Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 103231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 413(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
The room we’d walked into hadn’t been a bedroom like we’d expected. It was an office and leaning negligently against the desk like he hadn’t had a care in the world had been Marcus Parks. Standing quietly next to him had been Aleks, his expression blank as he’d watched one of Parks’s men put a gun to Dante’s head. Even now as his brother endured a brutal beating, Aleks seemed unaffected.
Parks put up a hand and the man hitting Dante stopped. I looked at my lover, who, like me, was on his knees, and saw blood trickling from a cut above his eye, another on his cheek and his busted lip. His cheek was already starting to bruise and he seemed to have trouble seeing out of one eye that was beginning to swell shut.
Parks straightened and held out the note Dante had written. He glanced at it and began reading.
“I’m here, baby brother. I’m taking you home. When you come out of the greenhouse, don’t look for me, but know that I’m here. Leave a light on in your room tonight so we can find you. Você é melhor. Dante.”
“Very sweet,” Parks murmured as he flicked the note onto the desk. “Did you really think it would be that simple to come into my house and take what’s mine?”
“He’s not yours, you perverted piece of shit!” Dante snapped.
Parks seemed unfazed by Dante’s fury. He glanced at Aleks and said, “Do you know this man, my pet?”
“No, Father,” Aleks responded dutifully, his eyes downcast.
Rage went through me at the title Aleks used to refer to the man, because I knew in my gut there was nothing about their relationship that had anything to do with being father and son. Dante was in the same mindset because he snarled, “You’re not his fucking father, you twisted-”
That was as far as he got before Parks nodded and the man standing over Dante hit him again.
“Show this man what you are,” Parks said calmly. I watched in horror as Aleks began peeling off his clothes without any hesitation whatsoever.
“Aleks,” Dante whispered brokenly as he watched his little brother strip his underwear off and step naked before the desk. He turned so his back was to us and I saw that it was riddled with raised welts – from countless beatings I suspected.
Aleks leaned facedown over the desk, spreading his legs so he was on full display for everyone. Rage went through me at the humiliation the young man was being forced to endure and any anger I had that he’d been the one to alert our existence to his captors died a quick death. Parks ran his hand over Aleks’s ass and I saw Dante try to get up before he was viciously knocked to the ground again.
“Get your fucking hands off him,” I yelled to the man who grabbed Dante by the hair and yanked him to his knees. The outburst earned me a punch to the face, but it was worth it since it got the attention off Dante for a few seconds.
Pain radiated out from my cheek. I saw Parks tap Aleks on the shoulder and the young man immediately straightened and stood quietly in front of Parks, making no effort to cover himself. I guessed he was used to being on display at his master’s whim. The older man motioned to the floor and Aleks immediately dropped to his knees, his hands carefully resting on his lap, his eyes downcast.
“So, brother,” Parks said as he approached Dante. I guessed the man to be in his late forties at most. He was dressed in an expensive-looking business suit and besides the gold wedding ring on his finger, he was wearing some kind of signet ring on his other hand. A heavy watch was at his wrist and he moved like someone who had all the confidence in the world and none of the concern.
Because he had the money to back up his sense of invincibility. How many years had he been hiding his perversions behind a veneer of respectability?
“What to do with you and your friend here?” Parks mused. He used his finger to tilt Dante’s head up by the chin. “But I guess the bigger question is, how many people did you run your pretty little mouth to before you tried to take what’s mine?”
“Fuck you,” Dante snapped and then he spit a mouthful of blood onto Park’s jacket. The man backhanded Dante hard and fast. The guy watching me grabbed onto me before I could even react.
Parks eyed his ruined jacket in irritation and then stripped it off. He sent the man standing near the door a silent nod and then turned his attention on the guy holding Dante in place. “Go find Vaughn. Tell him I need him to make two bodies disappear.”