by Krane, Kasey
“You need to understand one thing very clearly. You can’t pull that shit on me again,” I said.
She had large hazel eyes and through them, she peered into me like she was trying to peel my layers away.
It made me uncomfortable. Not only her gaze and the way she looked at me, but the fact that I kept letting her get under my skin.
This never happened to me. When I wanted a chick, I just took her. Then I made sure I never had to see her again.
Who wants to fuck the same chick twice?
I definitely didn’t think about someone this much. I didn’t wake up from a wet dream, hard and horny, trying to get her off my mind for the rest of the day. It was never this complicated.
Reese complicated everything and it pissed me off.
I hated feeling like I was losing control. Somehow, this girl sitting on the floor with her life in my hands—had suddenly taken control of me. It had to stop.
“I wasn’t trying to do anything. I thought you wanted the same thing as I did,” she spoke up .
“You’re not getting away that easily. There is no trick you can try that I haven’t already seen before. That I’m not prepared for,” I continued. I didn’t care about any of her excuses. She wasn’t going to bullshit me.
Reese licked her lips and I couldn’t take my eyes off her mouth.
“I just want to know what you want from me.” Her voice cracked a little, and even her eyes filled with tears.
Fuck.
That felt like a punch in the gut. Why do I care about what she thinks? Why do I care if she spends the rest of the day crying? Since when do I fall for this kind of shit?
Since I met Reese.
“I want you to keep your mouth shut and behave yourself until I’ve decided what I’m going to do with you.”
She gulped and shook her head.
“You should have just let me go with him. At least he wouldn’t have locked me up in a basement.” Her nostrils flared as she spoke. Her cheeks were red like the tip of her nose.
Maybe she had a point.
“No, he probably wouldn’t have,” I said. “But he would have made sure you had no interest in staying alive.”
* * *
The fact was that I had two real options here.
I could let her go and give her what she wanted, or I killed her.
The first one came with too many risks to count. The second one was less risky and easier.
But right then, as I stood in front of her, pulling out the rope from the pocket of my pants—I knew I couldn’t do either of them.
The part of me that won that internal conflict was the part that wanted to keep her around. To keep seeing her.
I could take her right then if I wanted to, but fucking her was probably just as dangerous. I hadn’t fucked her yet and already, she was constantly on my mind. I wasn’t excited to find out if my brain would turn to mush if I had her.
“What are you going to do with that?” she asked, inching back against the wall. There was nowhere else for her to go. She was already pasted to the corner.
I came closer to her, holding the rope up for her to see.
“You’re not an idiot, Reese. I’m sure you’ve figured out what I intend to do with this.”
“Keeping me locked in here isn’t good enough for you?” she spat.
I kneeled in front of her and grabbed her ankles. She struggled, trying to kick me away but I had a good grip on her. Within a few seconds, I’d tied the rope around her ankles tightly. She wouldn’t have been able to run.
“Why are you doing this?” she cried.
I reached for her arms and then pushed her back on the ground, almost too gently for my own comfort.
Having her underneath me, with her tits staring up at me for the taking; was a tough one. I had to do everything in my power to hold back and not tear her clothes off right then.
I flipped her around to tie her wrists together.
“Please!” she shouted.
“You keep this up and I’ll have to do something about your mouth too,” I growled.
That shut her up.
Once I was done with her wrists, I turned her back around again. Looking at her face, at those bee stung lips, was enough for my cock to throb again. I needed to focus.
I tied her up to remind her who was in control here. The next time she tried to do something stupid, hopefully she’d remember what I was capable of doing to her.
“You should’ve eaten the food when you had your chance,” I said.
I picked up the food and stood up.
Reese followed my every movement with her eyes. I could feel them on me as I walked up the steps to the door.
“You don’t have to do this…” I heard her say as I locked the door behind me.
Yes. I definitely had to do this to make sure she learned to be obedient to me. I was her master now.
Eight
Reese
Killian left me in the basement, tied up and by myself. I had no idea where he went. Maybe he’d left the house and that was why he wanted to tie me up, as an extra measure of precaution.
Alone with my thoughts again, I couldn’t stop condemning myself for not trying harder. There were a variety of things I could have done to escape. I could have bitten him. Hit him. Screamed for help. Ran when I had the chance.
But who was I kidding?
I wouldn’t have gotten far.
I could feel tears welling in my eyes the more I thought about it.
From the moment Aldo called me to his office last evening, I had been in a constant state of turmoil and danger.
Heck, I ended up killing a man!
He was dead, right? Connor was dead?
That was something I never thought I’d do. Was I like all of them now? The mafia. My stepfather and his friends. Had I stooped to that level now?
I didn’t even know if being imprisoned here was a better deal than being married to Connor. Killian seemed to imply that it was; but I couldn’t trust him. He wasn’t on my side. I couldn’t believe anything he said.
I thought of Charlie again.
Was he the last and the only man I could trust? And I’d lost him.
I never should have let him get involved with me. I should have known what my stepfather was capable of doing. Why did I think we would ever get away with our plan to escape? Why did I let Charlie build all those castles in the air? Because I was actually in love with him.
I trusted him.
I really believed he could give me a new life.
However, Aldo had demonstrated time and time again—ever since we moved in with him; that he had complete control over my life. He had warned me he would never let me escape.
Yet, I was a foolish teenager and I thought I could get away. I didn’t even care that I planned on leaving my mother behind. I just wanted to run. With Charlie. Make a new life for myself.
For some reason, that was what he wanted too. Clearly, he had no perception of what Aldo would do to stop that from happening.
I was his property, and he wasn’t about to let anyone take that away from him.
Just two days more days and we were going to run, when we had everything planned out, carefully charted. I didn’t have any money but Charlie had been saving for months for it.
For the first time in years, I actually had hope. I was excited for our future.
Then Charlie was dead.
Just like that, he wasn’t alive anymore.
It didn’t take me long to figure out what happened.
Aldo killed him. My stepfather got my boyfriend killed so I wouldn’t be able to run away with him.
* * *
And now, even though I could clearly recall all the feelings I felt when Charlie died, when all my dreams were thwarted—most of the time, I couldn’t recall what he looked like. The memory of Charlie and what our relationship had been like started to fade. I remembered that I loved him, or at least I thought I did.
I trusted him and
he trusted me.
I believed in him enough to want to build a future with him. A future far from my so-called family. But maybe it was just puppy love. Maybe it was nothing more than a silly crush. I didn’t know if it was even possible to love. Did that actually exist?
But that puppy love cost him his life.
All this happened almost eight years ago and since then, I’d woken up every morning and just gone through the motions of life. Like a machine would.
Aldo had proven himself. He had sent me his message loud and clear.
I would never be able to choose a man for myself. It was never going to be my decision to make. In fact, I wasn’t going to be able to choose anything. Least of all, my freedom.
Now I was tied up and locked in the basement of a man’s home, and for the first time, Aldo didn’t have everything in control. Or maybe he didn’t care what happened to me now that I was out of his house. He’d already traded me off. I was sure he made enough profits from the exchange.
But I was still alive.
I wallowed in self pity, wondering what the point was—of my life. I was still here, though. Who knew for how long.
Killian was ruthless and dangerous. If he could get his uncle killed just to get me here, to have me all to himself—then what else was he capable of doing?
I shuddered at the thought.
That and the memory of seeing his muscular legs with his pants down. His cock looked thick and big in his underwear. What would it feel like inside me?
And when he pinned me down to tie these ropes, I nearly opened my legs wide to invite him in.
Why was I turned on by him? What was wrong with me?
The man just wanted to keep me locked up. He wasn’t even interested in fucking me. What was wrong with him?
I hadn’t figured out what he wanted from me.
I was convinced it was about sex. He wanted what his uncle had.
But he hadn’t made any moves so far. Technically, he could do whatever he wanted.
Something held him back.
Held him back from fucking me. And held him back from killing me too.
If only I could find out what it was, then maybe I would have a chance of getting out of here.
Everyone had a story and all I had to do was find out Killian’s.
Nine
Killian
Colin called my cellphone when I got upstairs from leaving Reese tied up in the basement.
I considered not answering the phone, but after everything Aiden told me that morning, I couldn’t afford to raise any more suspicions.
I answered the call while I changed my clothes in the bedroom.
“Where the fuck are you?” my brother raged into the phone.
“At home. Why?”
“Why? Are you fuckin’ serious right now? The whole family is looking for you.”
“Yeah, my phone’s been switched off. I saw Aiden this morning, didn’t he tell you?”
Colin cursed some more under his breath.
“It doesn’t matter what Aiden said, you need to get your ass over here and give us the lowdown.”
“Where’s Connor?” I asked. I could feel my pulse quicken when I asked the question. I almost didn’t want to hear the answer.
“Fuck knows.”
I pressed my eyes close in relief. Connor still missing was a good thing. Even though I didn’t know what happened to him, this was what I wanted to hear.
“The bigger question is where’s the girl?”
“Reese Deville?”
“Yeah, the chick he’s supposed to marry. According to all the reports we’ve gotten so far, she was last seen leaving with you and Connor in his car. After that, there’s been radio silence from the three of you.”
“She must be with him, wherever he is, right?” I said.
I could almost picture my brother’s face twisting up in frustration.
“It would be handy to know where the two of them went, and why you’ve been hiding out at home since then.”
“I’m not hiding. I’m just chilling at my home. Which I should be allowed to do without having to answer to anyone.”
“Chilling?”
Colin sounded suspicious. He was my brother. He knew me well. In fact, all of my brothers would know there was something up the moment they spoke to me. We weren’t exactly good at keeping secrets from each other. Except, I wasn’t prepared to tell any of them what really happened to Reese.
“I’ve had some stuff to do, but I’ll come down and speak to Dad,” I said.
“You fuckin’ better speak to him. Whatever you’ve gotta say, you better spit it out now, Killian.”
“I don’t know what you’re implying.”
“Whatever happened to the girl, you better tell us now. For your sake.”
There was some silence between us and I ended the call.
I needed to think.
I needed some time before the full-on scrutiny started.
Once all my brothers and father crowded in on me, I wouldn’t know how to get away with it without a plan. I needed to get my story in order and I needed to make it believable. No loopholes.
Resisting temptation to go check on Reese again, I left the house and got in my car.
I didn’t have much time and I had to decide what to do about her.
The simplest answer still loomed in front of me—kill her.
For some reason, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it yet.
This had never been a problem before. It was like she’d cast a spell on me.
* * *
I figured our father would be at the office, which was where he spent most of his day.
By the time I drove over there, it was lunchtime, which was perfect because it meant my brothers, and hopefully most of the others who hung around my dad, would have buzzed off for a break.
So when I walked into the office, nobody other than Patrick Doherty, the man himself, was in there. I knocked twice before I heard his disgruntled voice.
He was puffing smoke from his cigar when I entered the room. I peered at my father through the heavy smog.
“Finally. Look what the cat dragged in,” he said, swiveling away from his computer screen.
“You know cats don’t come near me,” I replied. That brought a smirk to his face.
I pushed my hands into the pockets of my pants and tried to relax. The last thing I needed was for my father to see right through me. I had a plan, but it would work only if I managed to keep my story straight.
If I managed to meet his eyes while I lied to his face.
Our family operated on trust and loyalty, two pillars that were drilled into us from birth. Nobody else had our backs except each other.
And this was what Reese made me do. She was making me lie to my father, to my brothers—and it made me fuckin’ mad.
But I couldn’t afford to reveal the truth about last night yet. Not until I knew what happened to Connor. Not until I’d decided what I was going to do to her.
“So, you want to tell me what you’ve been up to all morning?” Dad began.
He poured himself some scotch in a glass and tilted the bottle in my direction. I was tempted but I shrugged. I wanted to avoid any opportunity for making a mistake. My dad treated scotch as a truth serum. I knew his game. I had thirty years to observe his every move.
“You want to know my morning routine? Like what time I take a shit and how I like my coffee? Come on, Dad, I know we’re close but…”
“Killian!” He banged his fists on the table, making the cigar shake between his lips. “Stop with the wise cracks for fuck’s sake. You know what I’d do to you right now if you weren’t my son?”
I glared back at him, challenging him to question my position.
“But you wouldn’t have trusted last night’s task with me if I wasn’t your son, so I think we both know where I stand.”
My father curled his hands into fists again but he didn’t bring them down on the table this time.
“I am this close to yanking away all your privileges if you don’t start talking now. My brother is missing without a fucking trace, and so his new woman.”
* * *
“I know,” I said quietly.
My father shot bullets at me through his glare.
“So why haven’t you said anything yet? What the fuck is going on here?”
“I needed some time to recover, and I figured they would show up somewhere. Well, that he would show up somewhere.”
“Fucking recover from what?”
“I was concussed,” I replied.
I met my father’s searching eyes with determination. I needed him to buy every word that came out of my mouth.
“Concussed?”
“We were attacked last night and I was injured. I’m not sure how long I blacked out for.”
“Attacked by whom?” That was when he jumped up from his chair. He’d sensed danger and probably assumed it was one of our long list of enemies. People who would want his sons dead.
“Her. Reese Deville.”
His brows were furrowed, his face had turned stony and dark.
“That girl attacked you?”
“She found my gun while I was in the backseat with her. She knocked me out with the gun and I’m pretty sure I heard a shot in the car before I passed out.”
“Fuck me,” he growled under his breath.
There was no reason for him to doubt what I said. Nobody from my family would question my story because I’d never given them a reason to. I’d spent all my life being loyal and dependable. Nothing mattered more to me than our family. Then my work.
And suddenly, everything had changed.
I blamed her.
Even as I sat there in front of my father, I knew something had to give.
I couldn’t keep living like this. Lying to my family while I had her locked up in my basement. How long was this going to go on for?
At some point, my family would discover her or figure out the truth, and then what?
