by Raven Dark
“Fine. Dad, the sooner we let him talk, the sooner he’ll leave.” I dropped my arms, defeated, and lead both men to the living room. My dad grumbled, but followed.
When we were all seated, Kane lifted the big silvery case onto the table, but he didn’t open it. His huge frame, clad in his silky, expensive black suit, looked out of place on the rickety old secondhand couch, knees folded awkwardly because of his height.
“I’m not accepting your help.” My dad shook his head. “Dealing with your family, I might as well make a deal with Satan.”
“I am not a saint, Mr. Montrose, but I try to be a better man than my father. Now, I know about the coming foreclosure on your farm.” He opened the case and pulled out a stack of papers, setting them in front of my dad. My dad’s eyes widened and I whistled. Stacks of bills filled the case to the brim.
“Those,” Kane said, pointing to the forms he’d given my dad, “are papers turning the farm over to me. The minute you sign them, the farm, and everything in it, belongs to me. No one can take it away, and no one can hurt you for it.”
When he mentioned everything in the farm belonging to him, his eyes flicked to me, and I swore I saw a smile pull at his lips. What the hell was he up to?
“Wait a minute,” Dad said. “You expect me to hand over my livelihood to you? And what would I do then? Where would I go?”
“You can stay here. Work the farm. I would own the property, Mr. Montrose, but the earnings from the farm would still be yours. Best of all, you and Anika will remain under my protection. The Gavinis won’t be able to touch you.”
Dad barely glanced at the contract before he scoffed. “You want me to work for you? I’d rather die. I’ve heard about the way your family makes life hell for workers. Sudden pay cuts and layoffs that leave hundreds without jobs, just to teach someone a lesson, deals that turn out to be not nearly as good as they seem, or are only lucrative for you. Forget it. And wait a minute, how do you know about the Gavinis?”
“I know everything, Mr. Montrose.”
His face turned a sickly gray.
“Including that you’re into them for fifty grand. I’m guessing if they find you, you will die.”
The casual way he said it sent a chill through me. “Why did you bring the money for the farm here?” I nodded to the case. “All you had to do was show us the papers.”
“This money isn’t for the farm.” His gaze burned into mine, and the sparkling in his eyes worried me. “It’s the fifty grand. For Gavini. I wanted you to see I had it. To know you were free and clear the moment you both agree to my terms.”
A sickening wave rolled over me. Hearing him say those words, I could feel the worst was yet to come. I didn’t get a chance to ask.
“Wait,” my dad said. “I see what you get out of helping with the farm. But what do you get out of paying off our debt to Gavini? What do you want in return?”
The worry in his voice matched the dread in me. Again, Kane’s eyes flicked to me, this time barely noticeable. My father didn’t seem to see it. Then his face went as deadpan as I’d seen David’s go. “That’s not your concern, Mr. Montrose. Rest assured, I will be compensated.”
My heart beat a heavy, unpleasant rhythm in my throat. God, I had a bad feeling about this.
My dad had often talked about a feeling he got whenever he’d been forced to talk to or deal with a Davros, even hearing their name. It was a bone deep dread, like knowing you had to converse with a demon. Now I thought I knew what he meant. A sensation I thought must have been just like my father described was settling in my gut.
Dad stood up, his face white. “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Davros, and it doesn’t matter. I won’t accept your help. I won’t deal with the inevitable fallout.”
“Yes, you will. You want to survive, and this is the only way to do it.” Kane stood up, straightened his blazer and snapped shut the case full of cash. “You have until noon tomorrow to think on it. I will come by to pick up the signed copy of those papers tomorrow.”
“No. Get back here. I—”
But Kane ignored him and stalked to the door, throwing a look at me over his shoulder. “Come with me, Anika.”
“Forget it. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
His smile looked lethal. He returned to me and lowered his voice, whispering in my ear. “Come outside, now. I don’t think you want your father to hear your part in this.”
“My…” I trailed off and glanced at Dad, who looked confused and angry. Then back at Kane. The warning in his eyes was enough to compel me to follow him.
Once outside, he led me down the walk, halfway to the car. David took the case of cash and walked to the car with it, tossing it in the back seat, while Kane turned to me, shoulders tight.
“What the hell are you doing, Kane? There is nothing I can give you for your paying off our debts.”
“Yes there is.”
“What…” I trailed off again, and as his eyes drank me in, the meaning in that look hit me, striking hard and hot. Weakness flooded me, along with disbelief and shock. Indignation quickly followed.
“Are you fucking serious?” I glared at him. “You want…my body?”
“It’s a little more complex than that, but yes.”
I wanted to feel angry, livid, and on some level I was, but the memories of the previous night also filled my head, and my blood ran like fire at the thought of having him inside me, owning me again.
“You want me to repay you with sex?” My chest rose and fell, my breathing hard with rage.
“I wouldn’t put it like that.” But he grinned.
“But that’s what it is. You want to pay off my father’s debts in return for my fucking you.”
“Again, over simplified, but yes.” He folded his arms, the smile that curved his mouth somehow emphasizing his innate sensuality. I wouldn’t have admitted it even under torture, but the possession, the easy desire in his eyes sent a low, insidious heat through me, one that started in my stomach and went right between my legs. How did this even make sense? I wanted this man to own me, to use me for his pleasure.
I covered my desire with anger. “You dirty, manipulative son of a bitch.” I pulled back my fist and flung it out, meaning to give him an eye to match his cut one.
Kane caught my much smaller hand in his and twisted my wrist just enough to force me to relax. I wondered how the hell whomever had hit him earlier managed to land the blow.
“I’ve done this in a way that keeps our agreement from your father, Anika. Unless you want to tell him why you’re trying to knock my head off, I’d behave.”
Oh God, he was right. I slumped my shoulders in defeat and he stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Besides, the minute you agree to my terms, I own you, and there will be consequences for hitting me.”
I twisted to get free, and he must have let me go, or I wouldn’t have managed it. “You piece of shit. I can’t believe you’d do this.”
“Call me names again, girl, and I’ll take it out on your ass.”
Damn if my ass cheeks didn’t clench in anticipation. Everything in me, or almost everything, screamed to refuse, but the alternative filled my thoughts like a dark cloud. Eventually, the Gavinis would find us, and when they did… My stomach twisted. I crossed my arms over myself.
“Not that I’m accepting your deal.” I met his gaze. “But what’s the complicated part?”
He sighed. “I was hoping to discuss that privately, where you could relax and really consider it. But.” He shrugged. “If I pay off your debts to Gavini, you’ll become my submissive.”
My eyes went huge. “You mean, like last night?”
“Not quite. That was tame. The level of control I require in something long term is more…intense.” His eyes bored into me and he lifted one hand, letting his big fingers trail my cheek almost delicately. His look was almost warm.
“Jesus Christ.” I stepped away from his touch and ran my palms down my face, but it did nothing for t
he heat, the nervousness, the trepidation racing through me. I wanted to say no. I wanted to yell at him to get off my dad’s land, to scream at him. But my body also hummed with need, blood hot with my awareness of him. I forced myself to meet his eyes, hating what I had to ask next.
“For how long?”
Heat filled his gaze and it disgusted me that he knew the same thing I did. That I wanted to know how long I’d be his meant I was considering his offer.
When he answered, the softness and hope in his voice surprised me. “Six months.”
I gaped. “You have to be kidding. You want me to let you make me your sex slave for half a fucking year?”
“I’m paying off a significant debt, Anika. Besides, I want to have you for as long as possible.”
“Then why not a year?” I shot back.
“I can make it a year,” he snapped. Then he sighed and gently took my shoulders. They sagged under the warmth and reassurance in his touch. “Look. Angel, I don’t want to do this to hurt you. And I will try to make this deal as enjoyable for us both as I can. Trust me, you will get as much pleasure from it as I will. I’ll make sure of it.”
For some reason, my eyes stung, his sudden tenderness making my heart hurt. It made me wish he was the good man I’d thought he was so bad I ached. It also made me want him to protect me, to take care of me in a way I didn’t fully understand.
I closed my eyes. Then I opened them and made myself look into his waiting gaze. “No way am I becoming your slave for six months.”
“It won’t be that severe. A slave has no rights. You will. They’ll just be…restricted.”
I gritted my teeth. “How restricted?”
“Look, these are the more complex details I wanted to go through with you carefully. We’ll talk about all of it. I promise. And if you agree to my terms, Gavini won’t be able to touch you. Ever. All the running, the hiding, it will be over. For you, and your father.”
Damn it. Everything I knew about the Davros family said there was a lot he wasn’t telling me. He was making the deal sound like it was all sex and passion, and the promise to go over every detail, the need to make me as comfortable as possible, made me want to trust him. He offered salvation, an end to a lifelong nightmare. The trouble was, I could feel it in my gut, accepting his terms was dangerous.
When I closed my eyes and put my head back, gut twisting with indecision, he cupped my face in his hands. His voice was unbearably gentle. “Think about it, Anika. I’ll be back tomorrow to hear your answer.”
Then he tilted my head up and placed a soft kiss on my forehead, leaving behind a lingering warmth that remained long after his lips left my skin.
Before I could say anything more, Kane turned and strode to his car. David opened the limo, and Kane got in. Then David shut the door and came to me, handing me my father’s gun.
“Miss Anika.” He tipped his cap to me and then got in the car and backed out of the drive.
Eyes stinging with emotions I could barely process, I watched the limo, and Kane Davros, disappear into the night.
END OF BOOK 1
Book 2
1
“I know what he wants.”
I’d been so focused on trying to figure out how to handle today as I walked into the kitchen, I hadn’t even noticed my dad sitting at the table until he spoke. His voice, sounding quietly livid, drifted from the grey early morning shadows cast by the large maple tree outside our kitchen window. I almost jumped, clutching my heart.
“Daddy, Jesus Christ. You scared the crap out of me.”
“Sorry.” But his voice didn’t carry the usual humor in it I was used to. Instead, it was cold. Determined. In front of him, a stack of papers sat, and I didn’t have to look at them to know what they were. The contract Kane had given him, signing the farm over to him. Dad tapped the papers with a pen. He hadn’t signed them. Some of the tension left me.
Then, slowly, it registered what he’d just said. He knew. The meaning in that sank in, and my gut twisted with humiliation.
Kane Davros had driven away from our farm last night, a few hours before midnight. It was almost five AM now. I hadn’t slept since his limousine disappeared down our drive, spending nearly every second since with my thoughts spinning as I tried to figure a way out of this mess. Or, alternatively, how to tell my dad something no daughter should ever have to say.
How the hell does a girl tell anyone, much less her daddy, that she’s going to pay off a debt with her body? With sex? Well, now it looked like I didn’t have to tell him. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better or worse. Especially with the broken, sad look he gave me.
No, there was more than that in him. That same obsessive hatred he felt for anyone who carried the Davros name burned in his gaze.
I leaned against the counter by the sink, looking across the small kitchen at him. “Daddy, how did you…how do…”
“Really?” He shook his head at the ceiling. “What else would he have pulled you aside to talk about last night? He’s paying off a fifty-thousand-dollar mob debt. Besides, I saw the way he looks at you. What else would he want? Maid service?”
Fuck, my dad really hated him. It didn’t matter that Kane’s father—not Kane—had screwed him out of his livelihood years ago. That caustic, deep loathing you only feel for someone who ruins everything you are, who’s taken everything you have, now carried over to Kane, simply because he was Victor Davros’ son. And the situation Kane had put me in only made his animosity worse.
Maybe I was imagining it, but I thought I could hear the unspoken in his words. Kane was a Davros. He could only have chosen something torrid and seedy for compensation. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think the same thing.
I let out a low breath, trying to absorb how well my dad was handling what he knew. It worried me a little how well he was taking this situation. “Well. This just got awkward.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Wait a minute, though. If you knew, how come you aren’t packing to run or locking me in the cellar, or preparing to blow Kane’s head off?”
“Oh, I thought about the first two, trust me. But I know the Davroses well enough to know either choice would be pointless. Bolts and locks don’t keep them away, and both Victor and his bastard sons are all too connected to get away from. And as for the third…” He paused and lifted something from his lap. My eyes went huge. His hunting rifle.
Love for him swept through me on a wave so strong it was painful. “And you think if you shoot Kane, his father isn’t going to hunt us down?”
He shrugged like he knew the consequences of such an action. God, I hated the defeat hanging over him. I might have said he wouldn’t really shoot Kane, except with the look in his eyes, like he had nothing left to lose, gave me pause.
“It doesn’t matter. You aren’t giving him what he wants. We’ll find another way.”
“Which is?”
“I dunno! Something, anything, other than a life time of servitude for both of us.”
“Actually, it’s only six months. For me.”
He glared.
No way would I admit this to my dad, but as livid and repulsed as Kane’s offer made me, I couldn’t forget the insidious heat that spread through me like fire last night at the thought of him owning me. Part of me hated him on principle. The other part wanted him every bit as badly as I had the one night we were together. Thankfully, now that he was gone and I was able to think rationally about the situation, loathing for him for putting both me and my father in this situation wiped away any lingering desire for him. I could hardly believe I’d been so attracted to him, that I’d let him do those things to me. The memory that once burned hot and bright in my heart now made my blood run cold. I hated myself for ever wanting him.
“Dad.” I sighed and walked to him, hand out. “Give me the gun.”
He just looked at me, cold, protective.
“Dad.”
Blank stare.
Jesus, I loved him
. I gestured, waiting. “We spent my entire life having to run from the Gavinis, always hiding, uprooting our lives whenever they get close. I’m not going to have you end up in jail, not when we’ve come this far.”
Shoulders dropping, he handed me the rifle. I took it, momentarily considered arming myself with it, then quickly opened the chamber. Four buckshot rounds. I raised a brow at him. Then I unloaded the rifle and set it on the table, putting the bullets into the side pocket of my worn denims.
“Would you have seriously shot him?”
He closed his eyes, looking suddenly tired and lost. “I don’t know. When I think about him touching you, I want to blow his head off.”
“I love you, too, Daddy.”
“Would you have taken his deal? Will you?” The way he looked at me, pleading, made my stomach churn.
“I don’t know, either. I don’t see another way.” I’m so tired of running. If I take his offer, the nightmare ends.
And another one starts.
Stomach tight, I flicked a look at the forms on the table and put my hand on his shoulder. “What are you going to do?”
Wordlessly, he ran his palms down his weathered face. I knew exactly what he felt. Neither of us held a particular attachment to the farm, but it was our livelihood, yet another attempt to build a life for ourselves about to be lost. The Davros family had already taken so much from him, the last thing he wanted was to lose to them again.
Besides, working for a Davros is like working for the devil.
Dad pushed to his feet. “Well. He gave me until noon. I assume he gave the same to you?”
I nodded.
“You don’t look like you’ve slept yet, and neither have I. I suggest we get some sleep, and then come back to this when we’re rested. I’m not working for a Davros, and you aren’t selling yourself to him.”
My cheeks heated with mortification. Suddenly I couldn’t look at him.
“Sorry. That was rude.” He rubbed my arm.
