Stolen Beauty (Jackson Family 1)

EMMALINE

James held my hand captive in his – though I certainly wasn’t complaining – as he completely bypassed the line of people waiting to get into his club. He nodded once at the guard standing at the door, and without a word, the guard opened it, allowing James to pass through.

I swallowed nervously as some of the dominants who didn’t have playmates yet openly stared at me. I was wearing a simple, black dress with a cream-colored, knitted sweater on my shoulders. My white-blonde-blue-tipped hair was flowing down my back in its natural waves, and my make-up was actually kept to a minimum.

Per James’s orders, I wasn’t wearing those god-awful heels anymore and was instead just wearing comfortable flats on my feet.

“Take your fucking eyes off of my woman,” James snarled at one of the men as we passed by him. The man quickly cast his eyes to the floor.

James suddenly stopped, and I stumbled. He quickly grabbed my waist, steadying me on my feet before he grabbed a ponytail holder from his wrist. “Why do you have that?” I asked him in open curiosity. It was such a strange thing for a man to carry on him, especially on his wrist.

“Because I saw you didn’t grab one, and I know that women like to put their hair up at random times during the day,” he informed me. I stared up at him. It was such a thoughtful gesture.

He gathered all of my hair to one side of my neck and pulled it over my shoulder before he wrapped the ponytail holder around it, giving me a side ponytail. “There,” he murmured, seeming a bit more relaxed as he ran his hand over my collar. I swallowed thickly, my body swaying towards his. “Maybe they’ll learn to fucking turn their eyes away from you.”

I blushed. He pressed a kiss to my forehead before he grabbed my hand again, weaving his way through the small crowd already in the club this early in the morning. We finally reached a back hallway where I’d never been allowed before. It was completely off-limits.

He just barged right in and walked down a narrow hallway until he reached a door. He shoved it open, a sound of disgust sounding from his throat as he glared at a man probably in his mid-thirties getting his dick sucked by one of the club girls.

“You – get the fuck out!” James barked at the girl, making me jump in fear as my eyes widened. Feeling the movement, James tugged me closer to him as he impatiently waited for the girl to run out of the room. He then slammed the door shut behind her, the sound echoing in the room. I kept my eyes firmly away from the man in the chair, knowing James just might flip the rest of his shit if he even thought I looked at another man’s dick.

“S-sir, I didn’t realize you were coming today,” the man stammered.

“Surprise, fucker,” James snarled. “First, what the fuck have I said about having any of the goddamn workers in here?!” James roared at him. I flinched, and it took everything in me not to cast my eyes to the floor. I knew doing so would only piss James off further. The man stayed silent. James pulled his hand from mine and gripped the other man’s shirt in his fists, hauling him up from the chair. “I asked what the fuck did I say?!” he shouted.

“Not to let them back here,” the man in the chair choked out.

James dropped him back into the chair. I pressed my back firmly against the wall, staring at the scene in front of me with wide, horrified eyes.

I hoped to never be on the receiving end of James’s rage – ever.

I’ll never hurt you.

God, I was clinging to those words right then with every fiber of my being.

James walked over to the other side of the room and grabbed a comfortable-looking, high-backed desk chair, and rolled it over to me. “Sit,” he ordered.

“Okay,” I whispered as I obediently dropped into the chair. He gently pushed my chair into a corner of the room away from the chaos about to ensue before he stormed back over to the other man. “So, fucking tell me, William. Why the fuck did I have a club woman in my goddamn office?”

“I don’t have an answer,” William said quietly.

James clenched his jaw. “You better fucking think of one real goddamn quick,” he warned William. I swallowed thickly, my hands gripping the armrests of the chair with white-knuckled grips.

“I just needed a release,” William grunted.

James snorted. “Worst fucking excuse I’ve ever fucking heard. It’s not like you were at least getting any kind of fucking work done while you were getting your dick sucked, so you could have taken your ass out into the goddamn club with everyone else like the rules explicitly say.”

James rolled his neck around, and I winced when I heard it crack. “But that’s not why I’m here today.”

“Why are you here?” William bravely questioned my dom.

“I believe I heard a fucking title left out,” James growled as he glared down at him.

Fuck – this was the side of him that he was warning me that I might see.

Something had happened.

Shit happens that I can’t control.

“I’m sorry, sir.” William quickly apologized.

James snatched open a file cabinet and dropped a file onto the desk. “Adrian found out money has been embezzled out of this club – slowly trickling out – with more being taken out each month than was taken out the previous month.” This is what he and Adrian had been talking about in his office. “Adrian already talked to Gemma. She had no fucking idea what the hell he was talking about – said she only did the ordering and signed off on the invoices as they came in – that you were the one that handled all of the books, William, so where the fuck is the rest of my goddamn money?!” James roared at the end.

“I don’t know!” William said loudly, his eyes widening in fear.

“Bullshit!” James roared. I jumped in fright at the volume of his voice. “I’m not the mother fucker to be playing, William. You might have a chance of living if you tell me what the fuck happened or where it went. If I don’t get fucking answers soon, I’m going to start breaking your bones one by fucking one until I get my fucking answers.”

My eyes widened in horror, vomit rising in my throat. I swallowed thickly, forcing myself to remain calm. If I threw up, I would do nothing but prove to James that I was weak and wasn’t worthy of being collared by him.

But I was terrified of the man I’d been coming to know.

“I swear, sir, I didn’t have anything to do with it,” William pleaded.

James wrapped his hand around William’s throat, cutting off his airflow as he grabbed his index finger and bent it back. I slapped my hand to my mouth as I gagged, the sound of William’s finger snapping almost making me throw up.

A strangled scream of pain ripped from William’s throat. “Do you want to tell me the truth now, or do I need to break your middle finger next?” James quietly snarled in his face, looking like one of the monsters from my nightmares.

“No!” William shouted, his face red with pain. James released him and stood back, shoving his hands into the pockets of his slacks. His eyes were cold – emotionless – completely unnerving.

“Start fucking talking,” James growled.

“I was embezzling the money,” William blurted, quick, panicked breaths sliding from his lungs. “I owed a man a lot of money, and he was going to kill me if I didn’t get it to him—"

James quickly pulled a gun from his blazer and pulled the trigger. I screamed at the same time the bullet ripped through William’s skull, my hands flying up to my mouth as I stared in horror at the blood splattering the wall and the floor. James walked over to me as he shoved his gun back into his suit jacket. My body trembled as I stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes.

“Easy, little one,” he soothed, his voice low and gentle. “Remember what I promised you?” he asked me.