Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 725(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 483(@300wpm)
He didn’t know why, but already he had the feeling he was going to have to protect that little fairy-tale princess. He sighed. He just wasn’t that man. Keys was better suited, and he was as tough as they came. Even Maestro would do better, and he was a dominant asshole. Both men at least could be gentle if they had to be. He had one gear, and it wasn’t a nice one. Still, if Czar decreed it, he was still the man Master followed and always would.
* * *
Ambrie glared at Charles Dobbs, the man who had been her father’s best friend and confidant for years—all her life. “You are responsible for my parents’ deaths. How could you?” She almost called him “Uncle Charlie,” as she had for years.
The strain on Dobbs’ face showed in the deep lines around his mouth and eyes. “I didn’t know this would happen, Ambrie. I had no idea Walker would kill your parents. Are you absolutely certain he gave the order? His men seem . . . trigger-happy. One of them pistol-whipped me.” He touched the mostly healed wounds on his face. “I objected to him marrying you, and the moment I contradicted Walker, his goon hit me with his gun.”
Ambrie wanted to do more than hit him with a gun. “Do you have any weapons on you?”
He looked around the room and shook his head. “There are cameras in here, Ambrie. For God’s sake, if he hears you, he’ll come in here and shoot me right in front of you.”
She shrugged. “Since you turned traitor and sold out my parents and me, I don’t think that matters to me all that much.” Her head ached, and she felt sick and dizzy from whatever drug they were continually pumping into her system to keep her compliant. She had taken to faking being nearly unconscious just so they wouldn’t give her any more of the drug.
“Don’t say that. I’m all you have now. If I’m dead, who can tell anyone that Thompson took you against your will?” He hissed the question in her ear.
“Do you think I care? Because I don’t. I’m not marrying him. The moment I do, he’s going to kill me so he can inherit the money. I can’t trust you to make me a will, and I certainly wasn’t given time to make one. My husband would inherit.”
“He’s not going to kill you, Ambrie. He won’t,” Dobbs assured her.
“How do you know that?” She couldn’t help the sarcastic note very prominent in her voice. While she argued with him, she looked around the little room she was locked in.
The room had one window, far too small for anyone, even her, to escape. It wouldn’t have mattered, because one of Thompson’s horrid guards stood right outside. He’d peered in, leering while she was forced to dress herself in her wedding attire. It was that or let her guards dress her, and she wasn’t about to give them the satisfaction. She was still fighting the effects of the drug she’d been given to make her docile.
She hated the dress she would have found beautiful if it hadn’t been Thompson’s choice. She recognized the high-end designer and knew he’d paid a fortune for the wedding dress and veil. The dress had been created for her specifically, sewn to her measurements, which made her sick. That meant Thompson had been stalking her for some time.
Worst of all, the dress was exactly what she might have chosen. It was crafted in a nude sparkly tulle and adorned in 3D silver embroidery. The corset bodice had a plunging neckline with thin straps, which served to emphasize her small waist and large breasts. The trumpet dress had geometric sheer back cutouts and a long train that made it impossible to run.
In another life, she would have loved the dress, but in this one, she looked for a weapon on it. A place to hide a weapon in it. Walker Thompson had no idea what he had unleashed in her when he killed her parents. None.
With both her parents serving in the military, that meant she’d grown up in that life. She’d learned how to handle weapons from a very early age. Both her mother and her father believed in their daughter learning self-defense, and she had begun training at an early age for that as well. She hadn’t stopped, although she had taken dance lessons for fun. It was easier to keep up with her defense lessons when they moved so much in the beginning, but her parents worked at keeping her in dance because she loved it and they thought it was a good way to help her become more social. Glaring up at the cameras, and there were three—overkill—she thought maybe the socialization didn’t take quite as well as the combat lessons had.