Rogue (Real #4)(79)

“You can negotiate without me. He doesn’t want me anymore,” I assure. “Why don’t we go to his mother . . .” I suggest.

“Bitch, nobody knows where the bitch is but Slaughter, and he won’t say SHIT!” He jerks the wheel so we weave to the side, then he glares at me as he straightens the car back out. “God! It’s beyond interesting to me that my brilliant, talented brother would fall for a bimbo like you. But I’m sure you give good head.”

I remain silent, too scared to speak now.

Greyson thinks I left. He let me GO.

He won’t come for me.

I know the exact shade of Grey’s eyes when he looks at me.

How he sleeps with an arm under a pillow, facedown with his head turned to me.

I know he smells like a forest I want to get lost in, forever, and never be found.

And I don’t know shit about his stupid criminal actions.

Except that he was hiding them all from me.

And now I don’t even know how dangerous his brother is. If he’s a rapist and a killer in addition to a kidnapper. If he’s just holding me for ransom or planning to torture me simply because he can . . .

I don’t know what the f*ck to do!

“Go ahead. Judge me. I don’t give a shit,” the guy spits out.

He pulls the car into an underground garage and slides a gate closed behind us, and pulls me out of the back of the car, pressing the gun to my temple. Cold. Hard. Steel.

My stomach roils as he clenches my arm and drags me to the underground elevator.

“Tell me,” he says as we ride up, and I can hardly hear him through the pounding of my own heartbeat. “Who was doing Slaughter’s dirty work when his precious Greyson took off? I was sure he’d never come back, but oh, no. Julian was willing to practically beg. He was too afraid to lose his golden child. When Julian learned he was sick, he couldn’t sleep thinking he’d never see his precious Zero again, his Underground—all the fights, all the gambling, the lucrative business, the prestige among fighting leagues—it would all go to waste if Zero wasn’t behind the reins.”

I hear his words, but most of all, I feel the sick resentment that he’s venting out on to me.

Kick his nuts, Melanie! But I’m frozen.

“See, I’m not jealous.”

Melanie, twist around, run away!

It looks so easy on television, but my stupid knees . . . my stupid knees feel like Jell-O and it seems that, apparently, I can’t run to save myself.

“When Slaughter dies, Greyson gets nothing so long as I got you,” Wyatt continues as he opens the elevator gate and shoves me into an abandoned loft, littered with old wood, dried-out paint cans. “Sit on that f*cking chair or I shoot your legs.”

I drop down on the chair without question, clenching my jaw to keep my teeth from chattering.

“He’s dying right now. And I got you. Greyson loses. The list is incomplete and he loses. Even if he were to fight me for it, if he wants you back, he’s going to need to give it up in exchange for you, and I’m going to have to kill him. And you—you want to live, then give me a juicy little f*ck and we’ll see.” He looks at me. “That’s right, Melanie. You see, I’ve been watching you lately too. All those videos he plays. I’ve been watching you. Your tits bouncing. You screaming, ‘Riptiiiiide!’ Yeah, my brother’s not the only one with a hard-on for you.”

Wyatt starts tying my arms behind my back with thick hemp rope.

Fear. It’s eating me alive now. I can hear the chatter of my teeth knocking.

The wind whistling outside.

He straps me down and I blink my eyes because, no, I don’t want this * to see me crying.

“He’ll kill you when he finds you,” I rasp, hating the fear in my voice.

He laughs. “Darling, I’m already dead.” He leans over. “And he won’t. Kill me. See, that’s the thing about him. He doesn’t like to kill. He does it only when he has to. But I’m the only family he’ll have left. He still feels responsible for me. Bailing me out of my shit. He’ll feel, in that part of him that hates being a Slater, that it’s my father’s fault I’m like this too. He’ll let me live.”

He ties something around my mouth and leaves for a moment. Suddenly it’s so still, and the silence frightens me most of all.

My eyes burn from the need to cry.

My throat is raw, my tongue is dry and sticky under the cloth he wrapped around my mouth.

I may die today.

I failed myself, my sister, my parents. And it gives me no pleasure that the last time I saw the only man I’ve ever loved, I threw our love away. Oh god.

I told him how wrong he was for me, but never how right. He never knew that I was happy, blissfully happy—even if afraid—to be in love with him. I didn’t say that I think I fell from the moment he charged into the rain to spare me getting wet. I never told him that deep down I think it’s hot that he’s bad, and even hotter that he’s so good at being bad. I never told him that even after he lied, I trusted that he’d never, ever hurt me. I never told him any of that, only that I was scared. A f*cking *.

He will never know that I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that either by a cruel twist of fate or a blessing from heaven, he’s mine. And that I was his before he even touched me.