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“Your mother? Yes. I’m so sorry, Hellena.” he reaches out, offering me an embrace.
I recoil, disgust twisting my face. “Fuck you. You killed her, didn't you?”
He looks aghast at the accusation. “She took her life.”
My jaw drops. It’s not impossible. He made her life miserable. “Then you drove her to it, so it may as well have been you.”
“How could you say such a thing? I loved your mother. She's the one who told me how to find you here… or gave me clues to it, at least.” His tone is glib, like we’re old friends catching up.
“I'm sure she screamed till her last breath under your torture.” There’s one thing I know, and that is that she wouldn’t give me up like that.
Marco’s eyes darken, his lip twitching in a snarl.
“It didn't take much, my dear. You were all she had left. When you left, it broke her. There was barely anything left of the woman you remember when she died.”
The flat, cold tone of his words hammers into my soul. He did it.
He as much as admitted it.
But there's nothing I can say. I need to focus on getting away from him.
“Don't worry. I won’t let the same thing happen to you,” he continues, turning to watch the stage, the next man and woman up for sale, both smiling prettily. “I'll take you away, and you'll live like a queen.”
“I'm not going anywhere with you.”
His laugh is empty. “Do you think I would spend that much money to simply have one evening with you? I’m not interested in that.”
“Good, cause I would never?—”
“You seem to think you have a choice in this, my dear. As far as I’m concerned, you are just returned property. Property I had to pay twice for.”
“They won’t allow it. For you to take me hostage.” I hope. It’s a bluff.
“True.” He motions, and his men move in, escorting us toward the doors. “But for all they know, we are just going to grab a bite to eat. When anyone realizes you’re gone, it won’t matter.”
“That’s not how things work here. You can’t just come in and do as you please.” My argument falls flat. I know he can. He knows he can.
I just have to wait, find my moment to run.
“A miscalculation that these small-town bumpkins will soon learn they made, dealing with me.”
We’re almost to the doors. If I get the guards involved, get them asking questions…
No one is leaving yet, so there’s a chance.
Before we reach the foyer, I see him. Evan. He’s striding toward us like a thunderhead.
My heart leaps and shatters again in the same instant.
He betrayed me. But he might be my only way out of a worse fate right now.
“Ah, the boy-toy dancer. Did you come to see us off—” Marco’s mocking tone is cut off with a resounding thud of Evan’s fist across his jaw, sending the older man soaring to the marble floor.
His bodyguards are on him, drawing batons. I only get the briefest glimpse of his eyes under his mask before he explodes into motion, solid black and enraged.
That gaze sends a lightning bolt into my gut. It’s not Evan.
It’s the other side of him, completely unleashed.
