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“My father is Harold Fox.”
I’m not sure what I expected his reaction to that bit of information to be, but the low growl rumbling from his chest makes me tense, readying myself to attempt another escape despite my torn-up foot, fear, and exhaustion.
The menacing way he shifts forward in the chair makes me try to inch back again, but there’s nowhere to go. Only the solid, hand-carved wood headboard.
He may not be holding the axe, but this man is deadly with his bare hands. Everyone knows it. Has heard the stories. Is more than aware that you never turn your back on The Beast because he will end you before you even realize what’s happening.
Flexing his long, strong fingers, he analyzes me with a cool gaze. “And just what are you doing here, Callista Fox?”
I suck in a shaky breath. “Apparently fucking up everything.”
He doesn’t laugh or react at all to my comment, doesn’t even crack a damn smile at my self-deprecating attempt to break some of the tension in the room. The Beast merely continues to sit and stare, his body completely still, his eyes boring into me.
Waiting.
For me to answer the question he asked.
Not give my apparently unwitty commentary about the situation.
What are you doing here?
Handing my soul over to the Devil himself.
Offering up my body like a slab of meat.
Throwing away any chance of a future with any sort of real relationship in order to save the only man I’ve ever truly loved—Dad.
Doing what needs to be done.
Swallowing through my dry throat, I force myself to stare down the man through the darkness, unwilling to show even more weakness when I admit I’m here to do exactly what he demanded—become his.
“My father got your message.”
A moment of tense silence hangs between us. Then The Beast folds his hands together in front of him, resting his elbows on his knees. “What message?”
He’s kidding, right?
It was crystal fucking clear.
A bloody axe stuck somewhere impossible to miss on Dad’s front door—about as direct a message as you can send, with the added clarification of the typed note with explicit instructions.
What’s his game?
I raise a brow. “Um…the note stuck to his front door with the axe…”
Even from across the room, with the darkness enveloping us, I can still see his shoulders stiffen, his brow furrow under a full head of silvery hair, and his hands tighten around each other in front of him. “Remind me what my message said.”
Is he joking?
This must be some ploy to get me to say the words, to embarrass myself more than I already have. To utterly destroy any semblance of self-confidence or self-esteem I might have retained with this man.
It would be easy to cower under his intense gaze, but I won’t give him the satisfaction of breaking down and refusing to do it, of showing my discomfort with what I came here to do.
If I can’t even say the words to the man, there’s no way I can follow through with the act.
I swallow thickly and shift my weight slightly, trying to avoid moving my foot, squaring my shoulders to make it appear I have more bravado than I actually possess. “It said he never should have gone after Rosewood and that if he didn’t send me up here immediately, there would be consequences.”
The rest was implied.
