The Marriage Debt (Underworld Kings)

I look away, shuddering in place.

The price.

My life.

While my father spins me around on the floor, pretending we’re finishing up our father-daughter dance, my eyes skim over the rest of my family. Jasmine’s tearful eyes make it hard for me to keep it together. I swallow down my own as hers begin to run, and she turns her head and rushes off into the backyard of the venue.

My breath hitches in my throat, and I attempt to tear away from my father’s grip to follow her outside. I jerk one hand free, but the second I do, Luca’s already grabbed me, taking me from my father’s hands.

“Missed me?” he muses.

“Let me go,” I hiss.

He raises a single brow. “We’re already way past that point.”

“I need to speak to my sister,” I say.

He pushes me up against him, forcing me to dance. “No.”

I frown. “She’s crying. I have to talk to her.”

“Why? You really are attached to your sister, aren’t you? Sometimes I wondered if I should’ve been jealous of your relationship with her.” He leans in to whisper, “Or maybe you just want me to fuck both of you in a trio.”

What the …?

I shove him away even though his grip on my waist keeps me close. So I raise my hand and slap him right across the face.

The whole crowd goes silent. Everybody’s watching us.

When I remove my hand, his cheek begins to glow.

Contempt fills the void in his eyes, almost turning them blood red with rage.

He snorts, and growls, “You should not have done that.” And he spins me around and forces me to face the crowd while his arm is right around my neck. His mouth is near my ear, his tongue slithering out to lick the rim. “When you give me pain, it only turns me on.”

“You’re a monster,” I say through gritted teeth, refusing to cry in front of these people, let alone for him.

I can feel his muscles clench behind me, the grip of his arm around my neck growing stronger, tighter as I struggle to breathe. “You’re not going anywhere except to my goddamn house as my fucking wife.”

Suddenly, he spins me around and whisks me up into his arms. I squeal as he throws me over his shoulder. Without saying another word, he marches off with me.

“Mom! Dad!” I yell, but they ignore me.

Luca walks to the exit while the door leading to the garden is farther and farther away.

“No, wait!” But he doesn’t listen, doesn’t even acknowledge my words.

The door is slammed right in my face, and the cold air hits me like a brick as Luca hastens down the stairs and marches across the gravel path. I kick his stomach and punch his back, but every one of my hits is ignored as though he can’t even feel the pain anymore.

And when he puts me down and shoves me into a vehicle, shutting the door tight, it’s like an airlock has tightened all around me, suffocating the life out of me. In here, no one can hear me scream. I’m trapped, far away from the guests mingling inside the building and far away from my sister, who is out there crying her eyes out with no one to console her.

It’s impossible.

It’s cruel beyond imagination.

And the man responsible hops into the seat right beside me, locking the door the second he’s inside.

When I look at him, I feel only one thing besides hatred.

Guilt.

Guilt that I ever gave him my most precious prize.

My freedom.

My life.

All I had to give.

Given to a man who wants to destroy every inch of me.

Chapter 4

Luca

* * *

I used to dream of this day long ago.

Now all I can think of is all the ways I’ll make her beg.

The air is thick with tension as I inch closer and drape my arm over her shoulder, but she swiftly moves aside and swats my hand off. My nostrils flare from the blatant show of disobedience.

I grab her chin and make her look at me. “Stop resisting. It’s already too late for that.”

“Just because you married me doesn’t make me yours,” she says with a look of disdain in her eyes.

And it makes me want to grab her and pin her down right here in this goddamn car. But I don’t like people snooping in my business, and the driver is watching us from his rearview mirror.

So I release her again and look the other way.

She’ll come to her senses sooner rather than later.

“You wouldn’t even let me say goodbye,” she says after a while.

I look at her as the light cascading into the window hits her bare neckline, making me all the more aware of the fact that I’ve wanted nothing more than to ravage her since the second I saw her.

But she doesn’t want me in that way.