“Friends of yours?” Gregory asks.
I turn to him, look at him in profile, at the sharp cut of his jaw, the dark scruff along it, a few days’ growth.
His man at the door tucks a hand inside his jacket but Gregory gives an infinitesimal shake of his head and he drops his arm to his side.
“Not friends, no,” I say, sliding off my bar stool to stand as they approach.
Gregory stands too, and I look up at him and I think I got him wrong in the sketches. His features, those are exact, but the darkness that clings to him, I didn’t capture that.
I was too busy making a devil out of Sebastian Scafoni.
Charlie and Madam Liona stop a few feet from us.
“What happened to your hair?” she asks.
“I dyed it.”
“I see that. Why the fuck did you do that?”
“Who the fuck are you?” Gregory asks.
They both turn to him.
I put my hand on his forearm. I mean to stop him, but for a moment, all I can do is feel the steel of it, of his strength. Absorb the strange energy rolling off him and into me.
He doesn’t shift his gaze from them. Is he standing up for me? Defending me from them? He’s not my ally or my friend or even remotely on my side.
Madam Liona turns to face him.
“I’m the woman who owns your girlfriend.”
Gregory steps toward her, and for the first time since I met her, she shrinks away.
“Do I need to call the police?” Bobby asks from behind the bar.
“No, Bobby, it’s okay. We’re leaving,” I say, without looking back.
“Amy,” he calls out.
I turn to him. I try to smile but feel the tears building that I refuse to shed. “It’s really okay. I’ll be okay.”
Will I though?
Charlie checks his watch. Whispers something into Madam Liona’s ear.
“You own nothing,” Gregory says like the whole conversation with Bobby hasn’t been happening at all. “Your name.”
She flounders, another first, and I look at Gregory, at his back. At how big he is. How scary I know he can be.
“I’m Madam Liona.”
He nods, steps backward, adjusts his cufflinks. “What’s her debt, Madam Liona?” he asks casually, not even looking at her.
“None of your business,” she says. “No need for a white knight, though you don’t quite seem like one anyway. She’s bought and paid for.” She turns to me. “We’ll discuss the hair,” she says, gripping my arm, readying to drag me away.
The instant she does, Gregory’s hand clamps over her wrist and I see from her face that it hurts.
“Thing is, she wasn’t ever up for sale,” he says.
Again, Madam Liona is flustered.
Gregory forcefully pulls her hand off me but keeps hold of it, twisting her arm a little as he steps between us, almost shielding me from her.
“But I’m a business man. Tell me the exact conditions of the transaction.”
“It’s not a negotiable—”
“The terms.”
When she doesn’t answer right away, he twists a little harder.
“Virgins are hard to come by. Especially ones that look like her. My client has bought all three virginities.”
I feel a flush creep up my neck. I don’t dare glance back at Bobby, I just hope he hasn’t heard.
Gregory doesn’t look at me. He already knows this. My sheath wasn’t marked, only Helena’s was.
God, the humiliation.
“What did he pay?” he asks casually, like this is the most ordinary conversation about the most ordinary of transactions.
She says the number, a ridiculous amount of money.
“Although, he’s expecting a blonde.”
“Well, that’s too bad for him, isn’t it?” He releases her wrist with a shove that puts her a few steps farther from me.
The man at the door steps forward now.
Gregory turns to Charlie. “And you are?”
Charlie’s gaze falls on me, then back on Gregory and when he steps backward, he runs right into the other man who is twice as tall and a hundred times meaner looking. Charlie lets out a decidedly feminine scream.
From behind me, I hear the cocking of what I know is a shotgun.
“That’s enough,” Bobby says. “Amy, get over here. Behind the bar with me. The rest of you trash get the hell out of here before I put a hole in one of you.”
Gregory turns to him his expression exactly the same as if having a shotgun pointed at him is the most normal thing.
“Noble of you,” he says. He reaches out, touches the nose of the shotgun with the tip of one gloved finger and tilts it toward Madam Liona. “Aim for her.”
“Fucking bastard.” Bobby says but Gregory’s man cocks the revolver he’s now holding by his side. I get the feeling he’s much more experienced with it than Bobby is with that shotgun.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Gregory says. “I’m going to double what that asshole paid for the girl. You’re going to get in your car and disappear and you’re never going to come near her again. Is that clear?”
“What?” I ask.
Gregory turns to me, his expression cold. He raises his eyebrows.
“I don’t…”
I swear he rolls his eyes just then. “I may be a devil but I’m the devil you know, sweetheart.”
I swallow.
He grins, turns back to the woman.
“Double?” Her greedy eyes widen, she’s already doing the math.
“Matteo,” Gregory says.
The man with the gun steps forward. “Put her in the car. Wait with her.” He turns to me. “She has a habit of disappearing.”
Without a word, the man has his hand wrapped around my arm and is pulling me away.
“Wait!”
They all turn to me.
“I didn’t agree.”
“I wasn’t asking if you agreed. But if you’d rather be fucked by a stranger tonight…” he trails off. He turns to Liona. “How old is he?”
“Uh…sixties.”
Gregory shifts his gaze back to me. “You’d rather have to suck off a sixty-year-old fat fuck?”
I feel the blood drain from my face.
“I didn’t think so.”
He gestures to Matteo who resumes walking me out.
“But…” We’re outside before that ‘but’ is acknowledged and a moment later, I’m in the backseat of an SUV with tinted windows and the man, Matteo, is standing beside the locked doors.
My coat is still inside. My purse too. Which is where my phone is.
Although, who would I call? The police? Helena?
Not five minutes later, Gregory walks out carrying my coat and purse. He opens the door and climbs into the backseat with me. Matteo takes the driver’s seat and starts the engine.
“Buckle your seatbelt.” Gregory unzips my purse.
“What?”
He looks at me. “Buckle your seatbelt. It’s the law.” He gives me a smirk that tells me he could give a fuck about any law.
But when I don’t move to do as he says, he mutters something under his breath and reaches across me to buckle the belt before resuming his search inside my purse.
“What are you doing? That’s mine.”
He takes out my cell phone, opens the back and removes the battery before tucking both into his pocket.
“Now it’s mine,” he says. “Just like you.”
He finds my keys and takes those as well.
We pull up outside the hotel where my apartment—Madam Liona’s apartment—is.
“Stay here, Matteo. We’ll be right back.” He turns to me. “We need to get your things. You won’t be coming back here.”
“I don’t understand what just happened,” I say as he opens the door to step out.
He sighs, like maybe he’s talking to someone slow, and closes the door. “You owed that cunt money and I paid it. In return, I boug
ht what you’d already sold. Which is disappointing to hear. I thought you’d have more respect for your body, Amelia.”
I know he’s laughing at me. I can see it on his face.
“Fuck you.”
He smiles wide, wide enough to bare his perfect, white teeth.
“I will fuck you,” he says. “That’s the point of this transaction.”
“Can’t get laid the old-fashioned way?” I don’t know why I ask it.
He scoots in closer, the smile vanishing, replaced by something darker, more predatory, more premeditated. He grips a handful of hair at the back of my head and tugs, making me cry out.
I slap my hands against his chest to push him off, feel the hard muscle there. I’m no match for his solid strength.
“Learn this now, Amelia Willow. I own you. And I won’t let you go until I’ve had my fill of you.”
He twists his fingers in my hair.
“Madam whatever the fuck her name was was right about one thing. I am no white knight. I am not your friend. I didn’t do this out of the goodness of my heart. You and me, this was always going to happen. Destiny and all that bullshit.” He pauses, cocks his head to the side. “And you know what? I don’t think you’re going to fight me.”
“I will fight you.”
He snorts. “I’ve heard those words before.”
Before I can ask what he means, he tugs my head back hard and it takes all I have not to cry out in pain.
“Now be good or I’ll have to really hurt you.”
3
Gregory
She doesn’t give me any trouble as we walk through the lobby and ride the elevator up. It’s coming though. I can feel it. My guess is she’s still processing what just happened.
I watch her reflection on the mirrored elevator doors, her delicate skin looking even more so for the dark hair. This change, it’s only made her more striking.
“Why black?” I ask.
“What?” she asks as if she’s lost in her thoughts.
“Your hair.”
She shakes her head dismissively. “I was tired of looking at myself. Tired of looking like them.”
“Your sisters.”
“You’re a genius,” she says with a smirk as the elevator doors open.
I grin, tighten my grip on her arm. “I’m going to let that one go.”
We walk down the hall to her apartment, and I insert the key into the lock.
“Wait,” she starts when I push the door open. “How do you know which one is mine?”
“I already told you. I’ve been watching you for weeks.”
“Why? I don’t get why?”
We go inside, and I release her after closing the door. I dig my hand into my coat pocket and pull out the napkin she’d left on the bar. It’s crumpled, but it’s the same thing she’s been sketching forever.
“This,” I say.
She recognizes it, tries to take it from me, but I pull it out of reach.
“You’ve been leaving them like calling cards.”
“You’re collecting them?” she asks.
“I don’t like to waste good art. You’re very talented.”
Her forehead wrinkles and her eyes narrow as she studies me.
“It’s polite to say thank you when someone pays you a compliment.”
“Keep your compliments. You mean nothing to me.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” I check my watch. “You have ten minutes to collect what you need.”
“What do you mean?”
I raise my eyebrows. “I mean pack what you want to take.”
“Not that part.”
I knew what she meant. It’s just easy to fuck with her because I think I know something about her.
“You’re as obsessed with it as I am, Amelia.”
Concern deepens the blue of her eyes. I realize there’s a fine gold ring circling the pupil.
“Obsessed with the reaping. The Willow Girl Legacy. Maybe you even find something romantic about it.”
She snorts. “There’s nothing romantic about what your brother did. How he did it.”
“No?” I walk ahead of her into the bedroom.
She follows close behind.
I go directly to the table where notebook upon notebook is stacked all containing sketches. I open one, thumb through the pages, do the same with another, then another.
“Have you been inside here?”
“Now you’re catching on.”
“How?”
“Money. Money will buy everything.” I cock my head to the side. “Even you. It bought your sister, too. Or do you forget how easily Willow Girls are bought and sold?”
She drops to the edge of the bed and I’m not sure if it’s her new hair color making her look paler or what I said.
“Time’s a ticking, Amelia.” I close the books. “I’ll wait in the other room.”
“I’m not obsessed,” she says when I’m at the door.
I stop, turn.
“I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand how I feel,” she says like I might have the answer.
“Like you want it?”
She snaps her gaze up to mine and what I see inside her eyes, I know I’m right.
“I don’t want it,” she denies.
I raise my eyebrows. I’m not interested in wasting my time with this conversation. I tap the face of my watch and leave the room to sit on one of the chairs as I wait for her. I check inside my pocket for what I need when she gives me the trouble I’m expecting and study the art on the napkin.
This one is slightly different than most of the others. In this one, she’s pictured me, not Sebastian. It’s incomplete, so I don’t know which Willow Girl is standing on the block before me, but I can guess.
And it makes this all so much more interesting.
A few minutes later, she comes out of the bedroom with a backpack over one shoulder and a duffel bag in her other hand. When I move to take the duffel from her, she tugs it away.
She stops at the safe and punches in her code to unlock it. From inside, she retrieves her passport.
“I’ll take that,” I say, relieving her of it before she can argue. I tuck it into my pocket. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Home.”
She seems confused by that and stops, turns to me. “Is this for real?” she asks. “I mean, what you did, what you…bought…It’s not legal or anything. I don’t have to go with you.”
“No, you don’t. But I can make you. If it’s part of your fantasy, I mean, to be taken by force—”
“What? No! God.”
I chuckle. “I’m just having some fun with you. I do have one question, though.” My smile is gone. “Are you going to give me any trouble?”
She steps backward, closer to the door.
“You mean am I just going to walk out of here with you? Get in the back of that SUV and let you kidnap me?”
“Yeah, exactly that.”
“You bet I’m not, asshole!” She swings the duffel at me, and what the fuck is in it, stones?
I shove it away, pounce as she reaches for the doorknob, one hand clamping over her throat, pinning her against the door. I’m easily faster than her, stronger than her, and truly, it’s better this happened here than down in the lobby.
But what I’m not expecting is a fucking knife at my throat.
“Let me go you sick fuck!”
She digs the tip of it into my neck, breaking skin.
But the instant she sees blood smear the knife’s edge, she freezes, her eyes widening in panic. She’s too scared to do more and it’s the split second I need.
“My bad,” I say, squeezing her throat, closing my other hand around her knife hand and twisting it backward until she lets out a cry and the knife drops to the fake-wood floor.
“A fucking steak knife?”
“My…arm.”
“Where the hell did you get it? Do you sleep with a knife under your pillow?”
<
br /> She makes a gurgling sound and her face is pink.
I ease up on her throat. I don’t want to kill her. But the instant I do, she’s clawing at me with her free hand and when I capture that, she slams her knee into my balls.
“Fuck!”
I double over and the instant I let her go, she tries the door again, but I’ve double locked it and when she pulls it open, it catches on the hook.
I lean against it, slamming it shut and tackling her to the ground, my balls on fucking fire. I lay my weight on top of her as the wave of unbearable pain passes and I recapture her wrists.
“That was a mistake, Amelia,” I say through gritted teeth.
It fucking hurts like hell.
She tries to free her legs probably to break my balls, but that’s not happening. No fucking way.
“I knew this’d go this way,” I say, reaching into my pocket to take out a syringe. “But don’t worry, I’m prepared.”
She stops struggling when she sees it, her eyes growing even wider. “What is that?” she asks, restarting her effort, trying to get free of me.
But I’ve got her.
And I’m not letting her go.
I pull the cap off with my teeth and spit it aside. “Muscle relaxer,” I say with a smirk. “Sort of.”
“Don’t!”
“You’ll have a killer headache tomorrow, but you earned that.”
I pull myself up, keep her trapped between my thighs and squeeze the air out of the needle.
“No, no. Please don’t! Please. I’ll go with you. I will!”
“Too late, sweetheart.” Using my arm, I force her face to the side glad for the shorter hair. “Now be still.”
“Please!”
But it’s too late for her. I push the needle into her skin and watch her squeeze her eyes shut as I empty the contents of the barrel into her.
She makes a sound, and when I sit up and let go of her, she rolls her head to look at me.
“Next time be smarter,” I say.
She blinks, struggling against the drug and tries to bat at me once, twice, but her arm just flops to the floor.
I take her hand and stand, ignoring the pain, pulling her limp body up with me. I hoist her over my shoulder and dig my phone out of my pocket to call Matteo.
“Change of plans. Meet me at the service entrance.”
Twisted Page 2
