“You will love me, Ryken Lord, and you will marry me. It’s your father’s last wish. Stop thinking with your dick for once.”
It’s the last damn straw. All I see is red. The same color that’s on my hands right now.
Red.
Red.
Red.
My hand snaps out and grasps her throat. It holds tight, pinching hard, so I cut off her air supply and circulation. She claws at my hands as I turn her effortlessly and slam her into the wall. She cries out, but it’s cut off with another squeeze of the throat.
“I think rather… you forget who I am, Livia.” I squeeze again, and her lips start to turn blue.
“Ryken. Don’t kill your girlfriend,” Quinn says from somewhere in close proximity.
With those words, my hand releases just enough to let air into her lungs. “Go back to the house, Livia, and when I’m ready I will come back so we can talk.” I release her completely, and she gasps loudly. Her hands go to where mine were touching. She tries to say something, but nothing comes out other than a raspy, “Ryken…”
I bend down to her level and whisper in her ear, “I fucked her, Livia, more than once. And I plan to do it again.”
Her hands drop from around her throat as she stands and looks at me. Tears now fall freely as I walk past her. She tries to talk, but I hear Quinn telling her to leave it. Stepping into my office, the very same one that was my father’s office, I sit down at his desk and wonder how the fuck I got myself into this mess. He wouldn’t have. Father was one of the best businessmen to ever live. Of that, I have no doubt.
Anthony Lord was feared by many.
Now I just have to be the same way.
“She’s gone,” Quinn announces, closing the door. He sits at the desk opposite of me. “Do you want me to kill her?” he asks.
The smirk on my lips is real, but I shake my head anyway. “No, she’s just upset. She’ll calm down.”
“You told her… you told her you fucked Saskia.” Quinn clucks his tongue at me.
“And I’ll fuck her again the minute I have hold of her,” I say, not mentioning the fact that Livia lied to me about the damn baby. She told me as if it was all some sort of small lie, nothing to worry about. Well, it fucking isn’t.
“Pick one or have both. Fuck, have ten. Maybe just keep the crazy one from knowing. Because women are vindictive. And a scorned woman is not something we need. Especially one that’s a fucking lawyer, Ryken.”
“Maybe I should kill her…” I say more to myself, “… but I fucking love her, too.”
Quinn doesn’t say a word.
CONFESSION #8
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been… too long since my last confession.” I take a deep breath. My hands scrunch in fists on my lap. “You see… what I had planned worked, but now he wants to fuck it all up. I can’t have that.”
Frustration rains over me. So, before the priest can say a word, I slip out the confessional and it rocks as I slam the door hard.
Fuck the priest, and fuck absolution.
Chapter Five
Saskia
“Get out of bed, whore.” Amy’s shrill voice wakes me up. Opening my eyes slowly, water’s thrown over me. She’s standing there, over top of me, with a bucket in her hand while I freeze on the bed I’ve been in for the last two days. At least I’ve been fed. “Get up,” she screams again.
I scramble to get up. Pulling the sheet with me. But she’s not having any of that and yanks it from grip, so it draws from my grasp. I’m in a pair of tracksuit pants, and a large shirt. It hangs on me, but I don’t care.
Her eyes rake me up and down then she sneers. “We have company. You are going to please our guests. Get dressed, whore.” Amy walks out of the room not even shutting the door as she leaves. A guy walks in—I have no idea what his name is.
“I wouldn’t keep her waiting. She’s far worse than him,” is all he says.
I wrap my arms around myself, afraid he’s going to come in and grab them and bruise me even more. But he doesn’t. Instead, he stands at the door with his back to me, waiting for me to get ready. “You should wear a dress… in the top drawer,” he tells me.
With a pull on the drawer, I notice an array of different dresses. Grabbing out the first one on top, I pull it over my head then pull my clothes off underneath it.
“Heels,” he stipulates when I look around. He’s not watching me, but he seems to know exactly what I’m doing. In the bottom drawer are two sets of heels. One pair black and one white. I pull the black ones out, slip them on my feet, and then comb my hands through my hair.