I give a single rat’s ass about how you feel right now? I don’t think you understand how much I have compared to you.”
Vanessa grasped the edge of the coffee table and pulled herself back up to her feet. She held her hand against her ribs before snatching her purse. “I don’t care about how much more money you have,” she gasped. “I only want Mitch.”
“See? You’re who I used to be. Coveting what you can’t have.”
“I don’t thinkyouunderstand.” The more this woman talked, the more Vanessa ached to leave her in the past.I don’t even want to hurt her. Not like how she hurts others.Candace deserved the worst punishment of all: to be forgotten. “Your claim on my partner is nothing more than a delusion. She’s coming home with me. So help me God.”
“Do you think I care what you want? Michelle choseme.You’ve been found wanting, Vanessa. Wanting as a Mistress, a Domme,anda woman.”
Vanessa reached into her purse. “The fact you keep calling her Michelle tells me you don’t know her at all.”
“Names change all the time. Especially in this house.”
“Yes, you with your desperate, traumatized ‘girls’ whom you assault and pimp out to the cream of the fucking crap crop of clients. I’ve seen plenty these past few weeks. I know that’s what you intend to do with Mitch!”
“That’s where you’re wrong, my dear Vanessa.” Candace opened her arms as she came close enough to touch. Too close for Vanessa to confidently text the FBI van outside. “Michelle ismine.Nobody else will touch her for as long as I live.”
“And your touch will be so gentle, I’m sure.”
“Are you interested in watching? The invitation is still open.”
“I’d rather kill myself.”
“That can be arranged.”
Vanessa tucked her bag beneath her arm. “I’m not leaving without her.”
“If you’re really that distraught…” Candace sighed. “I have a few underperformers I could do without. Consider it a parting gift from Michelle and me. How about Lily? Sounds like you three had a grand time with her over Christmas.”
“I don’t want your maids,” Vanessa growled, teeth clenching. “I don’t want your indentured sexual servants. I don’t wantyou.” Her eyes widened, adrenaline coursing through her in preparation for the showdown with someone who would never,everbe better than her. “I want what’s mine. I wanther.”
Candace barely caught her breath before Vanessa lurched downward, rattling the bars on the coffee table in a desperate search for the lock. She’d break it with her fists, her teeth, her goddamn shoe if that was what it took.
All she needed was for Mitch to want to escape. Surely, she must…
“Get away from her!” Candace yanked Vanessa by the shoulders, scraping knuckles against the bars and buckling ankles beneath them. Vanessa slammed her bag over her shoulder, catching Candace directly in the face and sending her back onto her rear. Yet before Vanessa could recover, Candace lunged at her again, knocking Vanessa onto the carpet and splattering her phone against the bars.
It all happened so fast. Including the hand coming for her face.
“She’s not yours anymore!” Candace was a rabid wolf descending upon Vanessa as if this were personal.I’ve never met this woman before this year…Yet one would think Vanessa had personally ruined Candace’s childhood or killed her mother. Was this it? The quiet rage that had built inside a woman so devoid of emotion that she convinced herself that her illicit business was socially acceptable?They burst. These women burst.Here Vanessa suffered, all because she was roped into this by people who couldn’t keep their noses down and their eyes on their own papers.
Vanessa fended her off with a swift kick of her foot. “She’ll always be mine! You don’t fucking know who you’re messing with!”
“What are you going to do?” Candace snarled at her. “Anything that I’m thinking about doing to her?”
A terrible frequency trembled in those words. That was a threat. A credible one, if Vanessa were to go by how violent Candace quickly became when she thought the three of them were alone. As Vanessa positioned herself in front of Mitch in her cage, she said, “One of us isn’t leaving this room a free woman.”
That was her own threat. Maybe Candace didn’t understand it now, but Vanessa had to believe it was true.
Even with Candace coming at her again like a bull.
“Van!” Mitch cried out as her handcuffs rattled against the bars.
