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And Knox… Strangely perfect in a way I’d never find again. He was a work of art, and I had never really known why.
It wasn’t romance or attraction; my instincts had just demanded him the moment I’d seen him in that forest clearing.
Ace’s gaze was fixed on my glass, his own still frozen in his fist, but then he relaxed, as if spotting the first hint of my nerves were enough to calm him.
“We would have made good pack mates.”
He was wrong.
He’d have had me killed within the year. But now I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my first instinct had been correct. The offer from Ace was not an offer at all. It was a leash, or it was a noose, and nothing in between. There had never been a choice: just the illusion of it. Simple fucking pride had got in my way. Anger at being tied to the legacy my family name carried—one I’d fled from since the blessed day my parents had been wiped from the face of the earth.
But my family name would be my end today.
I forced myself to roll my eyes. “I’m sure you know I haven’t funded anything in at least a year. Colt’s a paranoid piece of shit.”
I’d taken over my father’s accounts years back and had been untangling all the filthy places he was sending money for a while now. There were still more accounts I’d been given in his will.
Ace leaned back in his seat, flashing me a grin as he spread his hands with a shrug.
Right.
This was a gift, not strategy.
I suspected that the only reason I remained alive was so Ace could bask in the satisfaction of watching me process my own fate.
I was afforded a last drink, courtesy of smugness.
He hadn’t taken a sip of his, I noticed, though he had swirled the glass beneath his nose.
“It seems you match,” I murmured. Paranoid fucks, the lot of them. Though he knew I knew what was heading for me, and I suppose a murder suicide wouldn’t be out of the question.
Poslon, though?
Tasteless.
He raised his eyebrow finally taking a sip. “How about a choice before you leave?”
Leave?
I snorted. What a polite way to put it.
I’d seen shadows shift from above a few times.
My reapers. His men with their guns pointed my way.
“Why not?” I asked, my voice dry.
Ace lifted a hand and made a vague beckoning motion. A few long seconds passed, and then I heard scuffling.
I turned to see two men stepping through the open double doors to the ballroom, and they were dragging a half-conscious Knox with them.
Again, I felt that flare of fury.
Possessive, angry bitterness rose like bile in my throat.
They dumped him at Ace’s feet, and he buckled. He was bleeding and broken, barely able to hold himself up on his knees.
“Choice,” Ace said. “Do you want him to live?”
