“What?” I whisper the word to myself.
“Your father was in the way of some very powerful people. Now you are too. So if you think this is a game I’m playing with you, or if you think you’re going to get out of this unscathed by being the spoiled, privileged brat you’ve always been, you’re wrong. There are two ways out of here. Under my protection, or in a casket.”
I stare up at him. Suddenly, I see him for what he is. I got a flash of his true nature when he first took me, but that impression slipped away in the orgasms he gave me and in the privilege he was talking about. I’ve never thought any real harm could come to me, or my family. That illusion started to crumble when my father died, and his words bring more of my defenses down, let cold chaos start rushing into my heart.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. And you know I’m not. You can feel it. You’ve felt it all along, haven’t you. It never felt right.”
“Death never does,” I say bitterly. I lost my mother when I was eleven. Her passing turned my father cold to other women, all of them except me. He adored me. Doted on me. He made sure I lived the life my mother wanted, and now? Now I’m in the hands of precisely the sort of person he would have loathed.
I curl up on the floor, my arms wrapped around my knees, my head curled down toward my chest. The mention of my father gouges at a wound that hasn’t had time to heal.
Darko crouches next to me. I feel him close, his big presence menacing.
“Did you do it?”
“No,” he says. “I tried to stop it. I failed. In the end, your father had made so many enemies, there weren’t enough people left to save him.”
A sob escapes me.
“Who did it?”
“That doesn’t matter. You’ll never have any kind of revenge. That’s impossible. What might be possible is you surviving where he didn’t. They’re going to want control of your business assets. You’ll still own them, you’ll still reap the dividends, but you won’t control them. I will.”
“Or what? You’re going to kill me?” I can’t uncurl. I am stuck in this pitiful position. I wish I was stronger, but guilt and rage do not mix well inside me.
“No, Chloe, I’m not. I’m going to train the kind of obedience into you that’s going to keep you safe. Because you’re going to give those men what they want. You’re going to stay out of their way. Unlike your father, who thought it was a good idea to resist them. I’m going to remove every fiber of resistance from your being, girl. I’m going to save your life by breaking your will.”
It’s too much to take in. His words are cruel and frightening.
“My father died of a heart attack,” I sob. “He wasn’t killed.”
“There are a dozen ways to induce a heart attack,” he says. “Odorless, tasteless compounds slipped into a drink. When these people want someone dead, that is the end of it.”
“Who are these people?” Finally, I unfurl in rage. I sit upright, find his face on my level, glare into his eyes. “Who did this to my father? To me? Tell me, or I’ll assume it’s you.”
“You can assume what you like. What you can’t do is anything about what has happened. Right now, all you need to concern yourself with is staying alive.”
“No.” I shake my head and get to my feet. “No. No. Fuck you. No. Fuck this. I don’t care what you do to me. Beat me. Fuck me. It doesn’t matter. You won’t win.”
He rises up to tower above me, his hands gripping my arms to stop them from rising against him. My fists are clenched. I’ve never hit anyone in my life, but I want to punch him as hard as I can. I want to beat the hell out of his big beast of a man who has given me the absolute worst news of my existence. I want him to suffer for what he’s doing to me, and for the role he has agreed to play.
“You’re angry,” he says. “You have a right to be. But don’t make the mistake of taking it out on me, because I promise you that your suffering can intensify and become deeper than you have ever imagined.”
I hate him so much. I hate the world. And I am sad, so, so, so sad.
The emotions are impossible to contain. I want to stay strong, but I can’t. I’m weak, and he and his murderous friends have made me even weaker. A single tear breaches the barrier of my restraint and in less than a second I find myself bursting into tears against his chest. My tears coat his bare skin and he wraps his arms around me, holding me close.