“I should have killed you the moment we got to that fucking cabin.” I tried to force myself to squeeze the trigger again, but my finger wouldn’t budge.
I didn’t owe Anabelle shit. She set us up. She took a year of my life. She was planning to testify against us and make sure we spent the rest of our lives behind bars. I had fucked people up for less—but I had also shown mercy. I did it with Reggie when he tried to pull the knife on me—but I needed him to give a message to his boss. That was different. Wasn’t it?
Did I really care that much about Anabelle? Was I lying to myself when I said that I never cared—that I was just entertaining myself as long as she kept coming to the South Side? Was that why I followed Rourke to the North Side when I thought it was a terrible idea? I stared into her eyes. They didn’t look the same as they did when we took her. The look of terror was gone. There was no fear. They were just—blank. She had accepted death. She was truly broken—as hollow as I was.
“Fuck!” I released my grip on her throat and slumped forward.
She grabbed my shirt—her lips came for mine. Passion—the kind I had seen when she kissed Rourke—the kind she had never shown me. I pinned her arms to the ground and forced her legs apart—sinking between her thighs. My cock started to throb as she forced her tongue into my mouth. I had never felt that kind of connection to a woman before—even when Anabelle was at my house—even when we fucked. It was like our hearts suddenly woke the fuck up and saw that there was something burning inside them all along—at least mine did.
“You fucking bitch…” I pulled away from her lips and growled into her ear, but my words were softer.
“Yeah, I am.” She exhaled sharply and pulled one of her hands out of my grasp—she grabbed my dick and started massaging it through my pants. “Fuck me—make it hurt—show me how much you hate me.”
The hate—it had been replaced by something else. My heart surged with feelings that I had never felt before. I unfastened my pants and she wrapped her hands around my cock. She guided it towards her pussy—she was wet as fuck. I went inside her easily, throbbing until my balls were against her skin. I started to thrust—so hard that it felt like I was driving her into the dirt with every one. It wasn’t going to take long. I was overwhelmed with such a strange fucking feeling. Our souls were bonded in the moment—I couldn’t do anything but keep going, to chase the release.
“Oh god.” She moaned and her back arched.
She started to come. Her pussy massaged my length. I had never felt her come that hard when I was inside it. It immediately sent me over the edge—brought me to a level of pleasure that felt different than a fuck—it felt special. I started unloading inside her, sending my seed coursing through my shaft as I drove my cock deep. She kept orgasming, milking every drop from my balls with her spasms. Then it was over—and I had no idea what the fuck I was going to do with her.
Anabelle
“You have to let me go.” I looked into Brody’s eyes. “I’m going to make this right, but I have to go home.”
I reall
y did think Brody was going to kill me when he tackled me, especially when I felt his hand on my throat. I accepted my own death like it was as natural as drawing breath. I no longer felt fear or anguish. I no longer needed to be hurt or tormented. I just needed an opportunity—an opportunity to have the one thing I did deserve—his trust.
I didn’t expect to feel passion. I liked Brody, but he was never the one I loved. I never saw anything in his eyes that resembled it until his hand was removed from my throat. At that moment, I realized that he did feel something for me—that he was capable of feeling. I felt it too, a bond that was stronger than anything else—a bond I betrayed long before it was ever formed.
“Do you even have it in you to testify against your father?” Brody lifted up and sat on his haunches. “What about that fucking family motto—the one that made you lie in the first place?”
“I do now.” I nodded and pulled myself up so that I was sitting directly in front of him. “I see him for what he is. I’m choosing what I believe in over my family because the two of you don’t deserve to be caught up in my father’s twisted game. That’s my life—the one I was born into—but I have the power to change the rules. I’m the only one who can.”
“Fuck…” Brody shook his head back and forth.
“If you don’t believe me.” I grabbed the hand that was holding his gun and lifted it to my head until the barrel was against my skull. “Pull the trigger. Just leave me here to rot.”
“I’m not going to kill you.” He pulled the gun away. “I should, but I’m not.”
“Then you have to let me go. I have to do this on my own. It’s the only way it will work.” I put my hand on his. “Even if I testify against my father, what do you think he’ll do? If he’s as ruthless and powerful as Rourke says, then I may be the only person who can get close enough to truly hurt him.”
“You’re probably the only one he won’t kill…” Brody exhaled sharply. “Okay, fine. Take my car.”
Brody stood up and threw the keys in the dirt beside me. I grabbed them, and he extended his hand to help me up. Our eyes met—then our lips came together. One last kiss before I marched straight into oblivion. He didn’t have to tell me that he loved me, or that he cared for me. His eyes said everything—the passion I felt when he kissed me said more than those three words.
Our love would never be the same as what I shared with Rourke. Rourke was a dominant man and he craved my submission. Brody needed my fierceness—he needed more than a girl on her knees that could beg and please. He needed a woman that could take his ruthlessness and beg for more, but never truly submit. But I couldn’t be that woman when I was a princess who lived in a castle—Rourke had to break me in order for me to realize my own strength, but he wasn’t cruel enough to shatter me. It took both of them to splinter the Prescott motto that had been driven into my head since I was a child, but it took my own strength to understand the truth—to realize that I was no princess.
I was always meant to be a fucking queen.
I headed towards the spot where Brody’s car was parked and saw him start walking back up the road to the cabin. With any luck, our altercation hadn’t brought any unneeded attention. The area seemed mostly deserted, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone in the woods that could have heard us. I made it to the main road and followed the highway towards Chicago. I could see the city on the horizon. It was time for Anabelle Prescott to go home, but I wasn’t going to be the same girl that left. That girl was weak. She didn’t have the courage to do the right thing, nor did she understand her destiny.
I drove towards Prescott Manor. I knew the place would be locked down like a fortress, but all of the people who worked for my father would know my face—not that I looked very presentable with the dirt and scratches. I pulled up to the gate and turned off the car. There were two men standing beside it with assault rifles. My father didn’t just turn the place into a fortress, he had built an army. They raised their weapons and approached my car as I slowly stepped out with my hands up.
“It’s me—Anabelle.” I immediately burst into tears—tapping into my emotions as I dropped into the dirt.
It was nothing more than a show. I was a filthy, naked girl that had somehow found her way home. That needed to be what they saw me as—what my father saw me as. I needed to be held, protected, and consumed by trauma I couldn’t talk about. I looked the part, but I had to play it flawlessly if I was going to make my father believe I was the same princess I was before I was taken.
“Go get Mr. Prescott! Now!” One of the guards slung his weapon behind his back and came over to help me to my feet.