Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127484 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 637(@200wpm)___ 510(@250wpm)___ 425(@300wpm)
I went to the ornate marble bathroom to splash water on my face until I remembered it was covered in a thick layer of makeup. I blinked through the heavy false lashes, wanting to rip them off.
But I didn’t. Couldn’t. I had to be this poised, false woman in white, standing in a marble bathroom with no allies for miles.
I jumped as the sound of ringing echoed from the bedroom. Following the sound, I was surprised to see a phone on the nightstand beside the bed. Who still had landlines? Mafia Dons needed to communicate with their captive fiancées somehow, I guessed.
Figuring it was for me, I answered it.
“Piper, I trust your accommodations are to your satisfaction.” Stone’s tone was warm, as if he hadn’t just murdered two men in front of me hours before.
I clutched the phone tighter. “My … accommodations?” I repeated. “You’re not expecting me to sleep with you?”
I’d known upon first glance that I wasn’t in Stone’s bedroom. There were no personal effects, nothing male about it, and the large closet was empty. No shrines to the horned god or stone slabs with chains for sacrificing virgins. Not that he’d leave evidence of the true sadist he was.
“So eager?” he teased in a charming deep tone. “No, I’m afraid I’m old fashioned in that regard.” There was a loaded pause. I picked at my cuticles so I didn’t rush to fill it. “I know you don’t stand on ceremony in regard to who you fuck.”
I flinched at the words delivered in that same polite tone. but I didn’t miss the bite, even through the phone.
“I’d rather let some time go by before we venture into that portion of our relationship,” he continued placidly. “We have forever, after all.”
Forever. Or as long as he deigned to keep me alive, was what was left unsaid.
I didn’t speak. What was there to say?
“I’ll be home for dinner by six thirty,” he continued. “I’ll expect you at the table not a moment past.” Order saturated his tone. And the promise of retribution should I not heed it. An omen of what a life would be like under the thumb of this man. I reveled in the fate I was saving the next woman from.
“I’ll be there,” I promised, glancing at the clock that had barely struck twelve. My stomach panged with hunger and thirst. I ignored it.
“Good. I’m so sure you’ll like it here, Piper,” he added before he rang off.
My hand was shaking as I put the phone down. I was most definitely out of my depth there.
Six hours. I had six hours to learn not only how to swim in these shark-infested waters but to become a shark myself.
Knox
Powerless.
I had promised myself I would never be powerless again. Never in a position where my life was controlled by outside forces. People.
I’d always been the most dangerous person in the room. The most feared. My fate my own. My demons my friends. I’d never been more in control than I had been in Stone’s office, poised to kill him.
Yet since the moment I’d laid eyes on Piper, I’d become untethered from all of it. I’d been operating by lying to myself that I was still able to grasp on to the reins.
It had all come crashing down when Piper entered Stone’s office, clad in white, looking like a dream and embodying my worst fucking nightmare.
Powerless. I’d been powerless while watching her offer herself up to save me. Spouting lies, thinking that she was convincing enough in her coldness to make me think she didn’t care. When her whole fucking soul burned for me. When I knew every inch of it and could tell by the flutter of her eyelids and the tremble of her bottom lip how much her words pained her.
Watching the pain she felt while she thought she was hurting me was the most agonizing thing I’d experienced in my existence. Followed closely to Stone’s hands on her, her wincing in pain, the fucking barrel of a gun to her head. One twitch of his finger and every part of her would’ve been extinguished.
I paced my penthouse, vowing to kill Lukyan. He’d given me his word that he’d take care of her, yet she’d somehow been able to make it to Rosso. And no fucking way did she accomplish that alone, I didn’t doubt Piper was capable, but no one outsmarted or escaped Lukyan He’d helped her. Led her to her death like a lamb to the slaughter. Dressed her in fucking clothes she couldn’t even fight in, that constricted her, packaged her up like a goddamn treat.
Powerless. He’d made her appear powerless.
Which I knew was the point in their little, fucked-up plan, but it was by no means infallible. In fact, it had a less than 1 percent chance of fucking working.