Jude would never have gone to the house if I wasn’t there.
The lock on the door turns and everything inside me stills. I’m so scred I can’t breathe.
I haven’t seen this side of Jude in years and what I’ve seen has been awful.
My face still feels like it’s on fire and my body broken from the way he threw me to the ground earlier.
The dark wooden door swings open and he comes in with that arrogant as fuck smile on his ugly face.
“Sitting on the floor,” he sneers. “You’re so fucking predictable. I can fuck you on the floor if I want to. It doesn’t have to be on the bed.”
“Leave me alone,” I whimper.
“That’s going to be difficult. I’m still going to marry you, then I’ll enjoy taking you over and over again. until I have no use left for you. Then I’ll either turn you into a fuck toy for my friends and make a pretty penny off you , or kill you. You shouldn’t get the privilege of living anymore.”
“Just kill me now.” Tears spill over my eyes.
“No, I’m not going to do that and give you the pleasure of exiting from this world. You will get your punishment for what you did. You thought you could trick me. The thing is I almost believed you. I know the truth. I know what you did, how you staged everything to get to your brother.”
“How did you find out?” I need to know because I hope to God he doesn’t know about Amy.
He laughs and inclines his head. “Of course I implored everything I had to find my dear wife to be when I thought she’d been kidnapped. Days ago I got my answer when I ran a sweep of the camera’s at Markov tech I saw you by my office listening in on a conversation you shouldn’t have heard. One where I unfortunately let it slip that Eric was still alive. I knew then what you must have done.”
“Why did you take him Jude? Why such drama by faking his death. Why did you do that?”
“Two reasons. The first is your brother is a very valuable man to the Order and he wanted to leave. He went on a mission that went wrong and a woman died so he wanted out. We couldn’t allow that because of the skill he has and the knowledge of weapons that sell for billions. One in particular was a design your grandfather had been working on but stopped. We wanted Eric to finish it. I wanted Eric to finish it. Ownership of such a thing would make me a god and move me up in ranks. He’s worked on it these long years and is close to finishing it. Once he does we’ll be invincible.”
“Why would he do that for you!” I cry.
“Oh you’d be surprised what the threat of a man’s family will make him do. The threat of death to his mother and sister made him do anything.”
Oh my God. He did the same thing to Eric as he did to me. Threaten all of us with each other. We were all pawns in his game.
“And leads me to the second reason. Which is you I wanted you. Marriage to you to get the company, marriage to the girl I’d watched for fourteen years. it’ true ownership, more than fucking. I give you my name and brand you mine.”
“I will never be yours.”
“We will see about that. I’m sure you will beg to me mine when I start to dole out your punishment. I know you had help Olivia. I know Amy must have helped you get Aiden Romanov’s name. I don’t know how she hacked my files but that’s the only way she wouldn’t have gotten it, and everyone else at Markov Tech is loyal to me, so I know it’s her.”
“It wasn’t her,” I blurt, panic-stricken. This was the very thing I feared when I spoke to her.
“Liar. Fucking Liar. I know it was. There’s footage of her at the house twice before you left for L.A. There’s no point lying Olivia. I’m not stupid and rest assured I’ll make sure you pay for dearly for everything you’ve done.”
“Why are you doing this to me? Why couldn’t you leave me alone?”
“I fell in love with you right from the moment I first saw you.”
“You don’t know what love is.”
“Oh yes I do.”
He pulls something that looks like a remote from his pocket and turns it on. A section of the wall moves out revealing a flat screen.
Jude clicks another button and a picture of me come up when I ten. That was when I first met him.
He starts flick through one image after another. All of me. They start when I was a little girl and get to when I was older and then they turn naked.
There are naked pictures of me in the bathroom at home.