Fuck. Shit. I was fucked.
“Sophia,” he purred.
“Let me go,” I demanded.
“No. I don’t think I’m going to do that.”
There was something different about his voice. It was darker. Rougher. Grittier. I didn’t know what to make of it.
“What do you want from me?” I asked. Maybe he would be willing to negotiate. Maybe if I tried hard enough, he’d let me go. I could get his money back and we could pretend like none of this ever happened.
“I want answers,” he replied.
The warmth I was used to was gone from his voice. I almost didn’t recognize him and that terrified me to the core.
“Dean, please. Let me go. Let’s talk about this,” I whimpered. I played up my fear and let it slip in the way I spoke, allowing my words to shake with emotion. None of it was faked though. My fear was real this time.
“Oh, you’re so good at that, aren’t you?” he murmured. The question sounded almost like a purr, which was deeply unsettling when it was twisted together with the foreign hardness in his tone. For a moment, I didn’t even know what to say.
“What? What do you mean?” I exclaimed, growing more nervous by the second.
“Why do you do it, Sophia? Is someone making you do this?” he asked gently and there was the tiniest flicker of the man I’d known from before.
Please. Come back to me, Dean.
“It wasn’t personal,” I answered quietly. I swallowed, trying to figure out what I should tell him and coming up with nothing.
I’d never thought about what I’d say if I ever ran into one of my marks again. I didn’t know how to answer his questions in a way that might appease him. I didn’t know if I could say anything at all to make him feel better. I was usually good at piecing together a story on the spot, but this time nothing came to me.
He was silent for a long time and I struggled in the chains that bound me. The quiet all around me was oppressive and it made me entirely too uncomfortable. The clanking of the metal didn’t make it any better and my fear got the best of me.
“What are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?” I blurted out, unable to bear the silence any longer.
This time, my terror was absolutely genuine. It was clear that Dean was a very different man from when I’d last left him. Maybe my betrayal had broken him. Maybe he’d never be the same again. Maybe I was going to die today. How would he do it? A bullet to the back of the head? A knife slipping across my throat?
“I’m not going to kill you, little girl,” he assured me.
I stiffened at the pet name. He’d never called me anything like that before and I didn’t know how I felt about it.
At least I wasn’t going to die today.
“Then let me go. We can sit and talk about this. Let’s have a glass of wine and chat,” I said resolutely. Dean loved wine. He always did, just like me.
“No. That’s not what we’re going to do,” he said firmly.
The bed creaked angrily as he sat beside me.
“We’re going to have a discussion first,” he began, and I stiffened. Those words seemed heavy, like they were loaded with something I didn’t understand, and I had the distinct feeling that I didn’t want to figure it out either.
“A discussion?” I echoed.
“Yes. We have a few things we need to deal with before you explain to me what happened, little girl,” he continued.
There it was again. The pet name. Why was he calling me that now? Where had it even come from?
“Stop saying that,” I muttered.
“Stop saying what, little girl?”
“That. Little girl,” I replied furiously. “I’m not a little girl. I’m a grown woman.”
“Then what am I to call you? Your name isn’t Sophia Jackson and it most certainly isn’t Tina Hathaway now, is it?” he replied rather arrogantly.
I refused to answer. There were only two people in the world who knew my real name and it wasn’t about to become three. Not when he had me bound to his bed with my life in his hands.
“Have it your way then, little girl,” he cautioned, and I tensed as his hand traced along my back. At first, his touch felt familiar and soft. Then it turned hard as he wound that arm around my waist and lifted my hips clean off the bed. With his other hand, he unbuttoned my jeans and deftly unzipped them like he’d done it a million times before.
But this was something else.
I cried out in shock as he released me, only to grasp the waistband of my jeans and force them down. He pulled them hard enough that they slipped over my hips. I struggled against the cuffs in a sad attempt to stop him, but there was nothing I could do. He wanted my jeans to come down and that was what was going to happen, and he didn’t care if it hurt when he did it.
At least my panties were still up.
For a long time, I felt his eyes on my skin. He didn’t even have to reach out and touch for me to feel it. I knew he was looking at me all the same and it was doing something strange to me that I wasn’t yet willing to admit. My core seized tight, and my heart pounded hard in my chest.
Why did this feel so different? Where was the Dean I knew? Who was this man and what had he turned into?
I stilled, drawing in one panicked breath after the next.
“Stop.
