Love the Way You Lie (Stripped 1)

“The fucking jewels. They belong to my family. To me. I thought they were gone…but then you came here.” He leans close. “Where are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t know where the jewels are. Don’t know where your sister is.” He snorts in disgust. “You’re not much use to me, are you?”

“Then let me go.”

“You were going to be my consolation prize. You and your father’s entire fucking empire. Did you know that? I couldn’t have the jewels, but I could have everything else.” He runs a finger over my breast, taking my nipple between thumb and forefinger. Rolling. Squeezing. “And you were my little jewel, weren’t you? I polished you, didn’t I?”

A tear rolls down the side of my face. “No,” I choke out, but it’s a lie.

Because he did polish me, until I shined, until I was both flat and sharp. He used me like a jewel—a thing to be worn and then tossed into a drawer.

“Not just you, Honor. You weren’t the only jewel in my crown.” His hand circles my throat. “Did Kip tell you about our sister?”

My breath catches. Any Emilys or Sylvias I should know about? But he never answered.

“She grew up different than us. She had all the things we never did.”

Suspicion is a dark vine wrapped around my lungs. Making it hard to breathe. Two poor brothers. A sister who grew up rich. It seems impossible. I’m praying it’s not true. I’m praying it’s not me.

His hand on my neck squeezes, cutting off my air supply. “Her name is Clara,” he whispers.

And I black out.

* * *

When I wake up again, it’s dark. There is a man sitting beside me. I recognize him from the dining table earlier. He is one of Byron’s men. He runs his hand up and down my belly, occasionally cupping my breast, kneading me. I don’t know how long he’s been doing that. My skin crawls. He brushes over a welt from earlier, and I gasp.

He looks startled—then amused. “You’re awake.”

My mind is still spinning from what I know. Kip. Byron. Clara. All of them, related.

And me too.

It all makes sense now, in a horrible way.

The hand tightens on my breast until I whimper. The other man from the table is leaning against the wall, watching. Both of them are dangerous, but the one on the wall scares me more. There’s something flat in his eyes. Something reptilian.

In the time that passed, the rope has loosened—just slightly. There’s more give than before. But I’m still not sure I could pull my hand free without breaking it. And if I did get free, there’d be nowhere to go. They’d just tie me up tighter. They’d just hurt me more.

The first man runs his hand over my body, poking at the bruises already formed, reaching down between my legs and shoving into my dry pussy. “Awake and ready for us.”

I’m not ready for anything they’ll do to me.

The bathroom door swings open, drawing a triangle of light onto the thin carpet. Byron. I never thought I’d be relieved to see him. But instead of coming to the bed, he goes and takes one of the empty chairs at the table. He crosses one leg over the other, settling in. His Italian shoes shine even in the dim light. His suit is custom-tailored.

From across the room he smirks at me. He speaks to his men but never breaks eye contact with me. “Find out where her sister went. I don’t care what you have to do to get her to talk.”

The man sitting beside me nods in greedy assent. His hands grow rougher. They aren’t torture, except the emotional kind. The same kind of shame I lived every night on that stage. I get the sense he wants to fuck me more than hurt me, though I’m sure he’ll do both before the night is up.

The sound of a zipper rends the air. The man by the wall hasn’t moved from his position except to lower his fly and take out his cock. He’s stroking himself, watching.

You were going to be my consolation prize.

I brace myself, trying to clear my mind. Like in the moments behind the curtain, waiting to go onstage. Like the moments when I hid outside my father’s study, listening to him order a hit, dying a little inside.

There’s no escape. Even death is closed off to me on this bed.