“You’re keeping me prisoner?”
He takes a sip from the glass and smiles behind the rim. After swallowing, he lowers it to the table. “I haven’t made up my mind. Sit.”
My insides shudder with unease. He could be messing with me further, and knowing emotion drives his decisions, a knot forms in my stomach. He hates me, and hate leads people to do heartless things. Still, I know I’m going to have to play along if I want him to reveal what the hell he wants from me.
I sit away from him on the opposite couch and cross my arms over my chest. “Why am I here?” I know time is only a commodity to men like Milton, yielding it however they want. Whatever way suits their victim.
“Because I want you to be.”
“Stop.” My fists clench on my lap. “Delaying the inevitable for whatever desired effect you’re trying to achieve isn’t going to work.”
“You’re right, I am delaying. But maybe I like seeing how much I get under your skin.”
Anger claws at my insides. “You haven’t gotten anywhere, and your efforts of pretending not to know me were hilarious given I know who the fuck you are. How could I forget you?”
He leans back, hair falling over his face. He doesn’t move it away, and it only makes him ten times more intimidating. “And that’s when I tell you you’ve never known me. Not in the slightest.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you think I want?” he counters.
“I thought revenge but taking me here…now I think you want something else. Surely a man who brings a girl into a basement of a mansion desires something fucked up, wouldn’t you think?”
What I say rolls off my tongue, admittedly too well, and he laughs. “Your defense mechanism is tacky, and now I know why I found you in Stonehill.”
“Right,” I call his bluff. “All those times at the club, you didn’t once wonder why Blake was so obsessed? Why he had you put bullets in people’s heads for me?”
“You tell me?” He’s amused, and it unsettles me. Shifting again, he leans forward, this time resting his elbows on his knees. My heart stops, the action reminding me so much of the man who watched me walk across the room, waiting to strike down anyone who so much as tried to touch me. “Don’t get shy on me now. Go ahead.”
My lips press together, and he breathes a laugh as if knowing there’s no fight left in me. Instead, I ask the obvious, “What is this place? Why am I here?”
“A private club. Of sorts. And as for why you’re here…well, I don’t know whether to put a bullet in your head for what you did or something else. Something…fucked up.”
“Does what I did matter seeing as you’re still living and breathing?” He bristles, the tension flowing between us about ready to explode.
“And now you’re just pissing me off.” He gets out of his chair, and my back presses into the couch instinctively. “You don’t want to deal with me when I’m angry.”
Even with him on the other side of the table, I stand to try and put more distance between us. But his long legs make it easy for him to circle around and close in on me. Slamming his hand into my shoulder, he pushes me back down. “I didn’t say get up.”
I slam my fists into the couch. “Just get this over with and shoot me then! You think I don’t know how this goes? I wronged you, so kill me. We both know you’re good at that.”
“And give you the easy way out?” Leaning over me, his hand pressing into the leather by my head, his finger traces my neck. I breathe out slowly, my heart racing. His touch tickles my skin, and my nails dig into the couch. He’s never touched me like this before, and just as I’m about to question if I like it or not, his hand drops. “No. You owe me too much to put you out of your damn misery.”
“I owe you nothing.”
“We’ll see about that.” The smell of him surrounds me. Intoxicates me. The darkness in his eyes revealing its game over. “You’d be dead if it weren’t for me, or have you forgotten how many times you were on death’s door, and it was me who stopped you from falling through the threshold? Blake wasn’t going to save you. Not Nicolas. Not even your own sister. You would be nothing but an addict letting any dirty cock down her throat for a hit.”
“You’re disgusting,” I sneer.
“And your idiocy cost me from getting what I wanted. The whole reason I was in that dump in the first place.”
Confusion wriggles my brow. “What are you talking about?”
He laughs, but it’s cold. “Do you think I was there to follow that fucker? To bow down to him?”
Blood pounds in my ears, and I don’t understand. He was so devoted to Blake. To the club. Is he really telling me that was a lie?
“You messed things up, and now you owe me. All for telling Blake it was me who slid between your thighs.” Hands slap down on my legs, and I yelp when he grabs them. “Nicolas couldn’t wait to tell me how it was you who stabbed me in the back when he had a gun on me. Who knew the little damsel in distress had it in her?”
He squeezes, and I grab his wrist, digging my nails into his skin. Not that it fazes him or lessens his brutal grip. “It wasn’t—”
“Wasn’t what?”
“It wasn’t like that! It’s true. I did lie, and I regretted it the moment it left my mouth.”
“Not
