by Chloe Walsh
Permission?
Heart racing hard in my chest, I blew out a shaky breath, eyes still locked on his, and nodded my head.
Do it, I mentally willed him, end the cruel prince's reign.
His eyes blazed with heat, nostrils flaring, and with one swift flick of his wrist, the bastard prince brought the knife down on his brother.
Vasily's screams were drowned out by the thunderous noise of my heart as it pounded violently against my chest bone.
Blood was pouring from the older boy as he screamed and writhed on the floor, but I couldn’t take my eyes off his.
His dark eyes searched mine for something once again.
I nodded, offering him my approval.
Silent as a ghost, he climbed to his feet, kicked his brother out his way, and came to stand in front of me.
"Para ti," he said, speaking to me for the first time since arriving at the estate, as he held the dagger out for me like it was some sort of offering.
Trembling, I leaned forward and took the dagger from his blood-soaked hands. "Th-thank you."
Nodding stiffly, he held a hand out for me to take.
Without a second thought, I tossed the dagger on my bed and placed my hand in his.
Setting me on my feet, he said, "No me tengas miedo,” before reaching for my panties around my ankles and pulling them back up into place, covering me. "No te violaré, corderito."
A whole load of commotion occurred right after that, with dozens of men charging into my room, shouting and roaring.
Two men hurried from the room with a ravaged Vasily limp in their arms, and then many more surrounded the bastard prince.
He didn’t cower or flinch.
He didn’t even fight when they grabbed for him.
Instead, he kept his dark eyes on locked on mine as they manhandled him from my room.
It was several weeks later before I finally managed to translate the words the bastard prince had spoken to me that night.
"No me tengas miedo.”
"Do not fear me."
"No te violaré, corderito."
"I will not harm you, little lamb…"
From the beginning, I had fixated on Fabio's bastard son. The dark-haired boy who had arrived at the estate mere days after I had and only spoke in Spanish. He was thirteen years old and was furious with the world. So was I, but I never dared express my emotions like Trigger had. He was explosive; a loose cannon of rebellion that needed to be dealt with – a free spirit with wings that needed swift clipping.
Nine years later, I found myself in the very same position; infatuated with a boy – now man – who had handed me off to his father and brothers like I was a piece of turned meat.
So cruel.
So cold.
So ruthless.
I belonged to the Crellids now, but only because this piece of shit in front of me didn’t keep his promises. Because he believed another over me.
Silly little lamb.
Never trust a wolf.
"Trigger." Chewing on my gum, I offered him a bright smile and walked over to the gigantic meeting table that housed sixteen chairs on each side. Taking a seat on the opposite side of the table, I propped my heels on the expensive, stained oak. "So, the prodigal son returns from his travels."
"Get up," he ordered in his thick Spanish drawl, not bothering to look up from the stack of paperwork he was combing through. We both knew what he was looking for and where he would find it. "Now."
Rolling my eyes, I resisted the urge to crawl across the table and toss his paperwork on the floor, and climbed to my feet. "Dare I ask where you've been for the past two years?"
"You can ask whatever you want," was his flat response. "It does not mean that I will tell you shit."
Pain.
It was pungent.
"Where did you go, Trig?"
Silence.
"Why have you come back?"
More tense silence.
"Are you working with your father again?" Have you been working with him all along?
Nothing.
Anger bubbled inside of me. "Are you going to give me an answer?"
A solid ninety seconds passed by before he bothered to tear his gaze off his work and actually have the common decency to look at me.
What was I talking about?
These men had no common decency.
They were barely human to begin with.
"I do not answer to whores," he finally said, his words cruel and harshly spoken.
Ouch.
His dark hair was all mussed up, his brown eyes so full of spit and fire were narrowed on me, and I was acutely aware that I was in the presence of the second scariest person I'd ever known. Third, if I counted my father. But his corpse was rotting in the hills now, so I decided that he didn’t count.
His eyes took a slow, drugging appraisal of my body, causing my skin to ignite in a sudden flush of heat. "The fuck is that?" he demanded then, handsome face set in a deep frown.
"What – my dress?" Keeping the fury out of my voice, I reached down and thumbed the hem. Smiling sweetly, I asked, "Do you like it?" Lowering my voice, I purred, "Your brothers think it's cute."
I was testing him.
Throwing out my bait and praying he snapped.
"My brothers are assholes," he shot back, his heated gaze lingering on my bare thighs. "And you are a whore."
Reel in your catch, Ashton.
Take him back.
He's yours.
"Not yet," I mused, hitching my dress higher, defiance burning inside of me. Feel something, you bastard. Bleed with me. Remember what we were. Save me from your family. "But you can always change that –"
"Stop," he warned, scowling at me. "It is not appropriate."
"Appropriate?" I arched a perfectly tweezed brow. "Since when did you care about such mundane formalities, Trig?" I planted my hands on my hips. "Since when did you care about your daddy's business?"
When he didn’t respond to my taunts, I shrugged.
"Suit yourself." I blew an impressive bubble with my gum before resuming my chewing. Work harder, Ashton. You need him. "So, what did you want from me? Why call me in here?"
"Why wait outside the door for me to call on you?"
"Because I wanted to see you," I told him honestly.
Anger flashed in his eyes. "Maybe I did not want to see you."
"And yet, here I am," I feign-sighed. "At your request."
"You are trying to fuck me over, Ashton," he growled, tone low and hard. "The overseas account?" He narrowed his eyes. "I know you have been pulling from it."
Bingo.
"I sure have," I replied brightly, beaming at him. Get mad. Feel something. "Just like you taught me." Offering him another devilish grin, I made a point of hitching up my dress and sliding a thick stack of hundreds from the elastic band of my panties. "Gotta protect my future since I'm on my own now, huh?"
"It stops now," he barked before going off on a tangent in his mother tongue.
I smiled to myself, remembering how hard he tried to learn the common tongue when he, too, was thrown to the wolves.
Unlike me, however, Trigger came back to lead the pack.
"Really?" I pushed, resting a hip against his table. Blow up, Trig. Come on, you can do it. "You want our money back, Trig?" Leaning closer, I placed the bills in front of him, keeping my fingers on the cash. "Here – take it."
He started to reach across the table but I quickly snatched them away, releasing a low chuckle.
"You like taking things from me," I purred, placing the bills back in my panties. "Do it." Fisting my dress, I whispered, "Take it." Take me. Save me.
"Fuck you," he hissed, jaw clenched. "Whore."
Pain.
Block it out.
"I thought you hated everything this place stood for," I continued my taunting, meeting his furious glower with a sweet smile of my own. "Hmm?" Fingering the cash, I batted my long lashes at him. "You loathe our families and want Th
e Order to burn to the ground. That's what you used to say all the time, isn’t it, Trig?" Please remember, Trig. "That was our plan–"
"Shut your damn mouth, puta," he commanded, running a hand through his thick hair in frustration. He cast a warning glance to the door that linked this room with his father's lair – the room used to test their products before making a sale. "Do you want to get us both killed?"
No, I want you to save me from your family.
"Oh, I don’t know." I shrugged. "Death has a solid, dependable appeal to it, don’t you think?"
"If death is what you seek, then I will gladly give it to you," he said, voice deathly cold. "Traitor whore."
I smiled. "Liar."
"You still like to play with fire, little lamb." Resting his elbows on the table, he propped his chin on his hands, eyes on mine. "You lost my protection a long time ago. No one will save you from the flames this time."
Your fault.
"I don’t need your protection," I chimed, still smiling. "You don’t rank around here anymore, Trig."
More lies.
"And you do?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.
I'm yours. "I'm his. I'm going to belong to your brother soon," I replied sweetly. "He wants me for his own," I added. "And he ranks above you, so –"
"You have a name and a cunt!" he interrupted with a snarl. "That is your value around here, Ashton."
He doesn't mean it, Ashton.
It's his hurt talking.
"Your name is what has kept you alive and your cunt is your only worth to Anton."
Anton? "I am to be Jethro's."
"Jethro?" came his incredulous response. "You wish to belong to a man who will never truly crave a woman's body?"
"I spent seven years with a man who craved women and look where it got me," I shot back. "Jethro is kind. He will give me a good life."
It was a complete lie. I had no idea what kind of life was in store for me with Jethro, but I found myself unwilling to lose face in front of this man. My pride forbade it.
I narrowed my eyes meaningfully when I said, "He won't break my heart or his promises."
"Tonto corderito." He threw his head back and laughed humorlessly. "Jethro will have you working the streets within a month. He has no mind of his own. He is a puppet whose strings are pulled by the devil himself. Men will line up to fuck a Crellid whore and Fabio will make a fortune off you until there is nothing of you left to sell."
A shiver of sheer terror crept down my spine.
"Then maybe you could steal me away before that happens?" I countered, voice low and breathy. "After all, you wouldn't let that happen to your queen, would you, mi rey?"
That did it.
Fury blazed in Trigger's eyes and he erupted like the loose cannon I knew he was.
Throwing back his chair, he rose to his full 6'4 height and flew into a tangent of Spanish, speaking so fast and in such a passionate tone that I knew I had hit my target. His cold, black heart.
Feel it, Trig.
Take my bullet and burn.
Die inside, just like I did, and then rise from the ashes and take me away from this hell.
"You played your last mind game on me a long time ago, puta traidora," he hissed, watching me with hard, mistrustful eyes. "From where I am standing, it looks like you are all out of aces."
Puta traidora – traitor whore.
Empty.
Lost hope.
Anger.
My outrage was potent. I could feel it wafting from my body in floods. He was wrong then and he was still wrong now. I was being blamed for something I had no part of.
He was at fault.
Not me.
Bastard.
"Be fair, Trig," I replied, keeping my tone purposefully sweet. "I wasn't the one playing the mind games back then, was I?"
"No, you were just led by your greed," he sneered, folding his arms across his broad chest. "I cannot say that I am overly impressed with how you turned out." Arching a brow, he let his gaze trail over me once more. "You wilted before you blossomed." He sneered. "I had a lucky escape. You would have bored me into another whore's bed after a week."
Now that was a new low.
Still, I didn’t bat an eyelid, reminding myself that his words couldn't hurt me anymore.
Not when there was nothing left of me to hurt.
He'd taken a sledgehammer to my heart a long time ago.
Now, I was just as dark as him.
Regrettably, I was also just as dependent on him, too.
"You did me a favor when you betrayed me," I told him, my smile still firmly in place, though it was getting harder to hold.
"I betrayed you?" he spat, eyes wide in disbelief.
"That's right," I pushed.
Break him down, Ashton.
Crush him.
Make him hear your truth.
"Abandoning me here gave me time to see things clearly." Stick him where it hurts. "It gave me time to connect with Jethro." I narrowed my eyes. "Yegor and Anton, too."
Low blow, my conscience warned me. Too low.
"You betrayed me!" Trigger snarled, clearly livid. "I should have put a fucking hole in your head for that stunt you pulled on me."
"And I should have burned you alive for what you did to me, príncipe bastardo!" I heard myself spit back, using all of my ammunition on him.
"Get out," he snarled, shaking from his misguided anger now. "So help me god, I will throw you through that fucking window if you do not get out of my sight!"
Look at his eyes.
He's not bluffing.
Panic wrestled its way into my chest, causing my smile to slip and my truth to spill. "I'm to be initiated," I blurted out, balling my fists at my sides, trembling from head to toe. "Tonight." Terror seized my chest at the knowledge of what I would endure. It was the night I had feared since my arrival at the Crellids. I knew what had to happen. I knew what they would do to me. It was the code. "They'll break me." Suppressing a shiver, I stared up at the man I once trusted more than my own thoughts and whispered, "It was supposed to be you." My breath caught in my throat and I willed myself to be a stronger woman. "I won't survive what they'll do to my body." Publicly. Shamefully. "You need to contest your brother for me," I hurried to add. "You know the code, Trig. I'll belong to whoever takes me. It can still be you."
Remember me, Trig.
Remember your promises.
Trigger's brows furrowed and for the briefest of moments a mixture of surprise and pain flickered in his dark eyes before resentment overrode it.
"Mentiroso, they cannot initiate you." He shook his head in bewilderment. "You’re already marked."
Already marked.
Meaning I wasn’t a virgin.
Meaning I was damaged goods.
Idiot!
"Am I marked?" I demanded, eyes hardening. "Am I really?"
He stiffened. "Do not play this game with me," he warned, eyeing me with disgust. "You were claimed. I know. I saw. You fucked it all!"
Do something, Ashton!
Use your body.
Make him remember.
"Did I?" Resting my hands on the table, I leaned forward and whispered, "Prove it."
"Stop with your lies," he growled, rounding the table to stand behind me.
I could feel the tension emanating from him and I licked my lips, praying for his mercy. He was a devil, but he was the devil I knew best.
"I am immune." He said the words, but I knew he was losing control. I was banking my life on the irrational side of his personality. "You do not rule me anymore, mi reina." He was breathing hard, struggling to rein in his demons. "You do not fuck with my head."
Bluff.
Be brave.
He's affected.
"Oh, but I do," I countered, shivering when I felt his chest brush against my back. "I'm in your head now, aren't I? You're thinking about that night? About what you think you know?"
"No," he hissed in my ear. "I'm not."
> Keep pushing.
"You're doubting yourself," I breathed. "You're second guessing yourself."
"I know what I heard," he snarled. "What I saw."
No. No. No. "You heard wrong." Shivering when he caged me against the table with his big body, I whispered, "You saw wrong, Trigger, and you fucked me over." I pushed my ass against him. "And now, you're throwing me to the wolves."
"You think I fucked you over back then?" A dark chuckle erupted from his chest. It was a terrifying sound and I was instantly wet. "Oh, corderito–" a large hand snaked out and clutched my throat. Dragging my back to his chest, he leaned close to my ear and said, "Try to play me again and I will bury more than just my cock down your throat." He squeezed tighter. "Is that what you want? Hmm? My cock? You want me to fuck my brother's whore? Take her in all her holes like I should have done when she was mine? You want me to break code for you? A worthless, lying whore?"
"I want you to claim me, Trigger," I strangled out my truth against his hold. "Please."
"I cannot claim you," he hissed in my ear. "You bled for them."
Wrong again.
I attempted to shake my head but he held me firm, my back to his chest.
"Not that I would want to," he continued cruelly.
"Trig –"
"I wouldn't claim you if you were dying on the streets," he sneered, splaying a possessive hand across my belly. "You could be full of him as we speak." With a hiss of disgust, he released his hold on my throat and moved to cup my breast. "Full of Crellid seed."
Not yet. But I will be if you don’t stop them. "You said you should have taken me when you had the chance," I choked out, gasping and dragging air into my lungs.
His words didn’t make me sad.
They made me vengeful.
And desperate.
"You can have my ass now, Trig," I taunted, deliberately shifting my hips and rocking myself against him. I knew what I needed to do. I needed this man to take me back. Whether he deserved me or not, I was achingly aware that the fate of me staying alive and un-raped rested in his hands. The code was very clear. The cock she bleeds on, the cock she belongs to. "And my pussy."
"Because I did not want it, not because I could not have it," he hissed, lips brushing my ear as his hand moved to grip on my throat once more. "Because I was the fucking fool who respected the body of a whore." He released a furious snarl. "And funnily enough, I have no interest in sticking my cock in anything my brother has been inside."
