A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

My stomach roiled. He was right. He was fucking right.

“I’m not going to marry you,” I hissed. “I’ll run. I’ll turn you in to the police. I’ll fucking kill you in your sleep.”

I surprised myself with just how ruthless I sounded. How sincere. Sure, I very well could’ve had murder in my blood, my father could’ve been a serial killer for all I knew. But I, Sienna Ridges, was all about peace and love and nonviolent conflict resolution. For all my kinks and darkness, I did not relish violence. Perhaps it was a result of my walking in on my kind, soft mother tending to bruises and cuts inflicted by a man who thought it was his right to beat a woman. Or maybe it was because I preferred to use wit and smarts to damage men. Those cuts went so much deeper.

But it seemed, when faced with some kind of mob boss who was under the impression I was now his property—his future fucking wife—I was about getting my ass out of this situation with or without blood on my hands. With or without murder on my soul.

Something told me this man had both blood on his hands and murder on his soul.

“You won’t run or turn me in to the police,” he proclaimed calmly.

I put my hand on my hip. “And what makes you deluded enough to say that?”

His eyes never left mine. “Jessica Gonzalez. Her son Eli. They live in an apartment building in Prospect Heights. In a good area, well maintained building, almost impossible to find for a price that won’t bankrupt the average American citizen.”

He moved behind his desk once more, glancing at a stack of papers sitting there.

I stayed rooted to the spot, barely breathing as his words constricted around my heart. My lip curled as I sank my teeth into it in frustration.

“It has been in her family for years, from what I understand,” Cristian continued, looking up at me. “Immigrants. Good, hardworking people. As desirable as the building is, the security is abysmal for a single mother. Then again, on her salary she doesn’t have much choice. She’s paying the rent, helping out her family, putting her son through private school.” Cristian spoke smoothly. Matter-of-factly.

Out of all the threats he could’ve made… It didn’t shock me that he didn’t use Pete. He was smart enough to understand I didn’t care enough about Pete. And I would’ve been willing to call his bluff on probably anything else. But there were only three people in this world I cared about. And he’d found them.

He’d hurt an innocent woman, a fucking child, if I refused him. He was that kind of man. Cold. Ruthless. Without morals. The traits that had attracted me to him in the first place.

And my desires resulted in my demise.

Even if there was a chance he was bluffing, it was not one I’d take. There were a lot of things I could live with weighing on my conscience. But not that. Not them. The people who managed to find pieces of my heart, the select few who weren’t warped, rotten, ugly.

“You’re a monster,” I sneered.

He raised his brow. “Isn’t that what you like about me?”

I dug my nails into my palms, cutting into the skin, needing the pain to stop the tears pricking the backs of my eyes. One of the things I hated about myself was my tendency to cry when I was majorly pissed off. It was rooted in the way our society tried to shame women for feeling anger, to warn them against expressing it. Angry women weren’t desirable. Weren’t feminine. They were viewed as crazy.

Tears were my body’s rebellion to that. My emotions escaping the only way they could. Which only reinforced the idea that women were overly emotional, unstable. Weak.

“You can force me to marry you,” I hissed. “And I’ll do it because I’m not a monster. But that’s all I’ll do. You’ll never touch me again,” I vowed.

“You will be my wife, Sienna,” he replied. “In every way.” His eyes glowed with the carnal meaning behind his words, and my fucking body responded.

“That’s rape,” I seethed. “What you’re talking about, among a lot of other very illegal and morally corrupt things, is rape.” My voice shook as I spoke. My knees were barely holding me, and every cell in my body was screaming at me to run. Yet I stayed put.

I watched him stand, round the desk and walk toward me. Prowl toward me. His footfalls echoed through my head, my heart pounding so loud, I was sure he could hear it.

Why wasn’t I running? Why wasn’t I at least trying to fight?

Because, on some level, I wanted him closer.

My body got the memo when he was mere feet away, and I backed up quickly, books clattering to the floor around me as I slammed into a bookshelf. I barely noticed them. And that did not stop Cristian’s approach. He lifted his hands to rest on the shelf on either side of my face, boxing me in. Trapping me.