DELIVER(34)

Van’s footfalls chased her down the stairs. She did her best to outrun them, which was stupid. She’d left the room to confront him, but she wasn’t ready. Was she ever ready for him?

He caught her in the kitchen, an arm around her waist, a hand around her throat, and lips pressed against her ear. “Why are you running?”

The beat of her heart drummed against the collar of his hand. He wasn’t choking her, but the promise was there. Thankfully, years of practice had taught her how to manage him, and keeping her cool was a vital response. She relaxed her stance and leaned her back against the granite surface of his chest. “Why are you chasing me?”

“Because you’re mine.”

His hand cinched tighter with that heated oath. She coaxed her pulse to match a gentle tune in her head and waited. Finally, he released her and strode to the kitchen sink.

The turbulence rolling off him clotted the small room as he stared out the window. She rushed through sandwich preparations and blamed the lump in her throat on Van’s pending tantrum, not on the fact that she’d returned the fourth plate to the cabinet because the boy wouldn’t be eating with them.

Unable to meet Van’s eyes, she kept her back to him under the guise of arranging potato chips on three plates. She cleared her throat. “Talk to me.”

“I don’t like him.”

Her hand flexed, crinkling the foil bag in her grip. Apparently, his jealousy had reached a new degree of crazy. He never liked the male slaves, but this was the first time he’d vocalized it.

“I want him gone.” His sharp tone punched her in the back.

Objections amassed in her throat. They wouldn’t find a replacement slave in time. And they couldn’t just send the boy back. He knew where they lived, had seen their faces. Van’s gone meant one thing, an unthinkable alternative he’d never suggested before. Somehow, she mustered an exasperated sigh and a bored tone. “Why?”

“His parents are all over the f*cking news.” His voice grew louder, more guttural. “Their whole goddamned town is searching for him.”

This wasn’t about jealousy? She shivered as he paced behind her, the air frosting with each pass, sending ice through her lungs. “He’s not like the others, Van. We knew he’d be missed.”

She didn’t have to turn on the news to know what love and desperation looked like. Haunting images stabbed the backs of her eyes. She squeezed them shut to trap the remembered videos of Mom grieving alone and the god-awful need to reach through the screen and hug her.

His fingers bit into her bicep, spinning her so violently her hip slammed into the counter’s edge. “Why did you choose him?” He shook her shoulder, his grip punishing. “Answer me,” he shouted, his fury a hot mist in her face.

She blinked rapidly, grasping at the most logical answer. “He fit what the buyer wanted.” She dragged her gaze to his and flinched at the feral expression twisting his features.

“Bullshit.” He captured her jaw in a steel grip, lifting her chin until she stretched on tiptoes. “A hundred other f*ckers would’ve met the requirements. This one fit what you wanted.”

The truth of his words paralyzed her, shriveling all of her justifications for choosing Joshua Carter. The real reason made her throat tighten. He represented purity, beauty, family, all of the things that had been taken from her. He was a glimmer of goodness in her dark f*cking world, a warm spark she could hold, if only for a fleeting span of time.

Her fingernails stabbed her palms. She was such a selfish, vile bitch.

Van shoved her away, turned her over the counter, and pressed her face against the laminate. “And the way he was looking at you really pisses me the f*ck off.”

When his hand tunneled between her thighs, her heart sputtered. “No.” She jerked beneath the prison of his immovable body. “No, Van. I have a job to do. I need to be in the right frame of mind.”

The intrusion of his fingers speared between her labia, pinching dry flesh. “What frame of mind is that?” His tone, as cold and penetrating as his touch, froze her to her bones.

“I am a Mistress, not your sex slave.” She tried to match his iciness, but it came out desperate and high-pitched.

He yanked her from the counter and slammed his knuckles into her face. She managed to stay on her feet as jolts of pain fired through her skull. A warm trickle wet her lashes and smudged her vision. The ache in her heart was worse, but she would not give him the perception he’d hurt her beyond the cut of his fist. She kept her hands to her sides and met his biting silver gaze head-on.

Angry red splotches stained his neck and cheek, and she imagined his blood simmering beneath the skin. He clutched the counter’s edge on either side of her hips, his face level with hers. “When I dispose of your body, no one will ever find it.” His voice dropped to a chilling rasp. “You know why?”

Her heart sped up, increasing the throb above her eye. She held her muscles as motionless as her glare.

“Because no one will care enough to search for it.” He angled over the plates and hocked a foaming bubble of spit on one of the sandwiches. “Clean up your face.” His smirk flared the bruise around her heart. “You look more like a slave than your little cunt boy.” He grabbed an unsoiled sandwich, sat at the table, and dug into the roast beef.

What they were, what they’d become together, wasn’t sane or healthy. It was in his blood to spew nasty things in a fit of rage, including threats on her life, and she’d conditioned herself over the years to bury it. His temper would eventually ebb, and the hurt from his words would, too. Because she didn’t love him, he didn’t have the power to leave a permanent scar on her heart. But that reminder didn’t help the rawness of the moment as she moved to the sink and turned the tap to warm.