Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“He’ll never love someone like me.”
“She can read his palm again,” Doumar offered.
“I’m not sure her gift is as valuable as I’d thought. You said she didn’t see much, except for their deaths.”
“That’s because there’s nothing to see after death,” she said.
“I need more. I want a location, their strategy, and most of all, Cain Jones. I want the information delivered in a neat, tangible package with proof. No more of this hocus pocus stuff. Save that for lesser targets.”
“How am I supposed to get that? Surely, Mr. Black will get suspicious if I start asking questions.”
“Use seduction. Be whoever he wants you to be. Make him foolish in love. Fuck his brains out. I don’t care how, but you will deliver.”
“No,” Doumar said. “I own her. She’s a whore, but she’s my whore. No one else puts his dick in her.”
A muscle twitched under Godfrey’s eye, the only warning sign that his calm demeanor was an act. “Yes, you own her, but I own you. I guess that makes you my whore.” He got to his feet. “You forgot your place. You need a reminder.”
Doumar regarded Godfrey like a mistrusting dog. “I don’t get it.”
“Oh, you will.” Godfrey snickered. “You know how this business works.” The smile disappeared from his face. “Take off your pants and bend over the desk.”
Doumar turned white. He stared at Godfrey as if the man was a ghost.
“If you have questions, Miss Val,” Godfrey said, “now is the time to ask them, before I fuck my whore to remind him who owns him and this whole goddamn operation.”
She dug her nails into the armrests of the chair. “I don’t have questions.”
“Do you understand what I need of you?”
“Yes.”
“If you don’t deliver, the price of your failure will be that sweet little boy of yours. How old is he now?” He drummed his fingers on the desk as he rounded it. “Five? Five and a half? Let’s just say he won’t live to see six. Do you get the picture?”
Anger and fear mixed with loathing burned like a lump of acid in her stomach. “Yes.”
The situation was hysterically ironic. Godfrey had saved her from dying in childbirth with his magic potion. He’d kept her alive, not for Doumar or to make money, but to use her for his own, selfish needs, turning her love for her child against her as a weapon.
Godfrey turned to Doumar. “Drop the pants. Do I need to call in my men to hold you down? I’m sure they’d each like a turn.”
“No,” Doumar gritted out, reaching for his belt with shaky fingers.
Even if she hated Doumar, her insides trembled on his behalf. Godfrey was a hundred shades crueler than Doumar could ever dream of being. They were only scratching the surface. Godfrey was just starting to show his true colors. He’d come to Doumar with a remedy when she was pregnant and had managed to, slowly but surely, worm his way into the club until he owned all of Doumar’s legal and illegal businesses. Before Doumar had realized what was happening, he was Godfrey’s puppet.
“You can go, Miss Val,” Godfrey said as Doumar dropped his pants to the floor. “Unless you’d like to watch?”
There would be retribution later for the humiliation Doumar was forced to suffer in front of her, but for now she was happy to escape the room, leaving Doumar to the same fate he’d submitted her to since she’d turned eighteen.
Shutting the door behind her, she leaned on the wood and closed her eyes. Not able to stand the sounds that filtered through the door, she fled to the palm reading room and locked herself in. She dropped down in a chair and held her head in her hands. She didn’t know if Joss was a good man or not, but if he lived in Godfrey’s kind of world, he wasn’t innocent. Like all men who fought for power, he carried his share of sins. What she did know was that Bono didn’t deserve to be used and cheated, but neither did Niels deserve to die. She’d protect her son with her life. She’d steal, deceive, and kill for him.
When Bono and Joss had made an appointment to visit her at the club, they’d left an address, no doubt fake, and a telephone number. For discretion, customers didn’t leave their names but were allotted a customer number that was linked to their payment details and contact number. The number would’ve been tested to ensure it was real. It was a requirement for all customers in case a payment should bounce.
With dreaded but determined steps, she made her way to the front office and pulled the ledger from the safe. She was going through the numbers to find the one linked to the date and time of Bono’s visit when the door of Doumar’s office opened at the end of the hall.