Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86768 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
“Your brother was protective of you once. I remember that.”
I draw my knees up to sit on them, cover them with my dress. It’s too hard to look at him. But he takes my jaw with one giant hand and forces my face upward. I’m trembling all over, and I hug my arms around myself. He’s silent for a long, long time as that well of tears streams down my face.
“Who hurt what is mine?” he finally manages in a ragged, old voice. A broken voice. “Say it.”
“Please…” I shake my head.
“Say. It.”
It’s a command, a simple, straightforward command. He will not accept my silence. I jerk my head from his grasp. This man can play with me. He can taunt me with his touches, with his looks, but he can be my avenging angel, too. He has been that.
“If you don’t tell me, so help me, I will punish them both.”
“No!”
“Then say it. Tell me who hurt you.”
“Please, leave it. Please. You don’t understand. You don’t know—”
“Say. It.”
I press my hands to his chest to keep distance between us. He must see that I’m afraid. I’m afraid of him right now. Because he is also a man, and his control is hanging by a very thin thread.
He forces himself to step backward and scrubs his face with his hands, eyes still so dark when they meet mine again. That’s the physical manifestation of his rage. He turns to go to the door. He’s almost gone when I leap off the bed.
“My father!” I cry out. “Not Odin. He would never… Odin would never hurt me.” He’ll take my father’s punishments in my place. He has.
He stops, back stiffening. He doesn’t turn back to me. I watch his hands clench and unclench.
“The cuts?” he asks without looking at me. And thank God for that.
“That’s… Nothing.”
He glances back at me and I don’t know if he understands. I stand wringing my hands, sweat pooling under my arms as my body begins to tremble.
His eyebrows come together. His jaw is tight. But I can’t talk about the cuts … I’d rather take a hundred beatings than talk about that.
It takes him a full moment to move and when he does, I charge after him.
“Wait!”
“Val!” he calls out, and the hulk guarding the entrance to the apartment enters. “She stays in the bedroom. No one goes in. She does not come out.”
“Yes, sir,” Val says. I open my mouth, but Val turns his attention to me, standing between me and Santos, blocking my path.
“Wait! What are you going to do?” I call out. He keeps moving. “If you hurt him, he’ll hurt Odin!”
At that, he stops. He glances backward, his eyes slits.
“When I’m done with him, he won’t be able to hurt anyone.”
I feel my mouth drop open and before I can say another word, he’s gone. Santos is gone.
Val, the incredible fucking hulk, stalks toward me, and for all my bluster, I find myself backing away. I turn on my heel and scurry back into the bedroom where, before I’m two steps in, the door is closed and locked.
I’m left staring at it, wondering what the fuck just happened. Wondering what he will do to my father. How he will punish him. Because he will punish him. But will he stop at that?
8
Santos
By the time the elevator arrives downstairs, Caius is waiting for me. Four soldiers enter the building. They’re dressed in dark suits to blend in, but they still stand out. It’s the look in their eyes, or maybe it’s the energy they give off.
“What’s going on?” Caius asks me as I direct the men to enter the ballroom.
“Marnix De Léon. He still in there?”
“Oh yeah. Guzzling down whiskey like a fucking champ. Remind me again, it’s not on our tab, right?”
I’m barely able to see straight through my rage. My fury at her father. Fury at myself. Because how many times can I let this happen? How many fathers will beat their daughters while I stand by like an impotent fool? How many will do worse?
And the cuts. That I don’t understand. I file that fact away for now.
“Santos?” Caius puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me just outside the entrance of the ballroom.
I blink hard. I need to stay here, in the present moment. I’m in time. She’s not dead. Just fucking covered in welts.
“Brother,” Caius says again, getting in my face this time to make me look at him. My brother’s eyes are sky blue, like our mom’s, and they can look so very different from mine. The darkness inside him—because there is darkness inside him—he’s better at keeping hidden.
“He beat her.” The words are raw and taut with fury.
Caius’s forehead creases.
“Her thighs are covered in welts. Fresh welts.” I don’t mention what I saw beneath those welts. If I’d looked closer, if I’d stripped her bare and scrutinized every inch of skin, what would I have found? More scars? More cuts? And the welts, how far did he go? I only saw her thighs.