Did I need to tattoo it?
I shifted with insecurity.
He walked by me, heading to a desk. A second later, a green pen and notebook flew at me, faster than the papers had.
“Write them down,” he said.
I hesitated.
I didn’t want to have to stare at the words, like looking yourself in the mirror after you’ve done something horrible.
He pushed the contract to me with his shoe. “If you’d like to reconsider.”
I quickly scribbled the words inside the notebook. Eyes on the floor, I handed the notebook up to him, but he pushed it back to me.
“Hold it up, by your face.”
I hesitated again, then held it up. Green ink bled through the back of the page.
“Smile,” he said.
“Smile?” I allowed myself to look up, to see he had his phone out.
I did as he said, and he snapped a photo of me.
Fear at Grayson having photographic evidence of one of my deepest secrets nearly eclipsed everything, so I almost didn’t hear the door crreak behind us as my next biggest nightmare approached.
“Mr. Grayson,” a firm, weathered voice called out. One I knew very well. The voice that had told me bedtime stories and taught me poetry.
“Over here, Woodsy,” he said, but his eyes were still on me.
Woodsy, as in, Woodson Hale, my uncle.
Oh my God, oh my God.
Shit, shit, where do I hide? Where do I go? How do I get out of this?
“I have to go,” I blurted. “I need to use the bathroom.”
Grayson tucked his phone in his back pocket. “Do you not realize what you just did?”
My heart lurched into my throat. I could hear my uncle advancing through the bedroom, his soft footfalls like a mouse leaving footprints in dust.
“You have proof of one of my darkest secrets…”
He shook his head, that wicked smile on his pink lips. “You’re mine until I say you’re not. You stand when I tell you to stand. You kneel for as long as I say kneel. I get to play with you for months.”
I lifted my eyes to Grayson’s deep, cutting blue eyes, heart throbbing at the promise in them.
The threat.
He quirked his head. “All my pets died. Will you survive?”
“Mr. Grayson—” My uncle stopped abruptly.
No, no.
My uncle, the man who’d taken me in when I had no one, who’d practically raised me, who’d worked as a servant his whole life and said the key to surviving it was keeping your dignity, had just found me on my knees before Grayson Crowne.